Higher Level Teaching Assistant - Newhaven NEST

Job Introduction

‘Trust, Restore, Achieve’  

VACANCIES

Higher Level Teaching Assistant Post at Newhaven School

Location:              Newhaven Gardens NEST                               Engagement Support HLTA                                            

Contract: Fixed Term 1 Year/Part Time 33.5 hours per week Term Time-39 weeks

Our Vision:

Newhaven School works hard to be a caring, trauma informed community where young people are kept safe, supported as individuals, taught the skills they need and challenged to become successful adults with dreams to realise.

Aims: How we work to achieve our vision:

Trust: our students often struggle to trust adults due to traumatic experiences in their lives and difficulties with the education system where things have gone wrong. We aim to rebuild this trust through trauma, neurodivergence and equity informed practice, making everyone feel safe, stress reduction, psychological thinking, trusted adults and student voice.

Restore: we recognise that things go wrong for everyone and our success is measured by how we deal with this. Through our curriculum and behaviour and relationships policy in particular, we aim to give our students the skills they need to restore and resolve things when they go wrong. We have a particular focus on social communication skills and emotional regulation.

Achieve: like all schools we aim for our students to achieve as highly as possible. For us, this means in traditional exams and courses but also life skills and experiences that will support them in moving on to education, training and employment and developing and maintaining rich relationships through their lives.

Newhaven Gardens NEST – Engagement Support HLTA.

Newhaven Nest is a specialist provision for KS3 and 4 pupils who are unable to attend mainstream school because of their severe and enduring mental health difficulties.

You will have the skills, ability and initiative to engage with our highly complex cohort, and the resilience to deal with students who often have complex needs. You will ideally have experience supporting people with autism, ADHD and/or poor mental health, and have excellent safeguarding knowledge and skills.  An outstanding candidate will have a ‘can do‘ attitude and the resilience to work with our cohort of engaging, bright, energetic young people, alongside a willingness to develop your skills and knowledge. 

Newhaven was granted a “Trauma Informed School” status, in recognition of how we support children and teenagers who suffer with trauma or mental health problems.

We are looking for:

• Specialist skills/training/experience to support our students
• Commitment to working holistically with others to support students
• An excellent communicator who works well both in a team and independently
• Exceptional safeguarding knowledge and experience 
• A proven record of good results with students with a range of learning and support needs
• Commitment to supporting equality, diversity and inclusion at Newhaven

We will also provide extensive training for those who show they have the potential to meet these requirements but maybe aren’t quite there yet.

Closing date: Midday Tuesday 29th September 2025
Interviews: Week commencing 6th October 2025

Start date:  ASAP

For further details about any of the roles, please contact our HR Manager, Deborah Davis.

ddavis@newhaven.greenwich.sch.uk

Newhaven is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of young people and expects all staff to share this commitment.  All appointments will be subject to a satisfactory Enhanced with Barred List check through the Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) plus additional pre-employment checks.

Newhaven is committed to the journey to decolonising our school by becoming deeply reflective about our systems, processes and decisions, by sharing our lived experiences in a genuine way that means we have a much better understanding of each other and by developing our staff so that all have equity of opportunity.

[Amendments may be made to this job description following consultation between the Headteacher and the Post holder if the needs of the School change.  Staff are appointed to Newhaven as a whole and may be required to transfer across sites as service demand necessitates.]