A year into my SEMH journey...

Good evening everyone, just a quick for tonight, as this will be the only time I will get to make an appearance on here this week. This was also a post I was meant to do for this Tuesday, but I had non-work related demands to do throughout that day.

As of this Tuesday (25th of November), it officially marks 1 year that I've been on an SEMH journey! And what a challenging, but fascinating journey it has been for the past 12 months too, as before that, I have had absolutely no idea that the acronym SEMH exists, let alone what SEMH consists of as well within young people I work with during my past year of working in education as well. (I will get round to doing another post about my 1 year journey working in education too, don't you worry!😉)

As a reminder for those of you who are new to my blog, and do not know what SEMH stands for, it stands for social, emotional, mental health. This is a term to describe a young person who experiences difficulties with functioning in social settings due to mental health complications. Along with this, young people with SEMH display challenging behaviours due to some trauma that they have experienced in their early stages of life.

As some of you will already know, as well as for those who are, again. new to my blog, I have spent a good 6 months working at a SEMH school in Surrey, where they cater for SEMH pupils. I started there on the 25/11 of last year - the 23/05 of this year through an education agency. Although my SEMH journey continued from that point on too by working in similar SEMH settings.

During those 6 months, I have learned a hell of a lot about how SEMH impacts a young person's functioning, interactions & how they vision the world. Even though the trauma that comes with SEMH is not something I'd wish on anybody, I am more amazingly baffled of how the creative & determined side of SEMH plays a hugely positive part on an SEMH young person's overall development.

This is due to the fact that SEMH can form a link of best friends to co-occur with it, such as ASD or ADHD.

As I've seen for myself whilst working at Grafham Grange for 6 months, I have come across some very knowledgeable young pupils when it came to having a conversation with them about their hobbies/interests/aspirations. They will go to great lengths to know the ins & outs of something, and they take wonderful pride in sharing that knowledge with us too!

This was also the same case from when I had spend 3 days working at Leith Hill School, as I've had the pleasure of getting to know the pupils there by having conversations with them about things that interest them, as well as seeing them interact with one another who all have the same primary educational need.

In a nutshell, I feel very privileged to obtain all of this in-dept knowledge of SEMH, including getting to work in schools consisting of SEMH pupils. 

Long may it continue.

The pros & cons of being an agency LSA

Hello everyone! Hope you're all doing well. Since I've been an agency LSA for a year now, I thought about doing a post based on everything I have learned about being an agency LSA, as well as talk about the pros & cons of the job.

To be more precise, I first began applying for agency LSA roles on the 3rd of November of last year, and got officially employed into my 1st one on the 8th of November (5 days later). For most part, I'd happily say that I'm enjoying it, as the role itself is genially rewarding by helping young people thrive in education. However, the job itself can be extremely demanding due to the lack of expectations that some school staff won't tell you about before you go into the school('s) to do your job. 

Without further ado, here are the pros & cons of being an agency LSA...

  Pros:

• Meeting new people everyday - One of the things I really love about my job as an agency LSA, is that I get to meet different pupils, and learn many things about them. I never know, I may even learn something from one of them or more!...

• Getting to know how each school's curriculum works - I enjoy absorbing the knowledge of how each I school I've been into is ran, as this will be useful for me to pass onto anyone who wants to know if those school settings should be recommended to their children or children they know. Moreover, different schools have different vibes!

• Seeing familiar faces - Some of the schools I have worked in, I have seen some young people that I know of from Challengers (my Saturday & holiday job). Again, I enjoy absorbing the knowledge of that some young people from most of the Challengers schemes I have worked at attend these school settings. 

Cons:

• Not getting enough time to know the pupils well - Most of the schools I have worked in (with the exception of Grafham Grange) have only been for 1 day here, a few days there & another few days somewhere else. On an honest level, I really love getting to know the pupils I work with well, as this helps me to build a good, positive & trusting relationship with them by understanding how their mind works. Especially when they eventually gain enough trust in me to be their listening ear if they need/want to offload their thoughts.

• Low expectations from teachers - The one thing that really frustrates me the most about being an agency LSA, is that the teachers in the classes I get put into do not explain to me how best to be proactive in the class or how best to engage with each pupil. All this does is not only set me up to fail if I'm doing one or more days of trail shifts, but feel like I'm only present in the class as a "spare part".

• Little - no support from agencies - Another thing that really frustrates me about this line of work, is that some agencies (and I've registered onto about 10 different ones during October) will be very dismissive of your needs/requests. In the case of some agencies I'm with, I say to them that I specifically do not want to be placed into a school where I have to work with screaming non-verbal children, as I do not have much experience of working with them, but they'll still do it anyway when they call me up asking if I am available to work on the day they call me, all simply because for the purpose of the school giving THEM wages when these agencies fill school classes up with agency LSA's to fill in the holes, as well as keep the schools running as normal.

That pretty much wraps up this post. Hope you all find these pros & cons useful just in case you work in this industry to, or even thinking about it. 

I shall be back soon with another post!

*I began this post on the 18/11, but didn't finish it until the 19/11*