Laura Browning

Children deserve to have somebody that believes in them, somebody that will help them aspire to achieve their dreams. This is the person I aspire to be, working with children and assisting them in believing and achieving their goals in life is a huge ambition of mine. I enjoy interacting with children on their own level, being involved in a play scene in which they have in their mind: whether it be playing a Bergan from Trolls or singing songs from the new beloved Childrens movie Encanto. This helps to have insight into a Childs life. I am currently working as a Teaching Assistant in a special educational needs school. My day-to-day job helps me with understanding the development of early childhood educational studies as well as Childhood studies. Working in a class where some of their academic ages are 18months and their actual age is 7 is a huge learning curve. One of the main interests of mine in my everyday work is helping children with engagement. Being able to do this with children who are non-verbal and whose cognitive ability is exceptionally low can sometimes be challenging. However, I try to engage at the level of the individual rather than the whole class where it is possible, this will include having musical toys which helps engage the child in learning their ABC. This toy will get the attention of the child by the sound that it makes and the lights that shine. With this as a tool I would then sing along to the tune and help them to either sign or say the letters. By having these tools, you can engage with a child to the ability in which they are capable of and the engagement in which they are interested in. These types of scenarios have given me an understanding of how childhood development is not the same for every child. With my job role being different every day, this has helped me improve my time management, as it involves me doing practical and theoretical things with different children 1-1 throughout the day and also as a whole class or small groups. Being a teaching assistant , working with children you must think about things from a child's perspective and need to be creative and good at solving problems so that the children can understand more easily or be more co-operative. My interest in working with children came from an early age, having a big family, helping siblings and cousins with homework was a well-known thing. Taking my interests into account in 2010 I started working for Arsenal, as a football coach. This was a huge passion of mine to help develop children in sport. Since then, I went on to create my own soccer school in 2011, where I would coach local children from the age of 4-11 on a Saturday morning in my local village. This then developed into me going into local schools and running football after school clubs. Doing this you begin to learn that the areas in which people live has an enormous impact on the child, what they have and did not have and how their ability to listen and learn was a little challenging. I then started to collect football boots from boot sales and friends to give to less fortunate children who loved to play the game but did not have the funding for the equipment. In the summer of 2011, I started my first local village football team of under 7s. With the same 10 children we stayed a team for 4 years as the team spirit is what works well. In 2012 I became a parent, with the growth of my daughter in 2015, I had to stop my team and business to focus on a job which would fit around family life. This is when I began my journey of working with children in a school. with the experience of working with children in a different area helped me a lot with the transition to education. Since starting my journey in education I have worked in mainstream schools, and special educational school as a teaching assistant, as well as a 1-1 teaching assistant. In October i was secondment to a HLTA, this was such an enjoyable experience for me and really helped me to understand the differences in all areas of the Zone. While doing this I learnt to change plans last minute and also manage classrooms. Since then I have lead a numerous amount of times in my current class , where I have had to plan lessons and activities for the children on very short notice . This has helped me to become more confident in my abilities to lead and also to see the light of wanting to lead more.

Removed to comply with the 2010 Equality Act.

I hereby give my consent for the school or organisation to which this application relates to process and retain on file information (including health and ethnic data) contained on this form and in accompanying documents.

52 Stempe Close, CT18 7PQ

07869816910, 07869816910

JJ558482C

• Casey Fletcher, The Beacon School, Folkestone, 01303 847555, Casey.Fletcher@thebeacon.Kent.sch.uk, Assistant headteacher, Yes
• Nikki Morrison, The Beacon, 01303847555, Nicola.Morrison@thebeacon.Kent.sch.uk, Leader of Learning teacher, Yes

By submitting this form, I declare that the information is complete and accurate, and I understand that any offer of employment is subject to satisfactory completion of the applicable pre-employment checks.

You are advised that this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020.

HIGHER LEVEL TEACHING ASSISTANT, THE BEACON, Media, 06/24/22

My hobbies include spending time with my family doing lots of different activities, wether its watching my daughter do her gymnastics or coaching my nephews football team on a Saturday. I have worked with children for a long period of time in different sports environment or within a school. My skills include being well organised, having good time management, being a great team player and having an ability to work under pressure. I love new challenges and opportunities for me to improve and help others improve.