Learning Support Assistant

Main Responsibilities

Learning Support Assistant

Oakhill Secure Training Centre, Milton Keynes

Salary range : £19,267 - £21,472​  per annum

Full-time (40 hours per week)

G4S Children's Services works closely with the Home Office, Youth Justice Board for England and Wales and the Ministry of Justice to ensure that its regimes and designs reflect best practice in residential care to prevent offending.

At Oakhill Secure Training Centre we look after young people aged 12 to 18 years old who have been remanded or sentenced to periods of detention. The vulnerable young people in our care can be challenging with a wide range of social and emotional complex needs. This is an environment that calls for high standards of social care and service delivery to provide a secure and stable environment for young people to develop their life skills and address the behaviours that have led them into custody.

We currently have an opportunity for a resilient and confident team player to join us in delivering pastoral and behavioural support within the centre. You should have excellent interpersonal skills and must act with consistency, fairness and integrity in order to build mutual trust and respect with the young people.

Working directly with the young people, you will need to be able to motivate and support them in the classroom and on the residential units to develop life skills to enhance their effective resettlement on release. This role requires the ability to manage the behaviour of people in our care with dignity and respect, and can be both challenging and extremely rewarding. The ideal candidate will have previous experience of working with young, vulnerable or challenging people, and will have the ability to apply their life experience, role-modelling positive and proactive behaviours, to achieve positive outcomes for young people.

At G4S, we invest heavily in our people.  If you join us you’ll attend our comprehensive training programme to equip you with the skills and knowledge for the job. As well as ongoing support and development opportunities we offer generous holiday entitlement, company pension, an onsite gym, free onsite parking and the chance to do an extraordinary job – every day.

Job Outline

To assist young people within the education environment in the acquisition of skills, including literacy, numeracy and IT.

Key Responsibilities

• Assist teachers in the planning and delivery of education so that young people’s needs are met.
• Assist and support young people to enable them to overcome barriers to learning and create positive educational opportunities.
• Build and create mutual trust and respect with young people in order that they respond and react appropriately to information and guidance.
• Support young people in developing individual action plans so that their needs are met.
• Promote high standards of work and behaviour to assist in creating a learning environment that allows young people to maximise their opportunities.
• Complete, maintain and supply documentation to ensure relevant information is accurately recorded, in line with company and contractual requirements.
• Monitor young people’s progress advising teachers of any issues to ensure individual needs are met.
• Monitor and analyse young people’s behaviour to avoid incidents, improve behaviour and safeguard their welfare.
• Liaise with relevant key stakeholders, as required, to meet the young people’s needs.

The Ideal Candidate

Essential Skills

• Level 2 or equivalent in literacy and numeracy
• A relevant qualification or willingness to study for a qualification for Learning Support Assistants.

If you have the qualities that we are looking for and the ability to make a difference, we want to hear from you!

It is every employee’s responsibility to promote and safeguard the welfare of children and young persons he/she is responsible for or comes into contact with. Therefore every employee will be required to hold a current enhanced DBS (Disclosure & Barring Scheme) certificate.

Please note that these vacancies are subject to a 10 year checkable history and the strict vetting standards set by G4S and the Youth Justice Board and are exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act.

You must be eligible to work in the UK and must have been resident in the UK for a minimum period of 3 years. You will also need to provide full details of your employment and education history for the last 10 years as part of the security screening process for this role.