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Hiring: Media Secondary SEN Classroom Teaching Assistant

24th June 2025Website Admin

Media Secondary SEN Classroom Teaching Assistant

Required for: September (possibility for start in July)

Contract: Full-time – Monday to Friday, 8am to 4pm

Pay: Competitive salary with professional development pathways and opportunities.

Reporting to: Middle Leadership Team

Role Purpose

We are looking for someone with a background in Media or a strong interest in media-related studies and skills to support our Project-Based Learning approach at Gesher. This individual will have opportunities for additional responsibilities in developing a Media pathway at Gesher. We seek someone excited about the chance to showcase their skills in this area and support the growth of students’ technological skills while fostering their interests and passions in Media.

As a Teaching Assistant at Gesher, you will work collaboratively with teaching staff to deliver an inclusive, engaging, and nurturing educational experience rooted in our relational ethos and commitment to Project-Based Learning (PBL). You will support the holistic development of the individual pupil both in and outside the classroom, helping them grow as confident, independent learners and active members of the school community.

About our school

Gesher School is a unique all-through school providing a specialist, meaningful and functional learning environment for young people with special educational needs. This includes language, communication and social pragmatic difficulties. We have a specialism in autism spectrum challenges (ASC).

Young people are at the core of Gesher School, where we nurture a sense of belonging and community. Our school provides a joyful, safe, friendly, and stimulating environment in which young people are encouraged to learn, interact, and have fun. We believe that all young people have the potential to succeed, but that every child is unique and requires a tailored, youth-centred approach to learning.

The Gesher approach is warm, friendly and nurturing. Emotional health and resilience, developing young people’s independence and learning, is at the core of our vision.

As the Teaching Assistant of the post holder will:

Work under the instruction and guidance of teaching staff to implement agreed programmes of work with the individual pupil, in or out of the classroom
To provide care and support for the pupil, to ensure their safety and well-being
To encourage enjoyment, enthusiasm, and independence in learning
To foster the growth of confident, caring students who demonstrate a sense of responsibility and pride in themselves and their school.
To assist in the provision of a welcoming, stimulating environment
To assist in the smooth running of the school
Access a wide range of CPD throughout the school to support growth and self-development that can be applied in the day to day context and beyond.

At Gesher we provide:

Opportunities that enable young people to thrive as we want our children to be ambitious about achieving their full potential
A collaborative learning team around every young person to support each young person’s learning needs and maximise meaningful learning opportunities
A therapeutic team that works together with families to nurture and support young people’s emotional, social, and academic development
A partnership with families to improve the lives and life chances of young people with SEND by ensuring that they are healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a

For further information, please visit www.gesherschool.com.

To apply, please complete an application form that can be found here.

Please, complete and return your application by May 16th to [email protected]. CVs will not be accepted.

Interviews will be organised on a rolling basis. This ad may be withdrawn as a suitable candidate is identified.

Diversity is a core value of Gesher School. We believe the power of diversity enriches all of us by exposing us to a range of ways to understand and engage with the world, identify challenges, and to discover, design and deliver solutions. As such, we actively encourage people from a variety of backgrounds to apply for roles at our school.

Gesher School is committed to safeguarding young people and staff. Successful candidates will be subject to an enhanced DBS check.

Hiring: SEND Classroom Teaching Assistant

20th June 2025Website Admin

Hiring: SEND Classroom Teaching Assistant

Required for: ASAP

Hours and Pay: Monday-Friday, 8am-4pm, competitive salary.

Young people are at the heart of Gesher School, where we foster a sense of belonging and community. Our school offers a happy, safe, friendly, and stimulating environment in which young people are supported to learn, interact and have fun. We believe that all young people have the potential to achieve, but that every child is individual and requires a tailored, young person-centred approach to learning.

The Gesher approach is warm, friendly and nurturing. Emotional health and resilience, developing young people’s independence and learning, is at the core of our vision.

At Gesher we provide:

Opportunities that enable young people to thrive as we want our children to be ambitious about achieving their full potential
A collaborative learning team around every young person to support each young person’s learning needs and maximise meaningful learning opportunities
A therapeutic team that works together with families to nurture and support young people’s emotional, social, and academic development
A partnership with families to improve the lives and life chances of young people with SEND by ensuring that they are healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution, and experience the wider community

Being part of our learning community, you will be able to use your creativity and shape the way our school provides excellent learning opportunities for our young people.

As a member of our team, you will:

Join an innovative learning community with ambitious practices. Not only do we want to have an impact on the young people in our school, we also want to help shape the future of special education nationally and internationally.
Join a committed community of staff and parents and wider supporters.
Be supported to become the best you can be. We believe in valuing all our staff and therefore take professional development very seriously. In return for their high level of commitment to enabling our young people to reach the best outcomes, we will provide our staff with excellent opportunities for growth and development.
Always be supported in terms of your leadership and you will be able to take on responsibilities in various areas of school life.
Have access to a network of forward-thinking practitioners (Big Education, Rethinking Assessment, XP, etc.) via other members of our team.

For further information, please visit www.gesherschool.com.

To apply, please complete an application which can be found here.

Please, complete and return your application to [email protected]. CVs will not be accepted.

Interviews will be organised on a rolling basis. This ad may be withdrawn as a suitable candidate is identified.

Gesher School is committed to safeguarding young people and staff. Successful candidates will be subject to an enhanced DBS check.

STUDENT MOVIE: Rise of the NutKing

19th May 2025Website Admin

Anaphylaxis Awareness Week 2025 in the UK takes place on 1st June to 7th June. This annual event focuses on educating the public about anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction, and provides support to those living with severe allergies. One such person who has experienced this first hand is our School Council Secretary, Liam. Following an anaphylaxis episode a couple of year ago, he had significant anxiety around the potential of a repeat incident, and felt a loss of freedom and independence in his day to day life.

To support with this, our school dramatherapist worked with Liam to process these feelings creatively. This long-term piece of work resulted in a short film called “Rise of the NutKing” that explores Liam’s experience of living with a nut allergy in a creative and metaphorical way. Liam had the following to say about his own real-life experiences:

“Anaphylaxis is nothing to joke about – people die every day as a result of severe allergy symptoms. However, we can stop this by helping raise awareness, and to help people afford the essentials to avoid the devastating impact of anaphylaxis. I hope my film educates in a way that revokes some of the fear that some people living with allergies may have, and makes it easy to understand in a fun way. Please share this movie with friends and family to teach more people about the dangers of allergens and how to deal with them.”

For more information on how to support individuals with significant allergies, please visit https://www.anaphylaxis.org.uk/.

Link to the Movie “Rise of the Nutking” Nutking Video

from Gesher School on Vimeo.

Hiring: Jewish Studies Teaching or Support Role

25th April 2025Website Admin

Jewish Studies Teaching or Support Role

(KS2/KS3 teaching/support within a creative and amended curriculum)

Part-time (2 days equivalent with the potential of more days depending on the candidate)

Required for: ASAP

Working Days: Monday- Thursday (the equivalent of 2 days within)

Pay is based on experience: MPS for qualified teachers, UQT for unqualified teachers and Support salary based on roles and responsibilities.

Gesher School is a unique all-through school that provides a specialist, meaningful, and functional learning environment for young people with special educational needs. These needs include language, communication, and social-pragmatic difficulties. We specialise in autism spectrum challenges (ASC).

The Gesher approach is warm, friendly, and nurturing. Emotional health and resilience, as well as developing young people’s independence and learning, are at the core of our vision.

To deliver and achieve these outcomes, we want to add a confident, enthusiastic and highly motivated Jewish Studies KS2/KS3 educator to join our expanding team at Gesher as a teacher and/or teaching support. This post would suit a passionate, dynamic and adaptable individual who ideally has experience teaching and leading within a SEND environment.

This post would suit someone passionate about creating meaningful personalised learning that meets all individual needs and interests. The right candidate would be open to working within a transdisciplinary team, including teachers, therapists, teaching assistants, parents, and carers.

It would be desirable for the candidate to have experience designing/delivering interactive learning opportunities that focus on engaging students and connecting them with their faith. In addition, the candidate would need to be an upstanding role model of positive morals and values to help the students build confidence in their sense of self and become builders of meaningful relationships.

This position offers fantastic opportunities to develop your skills as a practitioner within an innovative, supportive and collaborative team environment.

We can offer you the following:

Paid half day Friday closure in the winter months
12 weeks paid holidays plus paid extra Jewish holidays throughout the year
Monthly well-being events and inset days
Additional days off awarded following long service
Protected time for planning and preparation
Regular social opportunities
A Competitive salary

You will be a fully integrated and integral member of the whole school team. See us in action here: https://vimeo.com/407682934/a9a6af1bc8 and http://gesherschool.com

Being part of our learning community, you will be able to use your creativity and shape the way our school provides excellent learning opportunities for our young people.

For further information, please visit www.gesherschool.com.

Please email [email protected] for an application form and any further information.

Interviews will be organised on a rolling basis. This ad may be withdrawn if a suitable candidate is identified.

Gesher School is committed to safeguarding young people and staff. Successful candidates will be subject to an enhanced DBS check.

The Post Holder Will:

be passionate and secure in their Jewish knowledge and confident with differentiating and personalising Jewish learning

be comfortable planning and delivering high quality hands on learning within a supportive team environment

be comfortable with reading, writing, speaking and teaching Hebrew

be a proven, successful team player with excellent motivational and interpersonal skills

Main Areas of Duties and Responsibilities

To work within a team to deliver high quality Jewish Studies learning across KS2 & KS3

To promote the Jewish ethos, values and middot throughout the school and be a personal and professional role model for our students

Planning and supporting the implementation of Enrichment Days (school celebration of festivals), Tefillah throughout the school day and Shabbat/Havdallah/Chagim assemblies

To support children with their Hebrew Reading.

To work alongside the teaching and learning team to accelerate pupil progress and raise attainment

To support teachers with building cross curricular links, embedding Jewish learning within the projects.

To support the implementation of the B’nei Mitzvah program at Gesher.

To engage in performance management and attend training and meetings as part of professional development.

To keep informed of the latest Jewish Education trends and implement appropriate strategies/schemes through training staff.
To develop established and new partnerships beyond the school to support curriculum learning and development within the Jewish Community.

To liaise with parents and support them in their child’s Jewish education

To carry out responsibilities/duties with regard to Equal Opportunities, Safeguarding and Health and Safety Policies.

For further information, please visit www.gesherschool.com.

To apply, please complete an application form that can be found here: https://gesherschool.com/about-us/join-our-team/.

Please complete and return your application to [email protected]. CVs will not be accepted.

Interviews will be organised on a rolling basis. This ad may be withdrawn as a suitable candidate is identified.

Gesher School is committed to safeguarding young people and staff. Successful candidates will be subject to an enhanced DBS check.

Maccabi Fun Run

10th May 2024Website Admin

The PTC are going to be hosting a Gesher stand at this year’s Maccabi Fun Run, they are also wanting runners or walkers to raise funds for Gesher by taking part. Please see the attached poster with details of how to sign up.

The Community’s largest event returns on Sunday 23rd June! This year, Maccabi GB recognises the community’s strong urge to unite, celebrate, and show support for Israel. Get ready for an immersive Israeli experience with authentic cuisine, vibrant music, a blue-and-white celebration and so much more! While adding new festivities, we’re keeping the beloved elements of the Community Fun Run including the 1km, 5km and 10km runs, charity fair and Israel-themed family fun zone.

Join us for the Maccabi GB Community Fun Run & Israel Festival, and help us build a vibrant celebration that unites our community whilst participating and raising funds for your chosen charity.

Purim & Gesher’s Annual Staff Music Video!!

28th March 2024Website Admin

Last week was filled with joy as we celebrated Purim with parents, grandparents, and Gesher volunteers! From dressing up to delicious treats, our Enrichment morning was brilliant. Students enjoyed making Hamantaschens (triangular cookies with jam or chocolate inside) and Mishloach Manot (Food packages for friends), crafting puppets and masks, and we even had a petting zoo visit! As a lot of you know, part of Gesher’s tradition is our annual staff Purim video, featuring a hilarious mashup of songs from The Greatest Showman which you can watch below. We hope you all had a wonderful celebration!

Purim 2024: The Greatest Showman Staff Video from Gesher School on Vimeo.

Introducing Gesher and United Synagogue’s Lead Advocate for Additional Needs

31st January 2024Website Admin

We are delighted to announce that Gesher School have partnered with The United Synagogue so that we can work together effectively, to make Jewish Communities more accessible, not only for our Gesher children, but for all children and adults with additional needs. In line with this, we have appointed Rivka Steinberg to harness the expertise of Gesher School and share it with our communities, in the role of Lead Advocate for Additional needs. She will be spending her time both at Gesher School and the Finchley US office.

In a previous chapter of my life, I spent many years working in scientific research. My interest in improving the quality of education and health services for children with Special Education Needs and Disability (SEND), developed, when my eldest daughter was diagnosed with a physical disability in 2005 and with it the requirement to become a strong advocate for all her additional needs. I trained with IPSEA (Independent provider of SEND legal advice) to develop a strong knowledge of the SEND legislation and I have used my broad knowledge and skills gained over many years, to advise parent carers on SEND matters. I have also worked for voluntary organisations, specialist settings and parent advocacy with Local Authorities.

My personal and professional experiences have seeded a desire and passion to share the knowledge acquired in my own journey and to work closely with leadership in the community, to enable all children and adults, to lead a high quality of life, regardless of their additional needs. This is all about breaking down barriers so that children and adults with needs, are more fully integrated and supported to embody Jewish life in ways that are meaningful to them without feeling compromised.

It is no longer enough that we raise awareness outside of Gesher School, neither can we allow this vital work to be regarded within the framework of a charitable agenda. Rather we need to actively share Gesher’s expertise and resources so communities will make room for difference, engaging wholeheartedly in access and inclusion work, so that children and adults will be enabled in all facets of Jewish community life. It’s about seeing the ‘ability’ in Disability.

I am very excited to be part of Gesher School and to really make a difference as the Lead Advocate for Additional Needs. Some of the projects we are looking at include:

Supporting the preparation of Inclusive services, Chagim, sessions and events
Sharing strategies, resources and tips
Engaging more members and families in US.

If you have any suggestions or you would just like to be in touch with me directly then please do reach out to me at [email protected].

Hiring: Educational Psychologist Consultant

15th September 2023Website Admin

Required for: As soon as possible

Hours and Pay: Pay dependent on experience. 2 days per half term

Condition of employment: Permanent/Contacted/Freelance

‘Therapists, teachers and teaching assistants work together seamlessly as one team. They truly understand how to meet pupils’ complex special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). While staff are nurturing, they also have high expectations of all pupils. As a result, pupils work hard and learn well’. – OFSTED September 2022.

Gesher School is a unique all-through school providing a specialist, meaningful and functional learning environment for young people with mild to moderate special educational needs. This includes ASC, ADHD, Down’s Syndrome and MLD.

We are seeking to appoint an experienced, enthusiastic and innovative Educational Psychologist to join our team.

The successful Educational psychologist will:

Assess children’s learning and emotional needs
Design, develop and support therapeutic and behaviour management programmes
Work collaboratively with colleagues to advise on the best approaches and provisions to support learning and development
Support parents, teachers and others involved with the education of children and young people
Write reports making recommendations on action to be taken
Attend regular meetings involving our multidisciplinary team on how best to meet the social, emotional, behavioural and learning needs of the children and young people in your care
Develop and apply effective interventions to promote psychological well being, social, emotional and behavioural development, and to raise educational standards.
Make recommendations on students Educational Healthcare Plans (EHCP) and contribute to the annual review/ EHCP process
Work with children and young people who are experiencing problems that hinder their successful learning, participation and opportunity to flourish at school and other extracurricular activities.
Promote and support children/young people’s emotional well-being and mental health and work alongside other key professionals to reach a shared understanding of the children/young person’s needs, and what support and interventions can enable their progress, which includes observations, interviews and assessments of the child.
Provide and support in-service training for teachers and other professionals.

The Successful candidates will have:

Honours degree in psychology or equivalent, recognised by the British Psychological Society as conferring eligibility for Graduate Basis for Chartered Status, a professional postgraduate qualification in Educational Psychology (MSc or Doctorate)
Registered member of HCPC (Health Care Professions Council) or registration in process.
Excellent communication, organisation and time management skills.
The ability to work well as part of a collaborative team
A right to work in the UK
A passionate commitment to ensuring all children are given the opportunities to shine and achieve educationally;
They are able to work collaboratively in the best interests of the child/young person with other professionals;
They understand and can articulate what constitutes high quality inclusive education provision; They are open-minded and have a sensitive approach when dealing with children and young people
Experience and expertise in autism and supporting staff in managing challenging behaviour is also essential.

See us in action here:

https://vimeo.com/407682934/a9a6af1bc8

You will join a supportive staff team where teamwork, flexibility and a positive personality are essential attributes.

For more information relating to the above role, or to apply, please contact Victoria Rutter, Head of Therapies 0207 884 5102 or email [email protected]

MACCABI GB COMMUNITY FUN RUN

28th April 2023Website Admin

Ready, set, go! 🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️ The registrations for the Maccabi Fun Run are now open! Join us for a day filled with fun and fitness. You can sign up for a 10k, 5k run, 5k walk, or 1k run. It’s the perfect opportunity to challenge yourself and enjoy a great day out. Don’t miss out on this incredible event. Register now and let’s get moving!

https://register.enthuse.com/ps/event/MaccabiGBCommunityFunRun2023?utm_source=Maccabi+GB&utm_campaign=c1bfad1342-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_03_25_09_50_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_767b0837dd-c1bfad1342-356158736

Volunteering Opportunity: Minibus Driver

17th March 2023Website Admin

We looking for dedicated and experienced minibus drivers to transport our students to weekly swim sessions and ad-hoc outings. As a driver, you will play a vital role in ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our students, while also providing a friendly and comfortable transportation experience.

By volunteering, you will be providing our students with a unique opportunity to attend invaluable swimming sessions that will contribute significantly to their development. Our curriculum includes a variety of trips throughout the year, and we rely on volunteers to help us transport students to venues that are not easily accessible by public transport.

Driving our minibus will be a rewarding experience that enables you to make a meaningful impact on our students’ education and personal growth.

What are we looking for?

You will need to have the D1 entitlement on your driving licence and be over the age of 21.
Previous experience driving a minibus is advantageous.
A desire to work with neurodivergent young people

What training will I get?

You will receive a full induction on the vehicle you will be driving.

The school team will provide you with an understanding of the strengths and needs of our students.

What should I do if I’m interested?

If you are interested in volunteering for this role or would like some more information, please email [email protected]