Community home/school teacher: Job description and activities

Community home/school teachers link parents with schools through a number of activities. The focus of their work depends on the local authority's policy in this field. Local authorities may have special initiatives - related to the government’s inclusion policy - that depend on the social needs of a particular geographical area. There may be a home link team set up in an authority to work on a multitude of issues.

The work of community home/school teachers often focuses on early intervention work (from nursery age) and promoting parental involvement in early literacy and numeracy work. It includes:

identifying concerns over a child’s learning ability and taking action to raise these concerns in the appropriate forum as part of 'staged intervention';
advising on and setting up 'good practices' in schools, such as a parent literacy resource-making group or a family lending library, with a view to creating sustainable systems for mainstream and special educational needs (SEN) teachers to work with parents;
providing training for parents on a variety of topics, such as reading to children, educational play and 'positive parenting';
providing individual support for families, including home visits;
liaising with SEN teachers, mainstream teachers, parents and other appropriate professionals in the field.

Community home/school teachers are likely to have experience of mainstream or special educational needs (SEN) teaching.

For more information see Special education needs teacher.

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