Describe a typical day. Following morning meetings, specialisedequipment is checked, medication is administered and a number of pupilsare seen for monitoring purposes. The day then commences withapproximately 60 pupils having individual sessions to support theirliteracy in both English and Welsh or numeracy skills.
What other agencies and who else within your organisation do you workwith? I collaborate with staff, feeder primary schools and other outsideagencies as well as working with individual pupils or teaching.
How did you end up in the job? My career in teaching spans nearly 30years. I was a technology teacher but transferred to special educationalneeds after my daughter suffered from a hearing impairment and relatedspeech difficulties as a young child. I initially qualified as a teacherof the hearing impaired.
What qualifications do you need?
I became a co-ordinator of special educational needs after gaining amasters degree.
What are the main goals that you have set for yourself? We need moreteachers to work in the field of special educational needs. In Wales, weneed more people who can work through the medium of both Welsh andEnglish.
What's the biggest challenge? The biggest challenge is to ensure thatevery pupil can gain access to the curriculum in line with their peersof similar ability.
What advice do you have for others wanting to do this kind of work?Working in this field can be both challenging and demanding. Being in aposition though to make a difference to individual pupils with specialeducational needs can be exceptionally rewarding.
- Meinir Rees won special needs teacher of the year at the TeachingAwards 2005.
