Requirements

Special needs education teaching professional - requirements

As a special needs education teaching professional, sometimes called a special educational needs teacher, you’ll use your pastoral and teaching skills to offer additional support to children with special educational needs to make sure that they’re able to achieve their potential as a student. Read on to learn more about this career, what you’ll do in your role, and how you can study or work towards it.

Know what you'll need to land a job below.

What qualifications do you need to be a special needs education teaching professional?

Alongside the subjects you might want to teach, you could consider studying a degree in:

You’ll need to have qualified teacher status (QTS), which will be through a degree in education either at undergraduate or postgraduate level. You should look for courses that have a focus on SEN education.

Please note this is a beta version. We'll continue to improve our suggestions here so that we show you the most relevant subjects.

Do you need a postgraduate qualification to be a special needs education teaching professional?

A postgraduate qualification in education is a common route to qualify as a teacher after studying a different subject.

You could consider postgraduate study options like:

Postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE)
Postgraduate teaching apprenticeships
Educational leadership
International education

What skills do you need to be a special needs education teaching professional?

Your emotional intelligence, specialist training and communication skills are central to working as a special educational needs teacher.

Hard skills usually include:

Educating children
Child protection laws and practices
National educational curriculum
Managing children and classrooms
Managing special educational needs
Planning and delivering lessons

Soft skills include:

Communicating
Motivation
Time and work management
Leadership skills
Basic literacy and numeracy
Empathy and compassion

Do you need work experience to be a special needs education teaching professional?

Classroom experience is very useful if you’re considering a role in this field. You might consider getting in touch with your old primary or secondary schools, college or university to arrange work experience.

Shadowing, placements and observation experience in SEN schools is especially useful, as well as working as a teaching assistant in a SEN environment.