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SEMH Teacher - Nurture, Parker Smith Inclusion
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SEMH Teacher - Nurture - KS3 - West London
September 2026 start
Full-time, term-time only
£201 - £298 PAYE per day, in line with MPS1 and UPS3 Outer London
Permanent contract opportunity
Some pupils will test you loudly, long before they will ever trust you quietly. Do you know what it takes to stay in the room when a fifteen-year-old is doing everything they can to make you leave it?
If the answer is yes, and you have lived it, keep reading.
Picture the start of a school day at a secondary special school in West London. A Year 8 boy arrives early, before most of the corridor has filled up, because arriving early means he does not have to walk past a crowd. A Year 10 girl comes in loud, testing the room before the room can test her. By period two, someone has pushed back a chair hard enough that it clatters against the wall, and the teacher in that room does not flinch, does not raise their own volume, and does not treat it as the whole story of that pupil's day.
That is the shape of the work here. This school works exclusively with pupils aged 11 to 19 with Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) needs. Every pupil holds an EHCP, and many present with Autism or ADHD alongside their SEMH needs. Behaviour tends to be loud rather than withdrawn. A raised voice, a slammed door, and a chair going over are all part of an ordinary week, not a crisis to be managed away.
How The School Actually Works
Many pupils arrive here having already been let down by school more than once. Some have missed significant stretches of learning, not through lack of ability but because the environment around them was never built to hold them. The school's answer to that is a reflective and restorative approach. Instead of removing a pupil from the building when things go wrong, staff work with them afterwards to understand what happened and plan differently next time.
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Younger pupils in Years 7 and 8 spend their days in a model built around routine and relationships first. The timetable is deliberately predictable. The adults around them stay consistent. As pupils move up through the school, that structure gradually loosens, and the emphasis shifts toward independence, subject-specialist teaching, and preparing pupils for life beyond the building. Therapeutic support runs alongside all of it, woven into the school day instead of sitting apart from it as a separate appointment on a timetable.
What The Role Actually Asks Of You
As a SEMH Teacher, you will plan and deliver personalised lessons that work towards each pupil's EHCP outcomes. Some days that lesson plan will run exactly as written. Other days, the more important work will happen in the five minutes before the lesson even starts, when a pupil walks in already dysregulated, and your first job is to bring the temperature of the room down before you open a book.
De-escalation is not a skill you reach for occasionally here. It is closer to a daily rhythm, something you build over months rather than something you either have or do not. You will work alongside a wider staff team and therapeutic support built around each pupil, so you are never doing this alone in a room. Some days, the measure of success is a full lesson delivered from start to finish. Other days, it is a pupil who stays in the room at all, and learning to recognise which of those is the real winner on any given day is part of what this role teaches you.
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What Is Required
- Qualified Teacher Status is required.
- Solid, direct experience of SEMH is required, and this is non-negotiable.
- Given that pupils here may also present with Autism or ADHD, experience across all three areas is genuinely useful, though SEMH experience is the core of what the school is looking for.
- Prior experience in a special school setting is welcome but not essential, provided the direct SEMH experience is genuinely there.
Pay and Hours
- Daily rate / Salary: £201 to £298 PAYE, in line with MPS to UPS3, Outer London
- Contract: Long-term to permanent contract
- Hours: Full-time, term-time only, 8:30am to 4pm.
- Start: September 2026. Interviews are being arranged now.
About Parker Smith Inclusion
Parker Smith Inclusion is a specialist SEND recruitment agency. We put people first, taking the time to get to know you and finding the right career opportunity. We recruit across a wide range of SEND settings for all career stages, including support staff, teachers, therapists, and senior leaders. If you are keen to explore other opportunities, get in touch at heeji@psinclusion.co.uk or call Heeji on 0203 011 4848.
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