I am now fully into the job as a LSS (learning support specialist) and able to explain a bit about the job. Every LSS is given one main student to work with most of the time, being responsible for the overall development, to create a contact person for the student and to have weekly contact with the parents. Most of the students with full support have support in every lesson (mostly except PE though).
In the beginning of the school year we all worked with our own main student, full time. Now we have started swooping around so we work with different students, with the aim of getting variation in our work, get challenged in a new way, work closer together as a team as well as the students learn to work with different adults – at least for a few hours per week.
The support we do is support in normal lessons. The aim is that our students can participate as equal as possible with their classmates for normal teaching. We sit next to the student in the classroom and remind the student to focus, repeat the things the teacher have explained and basically helps and motivate the students in their work. In collaboration with the teacher we modify the curriculum so it’s more suitable for the students understanding and level.
A lot of these students are not only struggling academically but often with their social and life skills as well which mean we sometimes have to step into the learning process of life as the role model we are.
