Online SEN training for teaching assistants: scenario-based CPD on behaviour, autism, AAC, EHCPs and scaffolding. 26 modules, certificates, Module 1 free.
Teaching assistants do more of the direct SEN work in a school than anyone else, and usually receive the least training for it. The pattern is familiar: a new TA is attached to the pupil with the most complex needs in the year group on day one, learns by watching, and picks up the vocabulary of EHCPs, sensory overload and low-arousal approaches second hand. Sensory Spark Training was written for that person. It is online SEN training for teaching assistants and other support staff, 26 modules and 6 capstone simulations, around eight hours in total, grounded in the SEND Code of Practice 2015 and written by an experienced SEND practitioner. It is awareness-level CPD rather than a qualification, which matters: it will not replace a Level 3 course or your school's own policies, but it will give you the thinking behind the strategies you are asked to use every day.
Several modules speak directly to the support role. Module 15, Scaffolding, Not Velcro, works through the national evidence on how teaching assistants are deployed, introduces the prompt ladder, and sets you a term-long task of building your own redundancy so the pupil needs you less. Module 19, EHCPs for Support Staff, explains the legal document behind the child and what to do when the provision it promises quietly stops. Module 18, Evidence That Counts, teaches camera-language and the one-line observation habit, then gives you three weeks to turn a year of noticing into evidence that funds a pupil's provision. Module 6, AAC in the Classroom, covers live modelling and the ten-second wait before a week with a pupil's communication device. Module 9 covers symbol exchange and requesting. The Independence Audit capstone hands you the most-supported child in the school and a year to make the support smaller than the progress.
The format is a branching simulation. You are placed in a school situation, you choose what to do, and the story moves on according to your choice, so a wrong call has consequences you can see and then correct. Each module adds retrieval questions that bring earlier learning back, a practice task, visual explanations, a printable classroom tool and a workplace commitment that the platform asks you about the next time you log in. The quiz at the end requires every answer to be correct, and you can retake it as often as you need. Introductions are in plain English with key terms explained, text size is adjustable, and listen buttons are available where narration exists, so the training is accessible to staff who find dense reading hard. Your progress is saved in your browser, and once signed in your completions are recorded against your own account.
Every module states its CPD minutes and issues a printable certificate with a unique reference once you have passed the quiz and completed a learner declaration. Complete all 32 pathway units, the 26 modules and 6 capstones, and the full pathway certificate unlocks. For a teaching assistant this is a CPD record you own: the certificates are referenced to you, not to a shared staff login, and they move with you if you change schools. For the SENCO or headteacher who holds the licence, completion counts across the team are visible in one place. The honest caveat: this is provider-certified CPD and not yet externally accredited. Specialist peer review by practising SENCOs, specialist teachers and allied professionals is under way and sixteen reviewer comments are published; formal accreditation review follows its completion.
A Level 2 or Level 3 Supporting Teaching and Learning qualification is an accredited award with assessed workplace practice, often government-funded, and it is the route into the job. Sensory Spark Training is the professional development you do once you are in the job. It goes deeper into special educational needs than most general TA qualifications have room for: autism, sensory differences, demand sensitivity, meltdown versus shutdown, structured teaching, annual reviews, preparation for adulthood, ADHD, dyslexia and dyscalculia, physical and medical needs, and deaf and vision-impaired learners. If you already hold a TA qualification and want SEN-specific CPD, this is the gap it fills. If you are still looking for your first qualification, do that first and come back to this for the specialist layer.
The free module is the easiest case to make. Work through Behaviour is Communication yourself, which takes around fifteen minutes and needs no sign-up, and bring the certificate and the printable tool to your line manager. The whole-school cost is a single licence, £99 a year for unlimited staff at one school or setting, which is usually less than sending two people on one external course. The licence holder invites colleagues to their own accounts, and because the first-year offer of £79.99 for schools that register interest only opens once external accreditation is achieved, a setting can choose to start on the standard licence now or register for free and wait. Either way the free module is available today.
Email: support@sensoryspark.co.uk
Address: United Kingdom
No. It is provider-certified, awareness-level CPD for staff already working in schools. External accreditation has not yet been awarded; specialist peer review is in progress.
Yes. Each module issues a printable certificate with a unique reference after the quiz and a learner declaration. Completing all 32 units unlocks the full pathway certificate.
Module 1 is free with no sign-up. The rest of the pathway is unlocked by a school licence at £99 a year for unlimited staff, so it is bought by the setting rather than the individual.
Each module states its own CPD minutes. Module 1 is about fifteen minutes; the full pathway of 26 modules and 6 capstones is around eight hours.