If your school has an Educational Psychologist contract with EdPsychs, you can then commission Assistant Psychologists to support your school too. Schools commission an Assistant Psychologist (AP) as they would like to get the best value possible from an Educational Psychology contract and to better support their students in school. The contract lasts one academic year in the first instance and this can continue into future years if required.
The APs main role is to work directly with students in your school to implement psychological interventions and advice. Interventions and advice are usually in the areas of literacy, numeracy, comprehension, anxiety, working memory, language, emotional needs and behavioural difficulties, social and communication skills, attention and concentration and motivation, but each school will have their own personalised needs that the AP will respond to.
At EdPsychs we run a legacy model. As such, Assistant Psychologists also train teaching assistants and school staff to further support teachers in class and run small group and 1-1 interventions when needed.
APs also complete assessments, observations and screeners, consultations and follow up meetings, track the EP interventions and contribute to the evaluation process.
APs also work with class teachers to help them implement quality first teaching in class with students based on the Educational Psychologist's recommendations, and they can provide additional advice and support to help teachers further access and implement Educational Psychology reports and recommendations.
Before starting in your school, Assistant Psychologists need an initial base of skills relating to how to implement an Educational Psychologist’s recommendations and programmes.
As such, Assistant Psychologists complete two days of shadowing of an existing Assistant Psychologist in July, followed by a ten day induction programme in August and September, delivered by a combination of Professors, former course directors, former Principal Psychologists, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy practitioners, business coaches and experienced Educational Psychologists.
You can see the full Assistant Psychologist induction programme here.
An Assistant Psychologist is not a replacement Educational Psychologist. Their role is to implement the recommendations and programmes that the Educational Psychologist has recommended for a student. As such, a school can only commission an Assistant Psychologist if they also have an attached Educational Psychologist registered with EdPsychs working in their school.
Assistant Psychologists can also access additional EdPsychs training throughout the year. This is within the schools contracted time, and the Assistant will attend training and focus groups to develop their own skills and to learn skills that they can directly apply in your school with your students.
Schools can commission an Assistant Psychologist (AP) up to the end of July for the next academic year beginning in September.
Potential APs must have an Honours Degree in Psychology (usually a First, and occasionally a 2.1), experience working with children and a strong commitment to learning about and implementing evidence based programmes in schools and becoming an educational psychologist in the future.
We began offering this service in September 2015. There were 189 applications in total for the 10 AP roles being offered in nine EdPsychs’ schools. In 2016 we had 219 applications, and had 9 APs and 4 Senior APs working for us. In 2017 we had 19 APs and in 2018 we employed 25 APs.
We wanted to keep the initial intakes small to focus on delivering a quality first service.
Once a small group of potential APs are identified, they are introduced to the schools. If the school and the potential AP would like to work together we sign the school AP contract and employ the AP.
For the fee structure for Assistant Psychologists, please click here
If you would like to learn a little more about the work an AP does in a school, the type of support they offer, and the type of people we are looking for to fulfil the AP role, please click here.
If you would like to commission an AP or a number of APs for your school, please let us know by contacting us at your own convenience.
