APPLY TO BE AN ASSISTANT PSYCHOLOGIST

THE SKILLS, EXPERIENCE AND QUALIFICATIONS TO BE AN AP

You will need ALL of the following to become an AP with EdPsychs:

And in more detail:

• A First Class Honours Degree or 2:1 Honours Degree in Psychology, or a Master’s Degree in Psychology. This must be accredited with the BPS. This is why all applicants need to have BPS membership to apply for these roles. You can learn more about this here: https://www.bps.org.uk/graduate-membership-gmbpss.
• Outstanding social skills, social flexibility and social awareness. Professional psychologists are interested in and focused on understanding, motivation and change. You must be able to build rapport and empower the people you work with. In our experience, clients trust psychologists with a warm and engaging manner; who emanate integrity and trust; and who have an over and above approach to their roles. These are central parts of our selection criteria at interview.
• Experience working with children and students. This can be in schools or in other roles.
• An accurate and fluent understanding of psychology. At interview, we look for candidates who have learned and successfully applied psychology in their journeys so far, rather than those who have just passed psychology exams. We need people who are psychological, rather than people who just have a psychology degree.
• We invest so much in training, development and supporting APs that we expect at least a one year commitment for these roles (which is full time in term time throughout the academic year, with core hours between 9am and 4pm). Virtually all work is direct, and APs are in schools for 35-40 hours per week in term time.

WHAT DOES AN ASSISTANT PSYCHOLOGIST DO IN SCHOOLS?

APs work under the direct guidance and supervision of an Educational Psychologist (EP) or a Clinical Psychologist (CP), and they help the psychologists support schools, parents, children and students on an ongoing basis. The AP role includes:

And in more detail:

EdPsychs employ a team of APs to fulfil this role, and each AP works full-time in one school for at least one academic year, and most APs progress onto a second and third year with EdPsychs.

Although the core of each AP role is similar, each AP is matched to a school and there are different elements to the AP role and this can include:

Direct work with students

• This can make up as much as 75% of the AP role dependent on the school
• APs complete a lot of support work for psychologists including:
  • Attending psychologist planning meetings
  • Gathering referral forms and informed consent
  • Completing psychological file reviews (you will be trained on this)
  • Meeting parents, teachers and school staff to gather their views, the student’s background history and initial areas they would like support in
  • Looking at the impact of previous student support
  • Completing screeners, observations, assessments and voice of the child work
  • Working with the psychologists on case analysis and co-construction of hypotheses
  • Supporting the graduated response in the classroom (which often involves supporting psychologist training, recommendations and programmes); in small groups (running the evidence based interventions suggested by the psychologists); and in 1-1 sessions with students (again running psychological interventions)
  • Running training with parents, teachers and support staff so we can empower the school community
  • Completing one page profiles; class profiles; psychological posters and training walls
  • Supporting the plan, do, review process (this includes lots of tracker observations; meetings; screeners; assessments and client check-ins). This is extended at EdPsychs by looking at student and teacher views around what is working well, and as a result …
  • Working with students, teachers and especially psychologists to evaluate, refine, upgrade, update and review interventions
  • Completing learning walks with SENCos, Inclusion managers and Psychologists to explore how support structures are being implemented. At EdPsychs it is the application and impact of our consultations, training, assessments and support work that carries the highest value. It is why we ask you so much about your impact in your work at interview and on our training days
  • Completing on-going tracker meetings with parents
  • Working to collate evidence for Education, Health and Care Plans
  • As well as many other areas of psychological intervention and support work

Project work in schools

This will be different for different APs in different schools, but at present APs in the company are working to support and run psychologist's projects on:

• Overseas school development projects
• Whole school wellbeing projects
• School ethics, wellbeing, expectation and performance programmes
• Values driven learning work
• SEND research in other countries
• High leverage practices
• Gradual release models
• English as Additional language (EAL) programmes
• Whole school literacy intervention programmes
• Launchpad groups (returning to and reintegration into mainstream education)
• Early attention and life skills programmes (as part of our early years support work)
• Nurture groups (especially the secondary school impact on reducing exclusion rates by over half)
• Restorative justice programmes
• Evidence based programmes to develop meaningful lifelong strengths in students with ASD and ADHD
• Assessment and development programmes
• Study skills programmes
• Using philosophy in the classroom to improve motivation and personal understanding
• Developing training videos for schools, parents and staff under EP and researcher guidance
• Completing company research on a range of projects (and some of this has been published and is free to schools as part of our social contribution model)
• Looking at narrative psychology, bibliotherapy and different levels of student thinking and questioning (and you can see examples of this on TH’s website, supported by company psychologists at: www.thelittlehedgehog.com)
• Completing Senior and Principal AP work when you progress into your second, third and fourth years with the company. This includes being part of EP training; learning about different supervision models; learning how to run consultations; advancing first year AP mentoring sessions and providing wider training and support across our schools as part of your outreach work. Third year APs often work with TH to look at bridging, positioning, impactful presentation and coaching skills (and you can see more on TH’s website at: www.mpaoflondon.com)

An AP, Senior AP or Principal AP will also often work in other roles based on the specific needs and requirements of their assigned school. This year this has included:

• Supporting specialist SEMH and ASD bases
• Training teachers on advancing higher quality teaching and learning experiences for students in mainstream schools
• Supporting the setting up and running of nurture groups
• Supporting community psychology projects and
• Helping EPs develop community psychology and wellbeing projects in schools

Empowering teachers, students and families

These are very much school specific programmes based on the needs of the school community. They can include APs supporting:

• Psychologists offering wellbeing groups to teachers
• Psychologist teacher and parent training groups
• Psychologist group coaching
• Psychologist community psychology programmes
• Teacher drop in sessions
• Learning in the classroom focus groups
• Training sessions in your host school (individually or with other APs in the school)
• Completing outreach training and support work in other schools in the company

Supporting psychologists and other APs in the company

The company runs a nine layers of support model. This is aimed at providing:

• A safe space for people to work in. As there are so many layers of communication and support in the company, we are all accountable to each other and responsible for supporting each other’s wellbeing and personal and professional development
• A learning space for people to work in: so, we share ideas and resources; good practice; research and of course, concerns and areas to develop or receive further training on
• A development space: where we can all bring new ideas, discuss them in groups and forums and develop our wider psychological practice

Within these contexts each AP takes responsibility for managing and contributing to their own support structures. These include:

1. At least 20 sessions of psychological supervision a year (and usually many more). APs support their own professional supervision and we train you to engage in supervision professionally with your link psychologists. This includes you sending your supervision records to psychologists in advance; using frameworks that allow psychologists to use psychoeducation; mentoring and coaching questions; and building impact of supervision logs where you explain how you acted upon and developed the supervision and advice you received. All supervision records are stored centrally, and each is confidential inside the company but all supervision records are also reviewed to develop future training and address any areas of need
2. Having at least 40 AP mentoring sessions (for First years) and at least 20 advanced AP mentoring sessions (for Senior APs)
3. Having at least three 1.5 hour reflective supervision sessions with a clinical psychologist and a small group of other APs. The aim of these sessions is to look at your thinking, reflection, casework, case analysis and psychological impact from a clinical perspective
4. Having access to wider supervision from specialist psychologists within the company
5. Having access to ongoing AP discussions, so that you are immersed in psychology through:
   • A whole AP team WhatsApp group (for all APs)
   • A First Year WhatsApp group (for First years)
   • A Senior AP WhatsApp group (where Seniors can discuss the psychological case analysis sessions; CBS sessions work and AP mentoring needs)
   • Primary and Secondary WhatsApp groups for APs in those schools (to make it easier to share and access resources)
   • Specialist project WhatsApp groups
   • Confidential discussions: all of the WhatsApp groups in point 5 are confidential to APs only and not available to wider company employees or consultants
6. Having access to the internal portal materials and resources to support your work (and there are thousands of these)
7. Having access to SENCo and Inclusion Manager mentoring and guidance sessions
8. Having access to specialist CBT, counselling, coaching or psychological support sessions if the psychologist offering the sessions feels that the AP meets eligibility criteria
9. Being supported by the wider infrastructure of EdPsychs

WHAT DOES AP TRAINING WITH EDPSYCHS ENTAIL

There are five major parts to the EdPsychs AP role.

Direct work with psychologists

Psychologists and APs work together as colleagues to:

• Support schools, students, children and families
• Work through co-constructed frameworks and models of information gathering; primary case analysis; evidence based consultation; observation; enquiry; assessment; secondary case analysis; evidence based recommendations; and evaluation and development as part of the EdPsychs 'Under Our Care' model of psychological practice
• Complete systemic (whole school); community and specialist project work
• Run EdPsychs training packages in schools
• Develop school practice and teaching and learning in the school
• Embed psychology in our client schools

As part of this process, APs learn both how to become an AP, but, perhaps more importantly, how to become a future psychologist.

With respect to becoming a future psychologist, APs:

• Learn about HCPC practitioner psychologist guidelines and how EPs implement ethical boundaries and client focused practice in schools
• Learn about and apply BPS professional criteria
• See how different EPs and psychologists work across all levels in a school
• Learn about how different types of psychologists (especially EP, Clinical, Counselling and CBT practitioners) build case analysis
• Learn about and be part of how professional psychologists assess, formulate hypotheses and build professional programmes of support for students
• Have opportunities to work collaboratively alongside other professionals (such as head teachers, senior leaders, teachers, speech and language therapists, educational psychologists, clinical psychologists, counselling psychologists, coaches, cognitive behaviour therapy practitioners and other professional therapists) in schools
• Run psychological programmes and recommendations directly with children, young people and students
• Be supported by and work alongside a school SENCo or Inclusion Manager to better understand the SEN needs of a school
• Have ongoing access to further specialist training, case analysis and discussions around evidence-based practice with their link EP in school
• Learn about cognitive, developmental and social psychology at a practical and applied level
• Learn about the research base for supporting teachers in a classroom
• Learn how modern EPs work to support schools

Developing your own personal and professional skills

APs at EdPsychs are often surprised at their own rate of learning and personal and professional development in their time with the company.

Every AP at EdPsychs is on a story arc and a development curve, and the psychologists within the company co-operate to talk through an APs learning curve, and how they can better support this. APs also learn from:

• Working with psychologists across the company
• Being in meetings with headteachers and senior leaders in a school
• Training teachers, families and school staff
• Being part of AP reading and wellbeing groups (APs often set these up themselves across the company)
• Going to lectures, open evenings and events with other APs
• Engaging in ongoing supervision, mentoring and being an active part of case analysis and co-construction of recommendations
• Working alongside professors of psychology, doctoral tutors and experienced psychologists in the profession
• Applying training and development work in schools on an ongoing basis
• Keeping reflective logs and development records so they can see their own story arc and professional journey developing over time
• Being part of a collaborative team of psychologists working together to develop their skill base

AP training with EdPsychs

EdPsychs training is training that is designed to be applied, used and evaluated. EdPsychs training is psychological.

We build our training days to create deep processing, reflection and personal, professional and psychological development, and they are role model sessions that you can take on into your future work in schools and into your future career.

An EdPsychs training day has a number of parts:

• The build-up: which includes key learning points; core questions to think through; and pre-reading materials so that you arrive primed
• The creation of a safe learning space
• An interactive session which builds on how the human brain thinks, learns, processes and restructures itself (called neural plasticity)
• Discussion and discovery sessions where your thinking and understanding can develop alongside others
• A reflection component so you can evaluate what you have learned and how your thinking has progressed
• An application and recording component so you can show what you have learned, and how you applied it in schools

We place a lot of value on our direct AP training.

We base our AP doctoral references and evaluation of AP story arcs on it, and they are based on:

• How well an AP has conducted themselves in schools as a potential future psychologist
• The quality of an APs supervision, mentoring and reflective practice records
• How well an AP contributed to training, and applied that training in their day to day work in schools
• How well an AP has completed their Learning and Development logs (which sit alongside mentoring and supervision records)

You can see this year’s AP training structure here.

Being immersed in psychology

Being an AP at EdPsychs means that you are immersed in 21st century psychology. APs from EdPsychs:

• Often prepare for doctoral interviews together, supporting each other to develop presentations, their psychological thinking and their understanding of the profession
• Complete TEP days together
• Join doctoral courses together and support each other through that journey (often keeping in touch with previous EdPsychs APs on other courses across the country to further support each other on their journey to become professional psychologists)
• Maintain those friendships and support groups after they have qualified as professional psychologists
• Work together to support the profession and further develop psychological good practice after they have qualified as psychologists

Personal reflection and self-awareness

Being part of a large, dynamic psychology service has a number of benefits with respect to your own personal reflections and self-awareness. Specifically, you can:

• See how your story arc is developing alongside other potential future psychologists
• Ask targeted questions of educational, clinical and counselling psychologists and CBT practitioners and other APs
• Set up reflection and discussion sessions with other APs
• Join other APs on TEP days
• And then discuss your progress with your link psychologist and AP mentors to see how they think you are progressing too

AP FUTURES

• Most people want to become an AP to work alongside professional psychologists; access outstanding training and support; develop their skills in applying psychology and then support schools and students to help them have better futures
• Many APs also want to apply to doctoral courses in psychology in the future too
• EdPsychs can’t train you to gain a place on a doctoral course, as this is not our role. The doctoral courses are very skilled at interviewing and selecting candidates though, and they all provide a range of supporting guidance and entry criteria information. Most of our APs apply for places on educational psychology doctoral courses, and you can see more information and eligibility criteria about educational psychology and applications at: https://www.aep.org.uk/
• We'd strongly advise you to look at the entry criteria for all doctoral courses so you can evaluate if you can or will meet eligibility criteria
• However, we do provide a level of experience, training and support that many of our APs have found helpful in helping them pursue their aspirations of becoming a future psychologist
• At time of writing (January 2024):
  • Over 70 of our APs have progressed onto the doctoral courses across the country in educational psychology
  • Others have progressed onto doctoral training in clinical, counselling and organisational psychology
  • And a number of others have progressed into roles in teaching; coaching; CBT; wellbeing practitioner or onto post graduate psychology courses to develop their skills in another area of psychology
• As the company core values are integrity, freedom and contribution to society, we feel that with our training and development of APs, we are making a valuable contribution to the ongoing development of the profession

AP Pay Scales

We have different types of AP roles (and the salaries shown are based on April 2023 pay scales, and these will be updated in April 2024 after the new government budget is announced).

First Year APs: Assistant Psychologists in their first year work with the company in term time only (39 academic weeks of the year). As such this is a 0.75 contract which is paid at £22,693.33 a year pro rata (which means that a first year AP earns £17,020 for these 39 weeks of work in term time only).

As these are 0.75 contracts, APs are allowed to have other forms of income as long as there is no conflict of interest with an EdPsychs’ AP role, and they are available to support schools in core hours (usually 9am-4pm in term time, but APs can negotiate exact working hours with their host school). Our client schools expect almost all AP work to be direct in the school.

Many APs also do personal tutoring, research and additional jobs in the school holidays.

Second Year APs: After one year with the company, we may offer you a Senior Assistant Psychologist role. Senior Assistant Psychologists earn £25,000 a year pro-rata (which equates to £18,756 for 39 weeks in term time only).

Senior APs can also work on company projects. These are 100 hour projects and first year APs (who have agreed to do a future Senior role) and Senior APs need to apply internally for these roles in June of each year, and they are paid at Senior AP rates.

Again, as these are 0.75 contracts, Senior APs are allowed to have other forms of income as long as there is no conflict of interest with an EdPsychs’ AP role, and they are available to support schools in core hours (usually 9am-4pm in term time, but Senior APs can negotiate exact working hours with their host school). Again, our client schools expect almost all AP work to be direct in the school.

Many Senior APs also do personal tutoring, research and additional jobs in the school holidays.

TO APPLY TO BE AN AP

August 30th 2024 AP starting dates:

• Opening date: 7th February 2024. First interviews start in early March 2024. Interviews run until all schools are allocated (this is usually by early to mid-August of each year, and early applicants offered a role have a wider choice of schools to choose from).

April 2024 roles:

• Opening date for these roles is also 7th February 2024, with a late April induction start date.

School locations

We will have AP roles this year (2024-2025) in Croydon, Dagenham and Redbridge, Greenwich, Harringay, Harrow, Hillingdon, Kent, Lambeth, Richmond, Slough, Southwark, Sutton and Watford.

These are in a range of primary, secondary and specialist schools.

Apply here