Teacher Assistant

THE SALVATION ARMY 

NORTH AND CENTRAL ILLINOIS DIVISION 

CHILCARE 

JOB DESCRIPTION  

POSITION TITLE:                      Teacher Assistant – Head Start

LOCATION/DEPT:                     North & Central Illinois Division / Child Care

REPORTS TO:                           Teacher/Site Director

PAY GRADE:                              202

PAY RANGE:                             $17.00-$20.40

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Safety
   1. Demonstrates safety practices.
   2. Minimizes potential hazards.
   3. Provides adequate supervision.
   4. Provides safety instruction.
2. Health
   1. Maintains a healthy classroom environment.
   2. Assists the teacher in planning and implementing activities that promote personal health and sound nutrition.
3. Learning Environment
   1. Maintains learning environment.
   2. Assists the teacher in planning and implementing activities that promote an interest in the learning environment offering a choice of learning center activities for at least sixty minutes each day.
      1. Physical
         1. Assists the teacher in planning and implementing activities that promote the physical development of each child.
         2. Maintains an environment conducive to development of physical skills.
      2. Cognitive
         1. Assists the teacher in planning and implementing activities that promote questioning, probing exploration and problem solving.
         2. Helps children develop conceptual framework for interpreting experiences, including:
      3. Classification
         1. Seriation
         2. Number
         3. Spatial relations
         4. Representation
         5. Time
4. Communication
   1. Promotes children’s listening skills.
      1. Promotes clear articulation and language production.
      2. Promotes adult-child communication.
      3. Promotes child-child communication.
5. Creative
   1. Supplies equipment and materials that encourage creativity.
   2. Encourages innovative uses of materials and divergent thinking.
   3. Self
   4. Assists the teacher in assessing each child’s current skill level.
   5. Writes observation notes weekly on C.A.R
   6. Summarizes child’s skills two times per year on C.O.R
   7. Plans and implements activities which maximize opportunities for success.
   8. Provides positive feedback to children when appropriate.
6. Social
   1. Assists the teacher in planning and implementing activities that develop awareness of feelings and emotions.
      1. Capitalizes on spontaneous occurrences of empathy, display of feelings and emotions throughout the day.
      2. Serves as role model.
7. Guidance
   1. Maintains an environment conducive to preventive discipline.
   2. Maintains consistent discipline in the classroom.
   3. Sets and enforces appropriate limits.
   4. Maintains a positive approach to classroom control and recognizes self-control as a learning process.
   5. Organizes smooth and appropriate transitions.
   6. Focuses on activity at hand rather than children’s behavior.
   7. Ignores inappropriate behavior when possible.
   8. “lets go” of negative instances: does not harbor grudges.
   9. Encourages children to make appropriate choices in controlling their own behavior.
   10. Avoids excessive lining up. 
8. Families
   1. Involves parents in the classroom program.
   2. Involves parents in extending the classroom program into the home.
   3. Assists the teacher in sharing info