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Other education staff or staff working with schools

Belgium - German-Speaking Community

10.Management and other education staff

10.4Other education staff or staff working with schools

Last update: 10 June 2022

In addition to the teaching staff, the regular and special schools in the German-speaking Community also have staff members who perform supporting or advisory tasks. In addition, external services are available to advise pupils and school staff.

Members of the supporting staff :

- The educational support staff

- The administrative staff

- The social-psychological staff

- The paramedical staff

- The Teacher-Mediothekar

- The remedial teacher in the regular primary school

External consultancy services include

- School inspection, school development counselling and counselling for inclusion and integration

- The Center for the Healthy Development of Children and Youth Kaleido-east Belgium

- The competence centre at the Centre for Special Needs Education

- The external evaluation

- The expert advice at the Autonomous University

The educational support staff

In the regular primary schools, kindergarten assistants belong to the educational support staff. They support the kindergarten teachers logistically in the preparation and implementation of activities. They deal with the children during and outside of the activities, supervise them and help with hygiene.

Supervisors-educators are employed at the regular secondary schools. They accompany and look after the pupils and take on supervisory and administrative tasks.

Also in the boarding schools, which are affiliated to the schools, supervisors-educators are employed who accompany the boarding students and look after and supervise them outside of school hours.

At the special schools, on the one hand, there is the coordination of special education, which, among other things, advises the teaching staff on questions of lesson planning, goal-oriented differentiation and the implementation of support measures, which may have to be coordinated in cooperation with external therapists. The school and learning facilitators at the special schools support the teaching staff primarily in drawing up individual support plans and are active in the area of further education.

The administrative staff

Both primary and secondary schools have administrative staff (e.g. head secretaries, accountants, etc.) who provide administrative support for the school management and take over accounting tasks.

The social-psychological staff

The largest technical-vocational secondary school has an educational psychological advisor who is primarily responsible for the psycho-social and psycho-pedagogical care of the pupils and advises the school staff in difficult educational questions or crisis situations.

At the special schools, pupils are supported by psychosocial assistants and social assistants. They also advise the school staff and are in contact with parents and external services.

The paramedical staff

Nursery nurses at the special schools offer medical support and are responsible for appropriate arrangements between school and parents. Logopaedics, occupational and kinesiotherapists, on the other hand, fulfil a therapeutic mission. They also work closely with class teachers and parents.

Teacher-mediothekar

All secondary schools in the German-speaking Community have school mediators who are equipped and structured according to a uniform concept. The task of the teacher-mediothecaries is on the one hand to support and administer the Mediotek and on the other hand to impart information and media competence by advising and accompanying the pupils and school staff. The training of teachers to become teacher-mediothecaries is carried out through an additional training offered in the German speaking community.

The remedial teacher in the regular primary school

To provide support in the area of low-threshold support, remedial teachers are employed in the regular primary schools. Their main task is to advise the school team on questions of special education. At the same time ise also work individually with pupils and groups of pupils and are responsible for coordinating the cooperation between all relevant partners (school team, parents, Kaleido, therapists). Primary school teachers are mainly trained in the field of special needs education through further training organised in the German-speaking Community.

School inspection, school development and school counselling for inclusion and integration

The School Inspection, School Development Counselling and School Counselling for Inclusion and Integration is an external inspection and counselling service entrusted with quality assurance and development in education in the German-speaking Community. The School Inspectorate is primarily responsible for the assessment and evaluation of staff members and advises them in their personal professional professionalisation. The School Development Advisory Service advises schools with regard to their own quality development in the areas of pedagogy, organisation and personnel. The School Advisory Service for Inclusion and Integration is responsible for quality assurance in the field of special needs education. It prepares expert reports on special needs education and develops, accompanies and checks concepts in the field of special needs education.

The Centre for the Healthy Development of Children and Adolescents, Kaleido-east Belgium

The Centre for the Healthy Development of Children and Adolescents, called Kaleido- East Belgium, is a multidisciplinary service that cares for pregnant women and families as well as children and adolescents from 0-20 years. In addition to psychosocial support and counseling for students and teachers in the schools, Kaleido offers preventive health check-ups throughout the school years. For pregnant women and families with children between 0 and 3 years of age, Kaleido offers a comprehensive range of counselling services and preventive medical checkups including vaccinations. The service is also involved in various projects to prevent sexually transmitted diseases and bullying, for example.

Competence centres

At the competence centre of the Centre for Foerderpädagogik the support pedagogical consultants work in service and schools. They are experts in the field of socio-emotional behavioural disorders. Reading - spelling weakness, dyscalculia, interculturality and language promotion - contact persons for school administrations, school teams and class teachers in questions of remedial education and promote the expansion of remedial education competences of school staff. The competence centre is also active in the field of prevention, especially in the transition from kindergarten to primary school.

The external evaluation

The external evaluation is entrusted with the systemic analysis of framework conditions, teaching and work processes of all mainstream and special schools. To this end, the external evaluators, during their regular visits, take an external view of the school as a system and consider designated quality areas. Their aim is to promote school and teaching development and to achieve a certain quality standard in all schools.

The specialist counselling at the Autonomous University

The professional counselling at the Autonomous University of Applied Sciences in the German-speaking Community is organised in the form of a professional counselling group consisting of a professional and a pedagogic lecturer of the University and a practitioner (active teacher) with the aim of contributing to the improvement of the quality of schooling and teaching in the long term. It covers the kindergarten as well as the subjects German, Mathematics, French, History, Geography, Music and Art in the primary school. Specialist counselling for secondary schools in the core subjects German, French, mathematics and natural sciences is currently being developed. The subject groups answer specific questions from teachers and provide advice based on competencies and framework plans.