Other names for a shadow teacher

UAE schools following the British curriculum almost always say learning support assistant, shortened to LSA. Those following an American curriculum more often say para-educator, paraprofessional or instructional aide. Inclusion assistant and support assistant appear in both. When a school allocates one adult to one child it may add one-to-one or 1:1 in front of any of these.

When a school tells you your child needs an LSA, it is usually describing exactly the support a shadow teacher provides. Our learning support assistant page covers what schools mean by the term and how it is typically arranged.

Two more terms appear in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, where ADEK's inclusion policies shape the vocabulary: individual support assistant and learning support teacher. The second of these can mean a qualified teacher in the inclusion department rather than a one-to-one assistant, so ask which the school means. Sharjah schools under SPEA and Ministry of Education schools in the northern emirates mostly use shadow teacher and support assistant interchangeably.

Centres that run applied behaviour analysis programmes talk about behaviour technicians, or registered behaviour technicians (RBT) when the person holds that credential. A technician placed in a classroom is doing shadow teaching with a clinical programme attached. Some centres also use the term school support therapist or ABA shadow.

The distinction to keep in mind is supervision: a behaviour technician normally works under a supervising analyst, whereas a shadow teacher hired directly works under the school's inclusion team.

Teachers describing themselves tend to write shadow teacher, SEN assistant, special needs assistant or learning support teacher. Job adverts in the UAE use all of these, plus teaching assistant and classroom aide. If you are searching profiles, try more than one term: a teacher who calls herself an SEN assistant is often exactly the person you need.

On ShadowTeacher every profile is listed under the same heading regardless of the label the teacher prefers, so a search of verified teachers by city and specialty finds them all.

A few nearby terms describe different roles. A special educator or SEN teacher is a qualified teacher who plans and delivers specialist teaching, often in a resource room or small group. A tutor works outside school hours on academic content. A speech therapist or occupational therapist delivers therapy, not classroom support. A shadow teacher may work alongside all of these, but replaces none of them.

If you are weighing which role your child needs, the guide on shadow teacher vs LSA vs SEN tutor sets the three side by side.

Use the school's own term. If the inclusion lead says LSA, write LSA in every email and form, because that is the word that will appear on the approved-staff list and in any agreement. If the school uses shadow teacher, do the same. Mixing terms tends to produce confusion about whether the person is school staff or yours.

When describing the person's job to a candidate, be concrete instead of relying on a label: in class every day, one child, following the individual education plan, reporting to the inclusion lead, hours and pay agreed with the family.