Talking Communication
An evidenced and targeted intervention that prepares students aged 14-18 for their transition into a work environment.
Designed and evaluated by Speech and Language UK the children's communication charity.
How It Works
Talk About Talk Secondary is delivered by a trained education practitioner within your education setting.
1Learn
One or more education practitioners attend Talk About Talk Secondary training. These could be teaching assistants, teachers or a SENCo
2Identify
Your newly trained education practitioner/s use student questions and staff views to identify suitable students using the Talk for Work Profile.
3Deliver
Over 13 teaching sessions, students work towards co-delivering a workshop about communication skills for local businesses.
4Track
Access to an online tracker allows settings to gather useful data in the form of printed reports.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know to decide if Talk About Talk is right for your secondary setting
What does it take to become a Talk About Talk Secondary practitioner?
Training takes just one full day. Practitioners will leave with a deeper knowledge of speech, language and communication and how needs may present at secondary school. They will learn in detail how to plan and run a Talk For Work course and how to track student progress.
Which students would benefit from Talk About Talk Secondary?
Talk About Talk is designed for students aged 14-18 with ‘poor’ or delayed language development. Groups of six students are recommended, but once your setting has a trained practitioner and the Talk For Work intervention pack, the intervention can be run multiple times so that many students can benefit.
Can students with complex speech, language and communication needs benefit? What about students with autism?
Although the programme is not designed for students with identified complex speech, language and communication needs such as autism and developmental language disorder, some schools have included students with these types of difficulties. These schools needed to differentiate the materials further and work through the intervention at a slower pace, but reported good results in terms of changes to student confidence and ability to work as part of a team.
What will the students learn?
Students who are selected to take part in the intervention will learn and practice the communication skills that support other ‘soft’ employability skills such as team working, time management and problem-solving. Students work towards co-delivering workshops about communication skills to an audience in their school and then to local businesses. Workshops help students apply these skills and a range of tools help them reflect on their progress throughout the lessons.
How do we track progress?
Practitioners are trained to use the Talk For Work Profile to profile students' strengths and difficulties in the communication skills they need in the workplace. The Profile is not a formal assessment, and is not standardised against age norms, but has two parts:
- Student Questions: questions for staff to ask the student.
- Staff Views: questions that staff complete from their knowledge of the student.
In addition, there is a Student Self-Rating Scale which has questions that the student completes with support from school staff, if necessary.
The Talk About Talk Secondary resource pack includes access to I CAN's online tracker, which will enable you to produce graphs of the scores and download and print individual reports for parents and teachers and group reports for leadership, as well as governors and commissioners.
Why choose Talk About Talk Secondary?
Year on year employers state that the young people they employ lack the communication skills necessary for the workplace. Speech and Language UK, the children's communication charity, designed Talk For Work as a means to help young people understand and improve their own communication skills in preparation for work.
Ofsted have also indicated that schools need to do more to prepare young people for life beyond school.
What does Talk About Talk Secondary cost?
To get started, settings will need to purchase resources and train at least one teaching assistant, teacher or SENCo as a Talk About Talk Secondary practitioner.
The Talk For Work Intervention Pack including all of the above costs £250.00 and is purchased from Speech and Language UK and contains the following materials:
- An intervention manual containing detailed lesson plans and resources.
- Printed student workbooks to help students reflect on and apply the skills they are learning.
- Access to the online Talk for Work Profile and Tracker, where you can monitor student progress and print reports.
- Online presentations and specifically designed films to support all lessons.
- Additional online materials to organise and run the communication workshops for the audience
For a quote to train your practitioner(s) to deliver Talk For Work please contact us.
Contact Us
Questions? Need a quote? Happy to help!
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© 2020
Jaya Simpson BMedSci (Hons), HCPC reg, trading as Talking Communication