Talking Point is an online resource for information on children’s communication. It also offers support and advice for school students with communication difficulties.
Tips for school students
By now, your teachers and an officer from your Local Authority should have begun to plan with you about what to do after school finishes. This is called a transition plan. This work should have started at your Yr9/10 review meeting to look at progress in your EHC plan. Stick with this plan.
You probably describe yourself having a ‘learning difficulty’. In future, many of the forms and information you read about help you can get use the word ‘disability’. This is ok because disability officially includes SLCN.
You might be lucky and have a local Careers Service to help you with this transition. But many have disappeared and those that remain have lots of different names. Look on your Local Authority website to find out if they have a Careers Service.
There is a National Careers Service for all of England but they do not have a disability specialist. So they won’t be able to offer much help to you – just basic information.
Teachers and other professionals at your school will probably give you the best advice. They will use their experience to tell you what worked best for other students in your position.
Advice about finding a college course
First, you need to decide whether you feel able to do a course designed for all students, or a course at a specialist college with expertise in supporting students with a learning difficulty such as SLCN.
For information about courses which are suitable for all students, the National Careers Service website will let you search for a course you’re interested in (e.g. joinery) and tell you all the organisations that provide the course near your home. The site provides short descriptions of what each course involves.
If you find more than one course near you which looks good, the Skills Funding Agency lets you compare which one gets the best results and is rated highly by learners.
If you want to go to a specialist college for students who have different types of learning difficulty and disabilities, a good place to get information is the ‘Natspec Colleges Directory’ on the Association of National Specialist Colleges website. Although these are independent colleges, most are approved by government and will have an S41 symbol to show this. These colleges have agreed that when they are selected on a student’s EHC plan, the college must offer the student a place.
Each Local Authority must provide a Local Offer listing all the organisations it approves to provide support for young people with SEN living in the area. You can visit your local council’s website to find out about what the local offer is near where you live.
Before you make a final decision about which college to go to, we recommend that you visit ones you’re interested in with your parents during an Open Day. This avoids the problem of you having a long difficult conversation with one member of staff which could be exhausting. At an Open Day (check the college’s website for details) you can ask questions when you want and walk around the building. Other students interested in attending the college will also be there on an Open Day.
Also if you’re thinking of a mainstream college, contact the college’s Learning Support Department, so you can explain your needs and find out what sort of help they can provide. It is important to check what types of needs typical students at the college have. Make sure you’re not going to be in a peer group of students who are much more disabled than you.
For more information go to the Talking Point website
Written by Rachel Harrison, speech and language therapist, on behalf of Integrated Treatment Services.
