Talk for Work (formerly called Talk about Talk Secondary) is an evidenced targeted intervention that helps students aged 14 to 18 with difficulties in talking and understanding words to be ready for the workplace. It can be used in both secondary schools and Further Education colleges.

The programme consists of a series of 13 fully planned one-hour lessons delivered by trained teaching or support staff.

Students who are selected to take part in the intervention will learn and practise 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.

Year on year employers state that the young people they employ lack the communication skills necessary for the work place (summarised in Skills for Life: Skills for work, I CAN 2016). Ofsted have also indicated that schools need to do more to prepare young people for life beyond school.

Talk for Work evaluation report

The training is suitable for Teachers, Teaching Assistants and Special Educational Needs Coordinators who will deliver the programme.

The one-day training course provides background on speech, language and communication needs as well as providing full details and materials to deliver the lessons and workshops.

The training is delivered on-site in your school. Schools who only train small numbers of staff may wish to consider joining with other schools locally to share the cost.

Once you have booked the training course, you will receive 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, 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 audience

The Talk for Work Intervention Pack including all of the above costs £250.00.

Get in touch on info@speechandlanguage.org.uk or 0207 843 2515 to talk to our team about Talk for Work, for help with arranging training. You can then purchase the Intervention Pack directly on our online shop.

Practitioner and Tutor resources

All the practitioner and tutor resources for our programmes can be found on our new learning portal.

Please register or sign in here.

Programmes tracker

To help you access the online tracker, we have created a number of resources that will show you how to set up your account and get the most out of the tracker.

• Watch the introductory ‘Quick Start‘ video
• Read the more in depth ‘How To‘ guide
• View a common set of Frequently Asked Questions

To Set up an account please visit www.speechandlanguagetracker.org.uk

Please note, that all the PDFs of the trackers can be found in the resources section of the tracker and on the Learning Centre (register using the link given above).

Talk for Work evaluation report (produced as I CAN)