Any Speech Therapists around? I am thinking of retraining...

[Oudhe]

Hi all, not sure if there are many specs therapists on here!

After having seen the impact of speech therapy with my niece, I've decided that it would be amazing to work as a speech therapist in a special school.

But I'm not sure how easy it would be to find these positions, or how popular the roles would be.

So my question is... Are there many direct hire roles available in special schools? Are there particular times of the year that they recruit (like with teachers)? Thank you!

Just doing some googling and it seems a lot of the special school jobs are provided as a locum/through a private speech therapy practice rather than as a direct hire, is this the case?

I'm an SLT. It varies a lot. Some special schools employ SLTs directly. Others get their service from the NHS or a private company. In these cases, you might work across several schools. Different types of special schools have different levels of SLT input depending on size of the school and need of the pupils e.g. a school for language disorder will obviously have a high need for SLT.

Is there a reason you are keen to work directly for the school? There are benefits to this, in terms of being a team member and only being in one place but there can be benefits to the other options too. Although via the NHS route you won't necessarily just get special schools as a B5; they might want you to do mainstream too. Recruitment happens any time but summer is a peak time to coincide with graduating and the new school year. Lots of jobs go on trac jobs.

My friend is a SLT and is finding it really hard to recruit and I'm sure she said there were others

So I would say go ahead

I'm a Speech and Language Therapist and part of my role in the NHS is in a special school. I think its better to have a mixed post where possible, easier to gain experience and skills working across school and clinics. School is definitely easier with experience (Band 6 role) due to the variation in caseloads.

I’m not an SLT myself but work very closely with them in my role. I’d say your biggest barrier is actually getting onto the course - do you have a related UG degree? If so then you can do a two year masters but it’s very competitive. If not then you can do a UG degree but again, it’s tricky to get a place as they are limited. Have you looked into courses?

Thanks all for your comments and the food for thought. It sounds like a really worthwhile career.

To answer a question, I think it would be great to be employed by one school as I’d imagine you’d really be able to get to know the school and its staff well, and really see the journey of the children as they progress?

Also from what I have been reading online, I think working in mainstream would be quite challenging as you’d have to be able to diagnose DLD which seems to be contentious? Not sure I would be able to wrap my head around it lol!

@Crabsy yes I think I would be eligible to get onto the undergrad course from what I’ve read, such a shame the course is no longer funded though!

Lots more thinking required…

My son has been to 5 different special schools and they’ve never had a ST attached, always a travelling one and from the same group that saw him years ago when he was still in mainstream.

There’s a poster who’s the mum of a young man with complex needs and she was going back to uni in either the autumn of 2018 or 2019 to train as a ST.

I wish I could remember her name as I think of her and her son often and she’d be an ideal person to chat to you about this.