Moondog ,? salt help please

[Phoenix4725]

Ok have been doing lot of thinking recently , with ds going to school have been thinking what to do a been toying with either Lsa or am giving serious thought about going back to school and training as a salt , would I be considered to old to start now at 35?.Is come about as have realised just how much we take language for granted till had ds and seen everything from the bad one approach fits all , to the very good where they see the child

Would be very interested in the response as I am 36 and have been having the very same thoughts,

would give real meaning to the words mature student

old fart student more like

I'm a SALT

You could train, I think. When I was at university, the upper age limit was 40 (because the NHS pay towards therefore have to be guaranteed some working life out of you!).

The issues would be (1) your existing qualifications (the standard entry is three good A levels and competition is tough - you may get on with an appropriate access course but in my experience, these students honestly struggle with the academic demands - 3 A levels is better).

Also (2) your motivation (sorry, sounds terrible - having an SN child makes you very qualified in one way but your motivation MAY be questioned)

(3) your interest and ability in linguistics

There were about 26 started in my year group - 6 were mature students. 4 dropped out (all had done access courses in place of A levels).

See, my experience of Access (and more importantly of every Uni I spoke to) is the reverse- one Uni told me they expected mature students with Access to to get far more firsts than their counterparts

The trick is to find a really good Access course- mine was at a top FE College and the Study Skills tutor Head of Mature Entry at a Russell Group Uni, so she knew her stuff!

Phoenix- almost every college has an open week in the coming fortnight- go, take a list of questions and ask.

I am not a SALT obv, just out in MA application for one in ASD though and returned to stusy at 31, graduated at 35 last year.

Good luck!

ok ty for replying

I do have A levels but was a long time ago winces at how long agobut think access course be good first.But am hoping being mature student they would realise its not a whim an something really wanted

Its fascination with language always had it speak both french and Italian but took for granted talking english and now realise just how much goes into it

Be intresting aftr those 4 droppe dout how many of the youngerstudents stayed inand how many still working in salt now.studying not a issue lol am constanly studying an dlearning new things to help ds

well hoping 40 been upped since then as were all expected to work longer now

Know where would like to work and yes it is with sn kids/adults hae done pecs training and makton also would like to learn more about ABA to

Pheonix - then you'd stand a good chance.

I'm not sure you would need to do an access course if you already had A levels - I guess it depends what the subjects were - but it might help to have evidence of "recent study".

As a SALT, I have been involved in the interview process for one of the universities, so I have some idea of how it works.

You would certainly need evidence of "work experience" shadowing an SLT for some period of time. This can be tricky to organise because SLT departments already struggle to cater for the students already on the course. Your best bet would be to ask for shadowing outside of term time if that's possible for you.

I have no direct experience of access courses, just know that many of our access students dropped out. One who didn't drop out still struggled hugely with the academic demands and if I'm being completely frank, she got herself a reputation for going to other people's houses to "work on assignments together" when she couldn't do the work for herself.

Perhaps the issue here is that it tends to be mature students who use access courses as a means to enter HE and mature students do tend to be quite motivated and to get good degrees.

..and I meant to add that many of the SLTs who trained with me remain in the profession, albeit they usually have small children and work part time.

Interestingly, the girl who had the reputation for copying other people's work no longer works for the NHS - she works privately, which goes to show that the actual standard of a private SLT is not guaranteed to be higher!

A friend of mine is training to be an sn salt volunteer, running salt groups for children with Downs Syndrome. Thats an alternative if you don't need to do it for the money.

alison mine were a long time ago almost 18 years
.Did maths,Englsh and Biology not much use now.And no recent study dc kept me to busy so think acccess course be good way ease self back

lanuages no formal qualifcations othe rthan oldr ds dad wa sitalian and his friends and nosy cow hated being left out conversations.

And now use them to earwigs conversations as none expects english speak anything other than english .

(My A levels were 1991 too)!!

Alison it may be that Access has changed somewhata s well? Mine was in 2005

Go for it Phoenix, tbh you;re similar to me in that I had A levels but old ones )1992) and needed to reengage my brain; my guess is that Access would work, or maybe even some higher level study? Definitely get along to adult education events this week.

For me, the question was never about academics: it was confidence. That'swhat Access deliverd for me. Whereas I can think of one or two students (out of about 15) who were just scraping by certainly. My course though was famous for getting someone into medical school, another got an offer out of 8000 at a Russell group (after an arduous process involving asessed essays) and I got an offer at bristol on the basis of reference (didn't take it, too expensive to live)

So it might be worth researching the rep of your local Access?