Secondary Language Link webinar – 4th February 2025
Dear Head Teachers and Senior Leaders
We hope this finds you well. We wanted to share a reminder with regards to an exciting offer of support to Bexley mainstream schools.
Following the initial roll out of Safety Valve interventions, secondary Head Teachers requested support to better meet the needs of their students with speech, language and communication needs. We thank you for your participation in the review and for welcoming us at your secondary heads forum. Following information gathering exercises and attendance at various forums we would like to present our offer of support which will be access to Secondary Language Link.
Secondary Language Link is an evidence based tool that combines a standardised assessment and targeted interventions with measured outcomes and a teacher training package. It enables schools to identify and effectively support the language and communication needs of students aged 11-14 years, boosting attainment and improving life chances.
The model for delivery will be slightly different to other Safety Valve interventions your school may be accessing. Bexley secondary schools will be given a licence to access secondary language link. This will allow schools to access whole school support all year round and not just when our Safety Valve staff come in. In addition, during specific times of the year an EISAS member of staff will visit your school to deliver interventions to groups of students to increase your capacity for delivery. Access to the licence means that as a school you will also have the opportunity to deliver interventions throughout the year even when we haven’t assigned a member of EISAS.
We have attached some additional information which explains the tool in more detail including the Speech and Language Link Company brochure. Details of Secondary Language Link can be found from page 9 onwards. We have also included the Speech and Language Link Impact brochure with details of two secondary impact studies from page 14 onwards.
We appreciate there is a lot of information to digest and would like to invite you to an information session to hear how this will work in your school. The information session will be on TUESDAY 4th FEBRUARY at 1.30 – 3:00pm. This session will be virtual via MS Teams and a link for the meeting is included below.
The meeting id and passcode are:
Meeting ID: 385 592 381 465
Passcode: K6x7zC3P
The session will include:
- An overview of the Secondary Language Link package provided by Judith McMillan (Business Partnership Manager for Speech Link Multimedia Ltd) including; identification and support of pupils with SLCN, the link between behaviour and language, SEMH and language, how does the programme support your staff to work with pupils with SLCN and how does it support the Senior Leadership Team?
- Judith will also talk about how the programme links with oracy targets, the impact on attainment and how it can be used in reporting for Ofsted.
- Details of collaborative delivery in Bexley including support from the EISAS team and details of the commitment needed from schools.
We would encourage you to prioritise attendance at this session wherever possible. We will be also be delivering a second information session on Wednesday 11th February which is designed for SENCos and any Teaching Assistants or support staff, who may be involved in supporting the setup of groups, to hear more detail about this intervention. We would be grateful if you would encourage your staff to attend.
We look forward to seeing you (virtually) on the 4th February at 1:30pm and to working with you on this exciting project.
Please do get in touch if you have any queries.
Kind Regards
The Secondary Language Link Team
Hannah Sullivan
Specialist Advice Team Manager
Early Intervention and Specialist Advice Service
Secondary language link leaflet 04.02.25
