School-Based Speech and Language Therapist (Band 5 to 7)
Mole Valley, Surrey
Permanent contract, £30,000 to £45,000 per annum, depending on experience
Full-Time, Term-time only, September 2026 Start
Interviews arranged as soon as possible
Did you choose this career to sit in back-to-back clinics, chasing referrals and writing discharge summaries? Or did you choose it because you believed you could genuinely help a child find their voice?
Most Speech and Language Therapists know exactly what good therapy looks like. The frustration is rarely about skill. It is about not having the conditions to actually deliver it.
This role exists because a school was built to get that right.
The school
This is a permanent, full-time Speech and Language Therapist position within a specialist independent school in Surrey, supporting children and young people aged 7 to 16. Every pupil holds an Education, Health and Care Plan. Every pupil has Autism. Many have co-occurring Social, Emotional and Mental Health needs, and a significant number present with complex communication profiles that require consistent, skilled, and relationship-based support.
The school was purpose-built around a therapeutic model. It was not a mainstream school that added a therapy room. It was designed from the ground up with the understanding that children with Autism and SEMH cannot access learning without the right therapeutic conditions around them.
That distinction shapes everything about how this school operates, how decisions are made, and what your working day will actually look like.
A school designed around therapy, not the other way around
Therapy here sits at the centre of school life, not on its edges.
You will have access to dedicated therapy spaces that are properly resourced and protected. You will not be chasing rooms, squeezing sessions into lunch breaks, or working around a timetable that treats therapy as an inconvenience. The school's leadership understands that Speech and Language Therapy is not a supplementary service. It is a core part of how these children learn, communicate, and develop.
The school also benefits from an extensive outdoor, nature-based learning environment, which forms a genuine and meaningful part of the curriculum. For children with Autism and social communication differences, flexible, sensory-aware spaces outside the classroom can unlock engagement and communication that a clinical setting cannot replicate. As the school's SLT, you will have the opportunity to work creatively across that environment, not just within it.
The multidisciplinary team
You will not be working in isolation.
The school has built a genuine multidisciplinary team, which includes specialist teachers trained in Autism and SEMH, an occupational therapist, and pastoral and support staff who understand therapeutic practice and how to embed it into the school day. This is a team that was recruited with collaboration in mind.
Decisions about pupils are made together. EHCPs are reviewed with input from across the team. Your clinical recommendations will be listened to, acted on, and respected. If you have spent time in settings where therapy feels separate from education, this will feel meaningfully different.
What your caseload will involve
Your caseload will be varied and clinically interesting. The children you support will present with a range of communication profiles, and no two cases will look the same.
You can expect to work across areas including social communication differences, pragmatic language development, receptive and expressive language processing, emotional regulation and its relationship to communication, Augmentative and Alternative Communication where appropriate, and the development of functional communication strategies for use across the school day.
Beyond direct therapy, you will contribute to EHCP assessments and annual reviews, provide written reports, liaise with families and external professionals, and work alongside teaching staff to help them understand and apply communication strategies in the classroom and beyond. Your expertise will shape how the whole school thinks about communication, not just the children on your caseload.
Who does this role suit
This role is open to Speech and Language Therapists at Band 5, 6, or 7. Whether you are an experienced clinician looking for a setting that matches your ambition, or an early-career SLT who wants to build a specialism in Autism and social communication from the start, this school has the structure and the team to support your development.
You must be registered with the Health and Care Professions Council and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.
Experience working with Autistic children or young people with social communication differences is an advantage at Band 6 and 7. At Band 5, a genuine interest in this area of practice and a willingness to learn within a strong MDT is what matters most.
You may be coming from an NHS paediatric caseload and finding that the system is pulling you away from the clinical work you trained to do. You may be in an independent or community role and looking for the stability, collaboration, and consistency that a school-based permanent position can offer. You may simply want to wake up on a Monday morning and feel that where you are going is worth your best effort.
Whatever your background, if communication is what you care about and children with Autism are who you want to work with, this is a role worth exploring seriously.
If you are interested in this Speech and Language Therapist position, apply now or contact Heeji Moon at Parker Smith Inclusion.