Signs of Golden success for New Bridge School

An Oldham school catering for children with special educational needs has successfully achieved Gold Status with a prestigious training organisation.

New Bridge School, part of the New Bridge Multi Academy Trust, provides a variety of special educational needs for the majority of its 400 students, aged 11-16, who come from Oldham and surrounding authorities.

Now the school has successfully met the criteria and joined the Signalong Friendly Membership family, achieving Gold Status. 

Signalong provides training and resources to assist those with communication difficulties and English as an additional language.

Signalong is a key word sign-supported communication system based on British sign language and is used in spoken word order.

 It uses speech, sign, body language, facial expression and voice tone to reference the link between sign and word.

Alison Tootill, New Bridge school’s headteacher, said: “We are incredibly proud to be receiving this recognition of the work we have been doing to ensure all our children and young people are able to communicate effectively at school, at home and in their local community.

“New Bridge’s drive is to ensure all our students have meaningful pathways and destinations.

"We are proud supporters of Signalong and would like to let others know of our commitment to providing a signing inclusive environment for all our students."

Signalong is committed to empowering children and adults' to communicate, understand and express their needs, choices and desires by providing vocabulary for life and learning. 

New Bridge School is supporting students to gain greater fulfilment, independence, Improvement in self-esteem and relationships through Signalong.

They have trained staff in Signalong phase one, and the Sign of the Week is shared and used across school and shared on its social media platforms.

They also have Signalong visual aids around school and outside each room to help cue students into their lessons.

One of our success stories is Yousaf, who began his Signalong journey last year - he has been an avid Signalong user. 

Similarly, James has also grown in confidence through using Signalong - both are eager to learn and use new signs and they often feature in the school Sign of the Week videos which are shared on social media platforms and the school website.

Alongside these two students, Arvind has also enjoyed learning and using Signalong in class and the wider school. 

Ms Tootill says he has grown in confidence in communicating and enjoys the positive interactions with others around the school.

New Bridge pledges to continue to provide an inclusive communication environment for all. 

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