Who will benefit from Speech & Language Therapy support in Primary School ?

We work with both students and staff at school so there is a far-reaching benefit to school and students alike. We can train staff to develop knowledge and skills of speech, language and communication needs, so that they can create a communication supportive classroom to enable students to access the curriculum more easily. We can train staff in evidence based interventions so that groups of children can benefit from regular support and we can work directly with individual students who have very specific or specialist needs.

How does WMSLT work with Primary Schools?

Our experienced primary school speech & language therapists will work in partnership with school staff, parents and school partners to support and advise on speech, language and communication needs.
We understand that no two schools are the same or have the same requirements, therefore we aim to offer a broad range of universal, targeted and specialist services which are tailored to meet your individual needs and budget. We achieve this by:

1) listening and understanding your requirements and setting joint service objectives and working with you to develop an action plan to meet the desired outcomes (PLAN)

2) delivering a bespoke set of universal, targeted and specialist interventions to address the identified need. (DO)
3) constantly evaluating the effectiveness of the service and measuring progress towards the long-term objectives (REVIEW)

Benefits of working with West Midlands
Speech & Language Therapy

Planning the service with you

When we first meet with you, the WMSLT therapists will be keen to understand your current context and what you already have in place to support speech, language and communication and your desired outcomes. The WMSLT service will then support you in developing an action plan that is bespoke to YOUR NEEDS as a school with the ultimate goal of improving outcomes for your children.

In almost every school there will be a small cohort of students that would benefit from tailored specialist support. These children may have significant speech, language and communication needs. We can work alongside school staff to identify areas of needs and strength to generate a programme of support to strengthen an individual’s communication skills and reduce barriers to effective learning.
In addition, it is important to consider the wider population of children whose difficulties may be influencing their ability to reach their full potential. We aim to promote work at a whole-school level to ensure that all staff are skilled in working with the pupils needs (Targeted and Universal level). This leads to greater benefit to all students.

Delivering the service with you

Depending on needs and budgets, schools can choose to purchase a regular service from WMSLT (e.g. weekly input) or schools may decide with WMSLT that service needs can be met with a less regular service (e.g. termly/half termly). We aim to be flexible to address changing needs and our broad skill mix of staff enable us to achieve this.

We offer advisory/consultative sessions/assessments/direct therapy sessions – Individual students are screened for SLCN and if appropriate, placed into intervention groups or on individual programmes. Staff can be trained to run these intervention groups/programmes independently.

We offer communication friendly classroom audits, whole school training and then more specific training for different key stages or area of difficulty ( E.g. working with speech sound difficulties ).

We can train the SEN Team to administer a screening assessment in order to differentiate those students whose needs can be met at a targeted/universal level from those students presenting with more complex needs, who may benefit from more specialist support.

Evaluating the service with you!

We measure the effectiveness of our service through constant communications with school. We are target focused to ensure individual pupil progress is demonstrated and we do this by regularly reviewing and reporting student outcomes. Progress towards the long term service objectives is reviewed at agreed intervals and schools are provided with termly data which can be fed into their school improvement plan. The evidence we provide can also be used as evidence for OFSTED. The quality of written communications shared by our staff is audited by senior management and schools are invited to feedback their experiences of using the service with recommendations for improvements welcomed.

  Specialist  Targeted  Universal
Approaches used:

  • 1:1 caseload with targets, reviewed termly
  • Support from TA’s who have observed sessions and then carry over activities
  • Home communication diaries

 

 Approaches used:

  • ‘Talk Boost’ KS1 (aged 4-7) delivered in school.

Progression tools purchased and previously used to screen identified children

Approaches used:

Primary talk training delivered; all staff completed the classfroom checklist and identified class-based targets

‘Learning to listen’ whole class attention and listening intervention carried out

 Future ideas:

Continued liaison with teaching staff to ensure carry over from 1 :1 sessions

Meet with staff to discuss SLT targets for identified children and how they can use the talking strategies (from Primary Talk training) to support children in class

SENDCo to incorporate SLT targets into SEN personal profiles

 

 Future ideas:

  • Further talk boost training:

Early Talk boost

Training planned for next term.

Suggest ‘Speech and Language’ information folders to be in each class including ‘Universally Speaking’ norms (Communication trust), progression tool screen and SLCN indicators checklist

 Future ideas:

  • Meeting with class teachers to discuss implementation of Primary Talk strategies
  • Parent workshops on ‘commenting’ with nursery/reception classes

No pens Wednesday plan for the Summer term.

Contact WMSLT today on 0121 647 3566 or email us at office@wmspeechtherapy.co.uk to find out how we can help!

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