Happy New Year, New Start to term

This was my big term for training and rolling out specific interventions across the school.  Luckily we had two inset days, so whilst the teachers were being trained on the fabulous P4C, I was able to use the two full days with the support staff.

Previously having worked in a school with a speech and language provision attached, my drive within my present school is to ensure children’s speech and language needs are understood and staff are using strategies to support pupils effectively. We do not have the luxury of having speech therapists to hand to give advice and support instantly, so it is up to me and the dedicated staff team to provide this support. This focused time enabled us to practice using ‘Communicate In Print’, an invaluable resource for;  visual timetables, scaffolding children’s learning, writing social stories, creating topic word cards, and many many other uses. This was time well spent in the Inset day as I am already seeing this resource used across the school much more widely than before.

This was followed by sharing some fantastic training I received a few years ago by Stephen Parsons and Anna Branagan – Word Aware.  I focused on ‘Concept Cat’ activities for the Early Years (and into KS1.) Having purchased some soft fluffy cats, I explained how children needed to learn basic concepts to add their language skills. I had previously trained a few teaching assistants in the Reception classes who had taken off with the programme and even knitted cat jumpers in various colours for the same and different concepts. These staff members were then able to share their successes with the pupils and explain the impact within the class.

Another fantastic resource I have invested in this year is the WellComm Screen with follow up intervention ideas. Again I trained a dedicated member of staff in Early Years, and she has made this her speciality within school. Over the Autumn Term she screened over 60 pupils, this allowed us to see which pupils needed focused intervention, those that needed referrals to speech and language therapy and those that could even be extended in their language skills.  The Inset allowed time for staff to explore how they could use this (and other resources) with pupils within their classes or groups.  The EAL team were particularly interested in how they could adapt their teaching to incorporate ideas from the WellComm Big Book of Ideas.   As an aside, the rescreening of all the Reception class pupils over the past week has shown an amazing impact.  All pupils have made progress, all but one having moved a whole age band and some who had received more frequent intervention moving three whole age bands.

The most valuable time on the Inset was sharing resources and the interventions that staff were delivering across the school. It was great to hear Year 5 support staff talk about the impact of the ‘Hi Five’ programme, as it was for the Year 1 to discuss the pupils’ enjoyment and progress within the ‘1st Class Maths’ intervention.

Sometimes interventions have been in schools for years and training has occurred but general use is not seen very often.  Numicon was this intervention for us and I felt this needed changing, so one whole afternoon I organised for a skilled trainer to provide some very practical hands on ideas for using these resources across the school – from Early Years to Year 6. This was time well spent; I was given a list of resources that people wanted instantly after the training.  After discussions with the head about the impact this could have for pupils, we purchased what was needed. We now have a resource, staff are passionate about using and this is the first step for enthusing pupils in their learning.  As I handed out the new resources last week, I heard lots of positive comments of how the kits would be used in classes – I look forward to seeing this in practice.

Inset days over and the census instantly loomed.  Old codes of School Action and School Action Plus have gone, replaced with ‘K’ SEN Support.  It all should have been a simple process of transferring from one code to the next but still errors and without explanation. The categories have also changed down to just four but they were not all updated on SIMS. After numerous dry runs, it turns out it was just the BESD that needed changing to SEM (which had been added to the system) although not sure why all the categories were not changed together.  I’m guessing they will be changed at a later date and I will have to do the whole process over again.

Last week I had my first Statement Annual Review that was being converted to an EHCP.  The whole process was just like a usual annual review meeting, except an additional few forms for school and parents to complete before the meeting.  Obviously these additional forms took time, as it meant a pre-meeting with the parents to share their aspirations/long term aims for their child but this was good preparation for the official meeting with the local authority present.

One cheery thought and one of the reasons I do this job.  I was told by a parent, after a child had become frustrated and angry during a session in class, ‘It was ok because the school had handled it really well and I’d even gone back into class and finished off my learning.’  It had taken us all a long time to get there but that comment made me smile and feel success.

Resources:

Visual resource:

• Communicate In Print:  (Purchased through widget.com)

Speech and language screener:

• WellComm: A Speech and Language Toolkit for Early Years  (Purchased through GL Assessment)

Book/Resource:

• Word Aware, Teaching Vocabulary Across the Curriculum: Anna Branagan and Stephen Parsons (www.thinkingtalking.co.uk)