Why is Speech & Language Support so important at Secondary School ?

Often speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) can be missed at secondary school and behaviour and literacy can take focus. However, data shows us that students with these difficulties often have underlying SLCN, which if not appropriately managed, will lead to poor outcomes for the student.
Children with SLCN perform significantly lower than their peers at GCSE’s (DfE GCSE results, 2016) and 2/3 of children at risk of being excluded from school have language difficulties (Clegg et al 2009)

How does WMSLT work with Secondary Schools?

Our experienced secondary 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 needs, 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 needs 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 !

WMSLT will set service objectives based on your school improvement plan and yearly initiatives.. At secondary schools, we have supported literacy and behaviour initiatives as language underpins literacy and children with behavioural difficulties often have unidentified SLCN.

In almost every school there will be a small cohort of students that would benefit from tailored specialist support. 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.

We appreciate that secondary schools offer their own set of challenges and the number of pupils requiring support can be high. Therefore, 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 and less pupils being withdrawn for interventions.

 

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.

Delivering the Service with you !

What can we offer…
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 pride ourselves on our flexibility and being able to support schools as and when the needs arise.
  • We offer whole school training and then more specifically departmental training. This allows for more specific techniques and strategies to ensure progress in that subject.
  • We offer advisory/consultative sessions/assessments – Individual students are screened for SLCN and if appropriate placed into intervention groups. Staff can be trained to run these intervention groups independently.
  • We can train the SEN Team to administer a screening assessment in order to differentiate between students whose needs can be met at a targeted/universal level with students presenting with more complex needs, who may benefit from more specialist support.

The service might include direct therapy – this can include support for stammering, selective speakers, students with severe/complex speech/language/communication needs and interview preparation for our year 11’s

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

© West Midlands Speech & Language Therapy 2018

Website By: BeMoreROAR