Our Approach
Our service mirrors the graduated approach, providing a variety of strategies encompassing both preventive and intervention measures at universal, targeted, and specialist levels. 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.
Who needs our support?
Why is Speech & Language support so important at Primary School?
How does WMSLT work with Primary Schools?
Our experienced primary school speech & language therapists work in partnership with school staff, school partners and families 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 offer a broad range of universal, targeted and specialist services which are tailored to meet your individual needs and budget.
A service that is bespoke to your needs
When we first meet with you, the WMSLT therapists will be keen to understand your current context, 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. We aim to promote work at a whole-school level to ensure that all staff are skilled in working with the pupil’s needs. This leads to greater benefit to all students.
Universal
Communication is everyone’s business! Universal provision aims to embed best practice across the whole setting to support communication and learning for all children.
Here’s how it could look:
Staff development:
-Bespoke whole school training
-Webinar training
-Primary Talk Training
-Word Aware
Creating a communication friendly environment
-Universal screening tools
-Classroom environmental audits
-Parent workshops
Targeted
We can skill up school staff to become champions of communication in your setting, identifying and providing intervention for a wide number of students with SLCN.
Here’s how it could look:
Establishing roles of Communication Champions to advocate for SLCN
-Bespoke training to upskill staff as CCs
-Supporting CCs to deliver and oversee communication support across school
-Monitoring the quality of these interventions while measuring progress and impact.
Communication Champions to support a wide number of students through screening of SLCN and targeted interventions, including:
-Wellcomm
-TalkBoost
-Lego Therapy
-Bespoke language interventions
Specialist
Specialist assessment and intervention can be provided with those students who have a specific or specialist communication need, including those who have an EHCP.
Here’s how it could look:
Working to support students with specialist SLCN
-Specialist assessment of student’s communication
-Providing advice to teaching staff to support a student’s SLCN
-Direct therapy sessions – individual or group, including…
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- Speech sounds
- Stammer
- Developmental Language Disorder
- Building skills for Social Communication
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-Contribution to EHC applications and reviews
-Specific information and advice to parents
WMSLT also have an SEN service that is dedicated to supporting mainstream schools set up or enhance an existing ‘hub’. Designed to run alongside our mainstream service, we have a multidisciplinary team with specialist experience who can enable your staff to build a thriving, autonomous, safe environment for your students with early complex communication needs.
Check out our SEN Service page for more information!
