A survey by the Education Endowment Foundation (April 2021) found 96% of schools said that they were either “very concerned” or “quite concerned” by the speech and language development of children since the pandemic.
Some schools have seen increased incidences of challenging behaviour, pupils at risk of exclusion, lower attainment and reduced attendance for at risk pupils.
School leadership teams have been striving for school improvement through increasing the quality of teaching and providing flexible staff CPD opportunities in order to help them support the increasing numbers of children with lower skills then expected for their age.
The Department of Education published data for last academic year (2020/21) highlighting 12.2% of all pupils in England had SEN support but no EHC Plan (there were 3.7% of children in England with EHC Plans reported in the data).
Of the children who had SEN support, the most common type of need was speech, language and communication needs.
There is recognition that education professionals who already have huge workloads and limiting time constraints need suitable training and CPD in order to support the children in their classrooms and education settings.
My courses have been hugely popular with schools this academic year who have used some of their catch-up and recovery premiums to invest in training for their staff and the feedback has been fantastic.
There are courses on a range of topics within SLCN (like Speech Sounds, Memory & Processing, Early Years) and some budget-saving packages which deliver training to your whole team.
All of the course content is available online, with unlimited access so staff can re-visit the content multiple times and complete at their own pace.
Created by a Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist (me!), the courses and their content have been designed to provide you with key information on the topics to boost your knowledge and understanding, as well as a range of strategies and impactful interventions to support the development and improve the skills of your pupils.
Ranging from 30 minutes to 3.5 hours, the video content is split into sections to allow for flexibility and save you valuable time, whilst delivering concentrated information and tips which you can implement straight away.
With SLCN having wider impacts on the social, emotional and academic development of children, it’s no wonder that 96% of schools were so concerned with the speech and language development of their pupils.
You can get started on a self-paced course straight away and begin implementing the effective strategies and impactful interventions to help improve the learning and development of the children in your class or setting.
Head over to the course information page here or you can download an information document to share with your school Senior Leadership team here.
You can also contact me to discuss the needs of your school or setting.
Beth xx