Buckinghamshire HELP4Schools

last updated:07 Jan 2009

This case study was provided by:

• Pamela Whaley of Buckinghamshire’s  Specialist Teaching Service (now retired)
• Glynis Haines of the local Primary Care Trust (PCT).

By adopting a new approach, speech and language therapists and specialist teachers in Buckinghamshire were able to extend mainstream teachers’ skills, knowledge and understanding of how to work with children of school age who have speech and communication difficulties.

Context

Buckinghamshire, in line with many local authorities (LAs), has seen a year-on-year increase in the number of statements identifying speech and language and communication needs (SLCN). In 2002, SLCN statements represented 14% of all statements. In 2005, this rose to 21%. 

The increase in statements for SLCN was reflected in the increasing numbers of children identified as experiencing language difficulties at school entry. Buckinghamshire recognised that the continued growth in statements was not sustainable.

The development of the HELP Project

The LA worked closely with the PCT to secure central government funding via a local public service agreement. They aimed to develop a school-based collaborative project to support non-statemented children within their local mainstream school setting over a three year period, starting from the beginning of Key Stage 1.

Who was involved?

Twenty six schools were selected according to the following criteria:

• combined schools – so that the school could benefit from cumulative support over three years
• schools that did not have an additional senior leadership team (SLT) resource in the form of a ‘department’
• schools reporting KS2 SATs English results lower than the national average in July 2004.

The project team consisted of two speech and language therapists and two specialist teachers.

What actually happened in the project – five main strategies

Language steering group

This group was to look strategically at the best ways of supporting primary aged children who required language support. It was made up of:

• a speech and language teacher
• an LA representative
• an educational psychologist
• a SENCO representative
• specialist teachers from the LA’s Cognition and Learning Team
• head teachers.

Website

A website was set up to explain the range of communication difficulties experienced in schools and offering strategies and advice sheets, accessible to all who might need them – teachers, teaching assistants (TAs) and parents.

Checklist

Teachers used a checklist to identify a child’s speech, language and communication difficulties and to know which advice sheet to look at on the website.

Specialist input

This was provided for children for whom the four other strategies were not effective.

A school-based professional development menu

A coaching model was used, as below.

In-class CPD:

• A therapist and specialist teacher offer a sustained training package to a school at the beginning of term.
• They observe a teacher who has asked for help, using the checklist, and follow up with a discussion.
• The specialist teacher teaches a class using some of the agreed strategies, observed by the therapist and the class teacher.
• The therapist explains why certain strategies are being used and can answer any questions.

Group demonstration lessons:

• The therapist and specialist teacher teach a group of children who have been identified by teachers as having difficulties.
• Class teachers watch the lesson.
• Discussions and Q&A session follow.
• Follow up visits to classrooms can be arranged.

Collaborative training:

• Class teachers and TAs train together on effective strategies.
• TA training programme:
• TAs can participate in a 10 week programme of guided instruction, observation and feedback.

Why was this approach adopted?

Three main reasons:

• A desire to improve on the existing provision.
• Reorganisation of the PCTs in Buckinghamshire allowed a review of services and the emergence of an early years integrated (health and education) service aimed at early intervention.
• Desire to equip mainstream teachers with increased skills and knowledge to meet the SLC needs of the children in their classes, and to distribute the skills of the specialist teams.

Outcomes

At the beginning of the project, 34.7% of the first cohort of children scored below 85% on the Listening Comprehension Test which was used as the baseline.

At the end of the first year of the project, 33.5% of these children continued to score below the average range.

At the end of the second year of the project, the percentage for this cohort fell to 20.2%. 

This increased minimally over the following year, possibly due to the fact that many Year 3 children completed the Level C assessment which the teaching staff at their schools reported to be significantly more difficult than the Level B assessment they had completed the previous year.

At the end of the third year of the project, the percentage of children within the first cohort who scored below 85 on the Listening Comprehension Test was 21.8% with 491 children making a statistically significant improvement in their scores at P < 0.01 (Pearson Chi-Square). 

Of the second cohort of children who started a year later only 22.6% scored below 85% at the end of their first year. This figure dropped to 17% at the end of their second year of involvement in the project.

Whilst some of the progress made by the children could be accounted for by their access to good teaching practice within the school, and children with English as an Additional Language may have developed better communication purely due to their increased access to English within their mainstream school setting, it is highly unlikely that the amount of progress made could be attributed solely to these two factors.

What made this work successful?

Possible factors include:

• The collaborative work enabled the team members to help each other to understand the language of each other’s profession and how each profession would approach the same issues. There was greater strength in coming from two different professions: 1+1 = 5.
• Teachers felt empowered by their new skills and were starting to work out solutions for themselves, so the use of the limited specialist resources had created a more sustainable and far reaching outcome. The approach put the child first and the process second, so a reliance on Statements was reduced in the face of having the confidence and skills to make changes in the school context itself. This meant that real action was taken with a focus on improved pupil outcomes, rather than the action being a referral onwards which may not have lead to any short term action for the child  - but which may have left a sense of having done something.
• Positive concrete outcomes for the children, which met ECM outcomes
• Encompassed many aspects of effective professional learning which research shows makes for best learning and development.

For more information

Glynis Haines
Professional Lead, Speech and Language Therapy
Email:glynis.haines@nhs.net