Advanced training materials for autism; dyslexia; speech, language and communication; emotional, social and behavioural difficulties; moderate learning difficulties

Narrator

Christopher Hatton School is a one-form inner city primary school in London with a resource base for children with speech, language and communication needs. 20% of pupils at this school have special educational needs. Staff work with a variety of speech and occupational therapists, as well as drawing on a range of external experts to ensure inclusive practice.

In all her Year One classes, teacher Heather Cordle employs various strategies to engage those pupils who have SLCN. She also collaborates closely with Speech and Language Therapist, Kate, who is working in today???s literacy lesson, which focuses on writing descriptive sentences, with Yameen and Sophia.

Heather Cordle ??? Year 1 Teacher

I think the main thing for Special Educational Needs is just team-work and communication, and it works just fantastically in that Kate and I have planning meetings every week. So I???ll do the planning before then, and then I???ll be able to show it to her and we talk about the visuals that I want, I???ll ask her for the sign language that I want, so she knows exactly what she???s doing when she comes in and can work with those children to the best of her ability.

Kate Riley - Speech and Language Therapist

Just working with these children in isolation doesn???t really make the best impact. I can withdraw them from the classes and work on some quite specific targets, which will develop their language, but actually if you then put them back into the classroom without any generalisation, it makes very little difference. So the key is trying to integrate that practice into the classroom.

Yameen and Sophia both have a diagnosis of specific language impairment, and some of the difficulties that they might incur include things like difficulty with understanding questions, difficulty with being able to formulate their answers to make a complete sentence, and some difficulty with following instructions especially if those instructions are longer, and difficulty with being able to put phrases together, for example, to tell a story and, or use more complex language like adjectives which is what we were talking about today.

Classroom interaction

Heather: Is it hot snow? Is it cold snow?

Pupil: Cold snow.

Heather: Cold snow. Cold snow would be fantastic.

Kate

So things that we use and things that we know Yameen and Sophia really respond to are using lots of visual support, so by using things like Makaton sign, where we???re using our hands and gesture, really helps, so things like ???what???, and ???who???, and ???where???, and also the Makaton, for the senses. So things like ???smell???, and ???hear??? and ???see???. So to try and support not just hearing the word but also seeing the word as well makes it much more concrete for them as does pictures and kind of experiential learning or using video to demonstrate as well which is what you saw within the classroom, so there was the example of showing rain on the board so they could hear it and they could see it.

Classroom interaction

Pupil 1: Rain. Lighting. Thunder

Heather: Thunder. OK what is the thunder like? Is it nice thunder, or is it scary thunder?

Pupil 2: Thunder is scary

Kate

The type of question that you ask the child, whether it???s a more basic ???what??? or ???who??? question, or a more advanced, ???why??? and ???how??? question, can be hugely important when thinking about the abilities of the children and how successful they are going to be in order to respond to that.

Classroom interaction

Heather: I might say, what does it look like, and you can think, it could be bright, it could be round, OK.

Kate

So, you know, ???what are you doing????, or ???what???s this????, are going to be much easier. Children can see what they???re doing and be able to use that as a reference.

Classroom interaction

Heather: What it might feel like???

Pupils: feel like

Heather: And what it might sound like???

Pupils: sound like

Heather: Fantastic, well done.

Kate

In terms of other questions, like ???who??? and ???where???, again they relate it to something quite concrete, so a ???who??? is a person and a ???where??? is a location, and that can be much easier to then look at.

Classroom interaction

Kate: What???s the first sound you can hear?

Pupil: ???puh???

Kate: Pink, it is pink, beautiful. So ???puh??? ???i??? ???nn??? ???k??? ???k??? ???k???

Kate

And then kind of moving on from those more basic questions is a ???when??? question. So again it???s time related. It???s becoming less concrete, more abstract, and therefore harder to answer, as is questions like ???why??? and ???how???. You???re thinking about verbal reasoning, you???re thinking about prediction, and again those skills are kind of at the higher level end of questions, and make them much more difficult for children with SLCN.

Classroom interaction

Heather: I will put in my box. Fast. Can you sound out fast?

Pupil: Fast, fast. ???f???

Heather: Good boy.

Heather

Sophia and Yameen are both working on making sure they???re using their phonics to sound out words.

Classroom interaction

Heather: ???w???, ???w???, ???w???, ???i???, ???i???, ???i???, wing

Heather

They???re coming up with their own ideas, to get down on to paper so that it???s legible. They use their phonics, they use their hands. They???ll be able to say it???s ???o???, ???o???, ???o???, to sound it out, and then get it down, they can see that that???s the word and they???ve done it, the fact that now that they???re able to use their sounds and sound out the sentences, and read their sentence and know what they???ve written is incredible.

Classroom interaction

Heather: And I want you to think, what could you put inside your box? And talk to your talk partner, and tell them, what would you put inside your box.

Kate

Other things to consider are things like modelling or sharing information so using talk partners where perhaps they???re paired with more able pupils, means that they???re able to get some ideas, to hear some different vocabulary, to hear some different suggestions that they can then possibly feed back to the class, and again feel quite empowered by that.

Classroom interaction

Heather: Well done. Rough wings. That sounds really different, I like that.

Pupil: And then she got really fast wings.

Heather

I honestly don???t think that the children in my class would know which children it is that Kate comes in to support, because other than the fact that she???s on their table or they might pop out for their hour catch-up, there???s no, there???s no way that they would know that they???re any different because those children, the rest of the time, don???t have Kate, and are able to work and achieve at the same level as everybody else, and make the same progress. And it means that the Special Needs children don???t feel that something has had to be done for them because they don???t understand, it???s for all of the children, it makes our lives easier, and we can understand it, and show what we understand, much, much better.

Narrator

West Green is a one-form entry primary school in the London Borough of Haringey. The school has an infant resource base for speech, language and communication needs, which includes children from Reception and Years One and Two, with a range of needs including disordered or delayed language. As with the mainstream school, the majority of pupils in the resource have English as an additional language.

Anna Brownlie ??? Speech and Language Resource Base Teacher

My name is Anna Brownlie, and I teach in the Speech Language Resource Base.

Classroom interaction

Anna: Lovely. Good sitting.

Anna Brownlie

EAL children need to be given time to absorb the language that they???re hearing around them, before we can tell whether they have more of a problem - it???s actually a speech and language difficulty.

Classroom interaction

What???s this one?

Anna Brownlie

If they???re not picking up language then the teacher who has been monitoring their development will then speak to the Special Needs Co-ordinator and say, look I???m worried about this child because he doesn???t seem to be picking up language in the same way as the other children.

Marie Nilsson - Speech and Language Therapist

Some children come into the nursery, having had only their home language, only one language at home, and not having been exposed to English at all. In those circumstances we ask the nursery teachers to observe that child and ask the parents if they have any concerns, and perhaps ask them if they???re putting words together, if they???re speaking in sentences. We???ll also have an additional questionnaire to try and tease out whether it is just English as a second language or if it is a specific difficulty.

Anna

We concentrate hugely on vocabulary because they???re very, very weak in that area.

Classroom interaction

Teaching Assistant: What colour, what???s your favourite colour?

Pupil: Blue

Anna

I???d say the majority of our children have difficulties with concept such as prepositions, pronouns, that sort of thing; bigger, smaller, empty, full, those sorts of concepts. So we plan for them.

Lesson meeting

Anna: Look at the pictures, talk about them.

Anna

For literacy, I plan with the Speech and Language Therapist. She works with the children in small groups or individually and she???s very aware of what their language needs are, and quite often because she???s a specialist in that area, she???ll often pick up on things that I might not pick up on, not initially.

Lesson meeting

Anna: Those are the place words. Which we???ll use some of them now, and then you???ll use the ones you need. The ones you need are at the front.

Marie: We???ll probably need to re-sequence it beforehand with Karim.

Teaching Assistant: Are we giving one each to the children or are they having..?

Anna: Yes one each, but you can talk about it together of course. You know, what???s happening in here.

Anna

We plan around a topic, and the topic for this half term is Light and Dark.

Classroom interaction

Anna: Who are the characters in the story?

Anna

We also look at the children???s individual education plan, so what language they need to cover, what concepts they need to cover.

Classroom interaction

Good the monkey tells the story.

Marie

We use a range of strategies in the classroom, the main one being visual, so we use symbols and pictures. We also use Makaton signing to reinforce new vocabulary???

Classroom interaction

Anna: And he is a????

Pupil: A dog

Marie

???to reinforce particular concepts. So for example, social phrases and thank you, and good sitting, just to remind them of good sitting, and general good listening skills.

Classroom interaction

Anna: When does the story happen? Is it Day or is it Night?

Pupils: Night.

Marie

We use Cued Articulation sometimes, and syllable clapping. So if it???s a new or longer word, we might clap the words, or count the syllables.

Classroom interaction

Teaching Assistant: What year are you in at school?

Pupil 1: Year 2

Teaching Assistant: Year 2. What year are you in at school?

Pupil 2: Ception

Teaching Assistant: Reception ???re??? ???cep??? ???tion???

Marie

And children who have speech difficulties, they may need an extra cue if it begins with a ???puh??? or a ???buh??? or a ???tuh???. So we try to incorporate that as we go along in the lesson.

Classroom interaction

Teaching Assistant: Why Karim, why do you think that the train scared the animals? Why?

Karim: Because, they don???t, they don???t see the trains in yesterday.

Anna

Karim is Year One and he has been with us since Reception. When he came to us he had very little speech at all. You can see it???s quite disordered. But he now has quite a good vocabulary.

Classroom interaction

Teaching Assistant: And it scared the???? And it scared the...?

Karim: Animals

Teaching Assistant: The animals. Well done.

Anna

His language has developed a lot. It is still disordered and probably will always be quite disordered, but the way we???ve worked has enabled him to communicate with other people and to understand what is said to him, he???s made huge progress.

Marie

He had behavioural difficulties; he was speaking in single words, and generally had really poor listening and attention. Now we see him sitting on the carpet, putting his hand up, making relevant comments. He???s following the story, and he???s following the teaching, so he???s made huge progress.

Classroom interaction

Teaching Assistant: Right young man, your turn now, read your sentence

(Karim reads??????.)

Anna

The way we work definitely has a knock-on effect for the rest of the school. Because of where it is in Tottenham, there are children who come from backgrounds where there is speech deprivation. And so the way we work with symbols, with Makaton signing, with the visuals, and over-teaching things, going back re-capping all the time, it definitely helps other children, especially the Special Needs children in all the mainstream classes, and also the children who speak English as a second language. It definitely reinforces their language.

Classroom interaction

Marie: He???s saying, ???I???m scared, I???m scared, I have to run quickly!???