READY FOR SCHOOL

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READY FOR SCHOOL

• An interagency project aiming to increase
  childrens communication confidence and readiness
  for school

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• Emmie Payne-Cook Sally Proctor, SLTs
• Molly Marlowe, SENCo
• Sally Randall

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Why the project was started

• High proportion of children identified by
  Willowbrook School entering Reception with
• - below average language skills
• - poor communication skills eg limited use of
  language
• - emotional and social difficulties eg social
  isolation
• - behaviour problems

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Agencies involved

• Speech Language Therapists (Sure Start)
• Family Project Workers and child care workers
  from the Childrens Centre
• School Nursery Staff LSA
• Teacher
• SENCo
• Educational Psychologist (involved in set up
  only)

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• After the first year, we extended the project to
  include another school and Childrens Centre,
  also sited in the Surestart area.

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INTENDED OUTCOMES

• To raise the language levels of children entering
  Reception and to increase their Readiness for
  School
• To increase parents involvement in their
  childrens learning
• To increase the social and emotional well-being
  of children at risk of social isolation

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THE THREE INTERVENTIONS

• 1 ) Nurture Groups

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1) NURTURE GROUPS

• At Childrens Centre
• Staffed by multidisciplinary workers, including
  Family Workers, SLTs, Childcare workers, and LSA
  from school as extra numary worker
• Children aged 2 3 yrs
• stepping stone to nursery
• Give children experience of separating from
  parents/building positive relationships with
  other adults
• Boost children's communication confidence

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Draws on ideas and principles from

• Hanen LLLI strategies
• Pen Green PICL model ( Parents Involved in their
  Childrens Learning) in particular around the
  importance of childrens wellbeing and
  involvement
• (Loosely based on) High Scope pre-school
  principles to encourage childrens independent
  active learning

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Nurture group continued

• Particular focus on talking with children,
  especially those identified as having poorer
  communication skills

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The three interventions

• Nurture Groups
• Building Communication skills

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2) BUILDING COMMUNICATION SKILLS

• 3 main elements
• Joint training by SLTs
• - to all staff involved in the project
• - Hanen Learning Language and Loving It
  programme, delivered over 2 terms.
• - aiming to established shared understanding of
  childrens interaction and language needs
• - opportunities to develop and practice new
  strategies
• - joint support for staff between settings

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• Embedding the Strategies
• - SLTs have regular involvement in the Nurture
  Groups and Nurseries, to support staff with
  embedding the Hanen strategies into their
  settings and their own practice.

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• Early identification through screening
• - informal screening jointly developed
• - used by LSA with children coming in to nursery
  
• - identifies children with lower communication
  skills who might previously not have been
  recognised until later

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• - LSA informs other nursery staff
• - LSA and Nursery staff can begin to engage
  these children with enriched language and
  interaction strategies targeted to their needs
• - LSA can then refer to SLT if appropriate

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The Three Interventions

• Nurture Groups
• 2) Building Communication Skills
• 3) Involving Parents in Nursery and Nurture
  groups

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3) Involving parents family worker role

• Family worker one day a week in nursery
• as extra numary worker
• Supports children in play, learning and language
• PICL model with parents
• Videos children involved in activities and play
  in nursery to share with parents individually
• Parents able to choose sequences from video to
  print off and keep.

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QUANTITATIVE EVALUATION

• All children starting nursery in Sept 2004 were
  assessed using a combination of two standardised
  assessments
• Reynell Developmental Language Scales
• (Receptive Skills)
• Pre-school Clinical Evaluation of Language
  Fundamentals ( Expressive subtests)

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• All the assessments were administered by the
  SLTs.
• The children were all reassessed after one year
  or one year .
• the Bus Story was initially used but became
  impractical

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Analysis of data

• The data collected was statistically analysed
  using the Willcoxen Signed Ranks Test .
• the results were found to be statistically
  significant.
• HOWEVER .

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• it must be noted that the sample used was very
  small and was not validated against a control
  group, thus making the result unreliable in terms
  of a hierarchy of evidence.
• Therefore, considerable caution needs to be taken
  in the interpretation of results.

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Results

• Receptive skills
• 70 of children made accelerated progress with
  understanding as tested on RDLS
• On entry to nursery, 60 of children scored above
  the 25thile on re-test this figure rose to
  87.

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Receptive Language - Pre and post project
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Results

• Expressive Language
• 70 of children made accelerated progress with
  expressive skills, as tested by CELF
• On entry to nursery, 50 of children scored
  above the 25thile. This rose to 83 on retest.

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Expressive Language - pre and post project

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QUALTITATIVE EVALUATION

• NURTURE GROUPS
• evaluation was extremely positive and showed the
  following outcomes
• For parents
• - increased confidence in own ability to leave
  their child in a group
• - increased confidence in childs ability to
  deal with separation when starting nursery

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Nurture groups continued

• For children, parents reported that their child
  had
• Gained in confidence
• Learnt lots of new words and songs
• Gained independence
• Improved in taking turns
• Learnt to share, interact and socialize more

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Nurture groups continued

• For staff
• A stronger partnership with parents
• Earlier identification of children with delayed
  communication skills
• A multi-agency team able to work in a more
  integrated and holistic way with children and
  families

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LLLI Training

• All staff showed raised awareness of childrens
  interaction and language needs and recognised the
  importance of encouraging and extending those
  interactions
• The majority of staff made significant progress
  in applying the strategies taught and showed
  evidence on video of embedding these into their
  practice

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Family worker - PICL

• For parents
• A greater understanding of their child's
  development , and of how play at home is carried
  through into nursery
• Reassurance that their child is settled and happy
• A greater understanding of how their child learns
  at nursery

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Family worker PICL

• For children
• Smoother transition into nursery with more
  familiar adults
• Increased staff ratios
• Earlier identification if extra support needed

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Family worker PICL

• For nursery staff
• Improved perception of nursery and school by
  parents
• Stronger staff / parent partnership
• Stronger working relationship between nursery and
  Surestart

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Qualitative results for project as a whole

• Major stakeholders felt the project was an
  excellent example of integrated multi-agency
  working with positive results
• Project was valued by both families and
  professionals

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Qualitative results continued

• Parents have identified many positive holistic
  outcomes .
• Excellent way of managing transitions
• Has encouraged stronger staff/parent partnership
  with an improved parental perception of nursery
  and school.

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Qualitative results continued

• Whilst this is a universal service, it has also
  helped to identify vulnerable children, and has
  helped families to access further support if
  needed.
• More shared language around childrens
  development has helped parents and carers to
  engage in the education process more confidently.

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Key learning points for roll-out

• Support at management level in all agencies was
  felt to be essential
• Need to give the receiving school ownership of
  the model flexibility in maintaining key
  components whilst adapting them to fit the new
  setting

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• We need to be able to identify which are the most
  essential components for achieving the outcomes.
• Further statistical evidence from research
  project including a control group might robustly
  demonstrate the importance of each element