The development and support of speech, language and communication skills are a priority of Orchard Manor School.

Chris Mahbouby is the school Speech and Language Therapy Assistant. The school also has occasional input from the NHS special schools’ team.

Whilst Orchard Manor is fortunate to have its own Speech and Language Team, it is recognised that all staff support pupil’s communication and interaction.

All pupils are entitled to receive our core offer of support. This is a whole school approach where strategies to support communication and interaction skills are embedded across the school day in all environments. This could include strategies such as using appropriate visual resources, allowing processing time and breaking instructions down into smaller steps.

The core offer can also include more specific interventions and strategies depending on the pupil's needs. For example, Attention Autism groups, Lego Therapy, Intensive Interaction, Colourful Semantics and embedded Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) tools.

The core offer aims to create a Total Communication environment across the school to enable pupils to engage and communicate to the best of their ability. The speech and language team support the core offer by providing training to staff on strategies and interventions. We also make personalised resources to meet individual needs.

Some pupils may benefit from additional, targeted support. For pupils who staff feel require support beyond the core offer, they can be referred to the speech and language team for an assessment. This could include an observation in class or a more formal assessment.

Once the assessment is complete, the speech and language therapist will write a report. Recommendations could include additional strategies  in the class covered under the core offer or a block of one-to-one/small group intervention.

Intervention could be delivered by a member of the speech and language team or an HLTA.  HLTAs delivering intervention do so in collaboration with the SaLT Team.  Specialist, targeted support could include; supporting pupils using AAC, developing early interaction skills, supporting speech sound difficulties, developing narrative abilities and developing sentence structure and vocabulary.

If a pupil receives weekly one to one intervention, sessions will last for at least a full term. The Speech and Language Team works in blocks of intervention. This is to allow pupils time to practise skills outside of intervention sessions to generalise skills to their everyday environments.

If you have any questions or queries relating to any of the above, please get in contact with a member of the team. We are happy to supply resources for home when needed.

Sincerely,

Chris (cmahbouby@orchard-manor.org)

Orchard Manor Speech and Language Therapy Team