It uses a whole system of support where everyone involved in a child’s life plays a role in supporting their speech, language and communication.
Good speech, language and communication skills underpin development in the early years and attainment across the curriculum through the child’s education.
Schools or settings who want to improve how they support speech, language and communication and/or prove that the support they have in place is making a difference can work towards the Balanced System® Scheme for Schools and Settings accreditation program.
In Kent, 37 schools have already completed this scheme, and in October the first group of early years settings in Kent completed the accreditation.
Remarkably, of these 6 early years settings 3 were also awarded Centre of Excellence status, demonstrating their high standards and commitment to supporting children’s speech and language needs.
One setting that has been highlighted as a Centre of Excellence for delivering the Balanced System® is Briary Pre-School in Herne Bay, a charity setting supporting children 2-5 years of age.
Manager of the Briary Pre-School, Carol Smith, said: “After Covid, as part of the recovery programme we had a higher percentage of children needing additional support around developing their speech, language and communication.
“Through the Balanced System journey we looked at what gaps we had and the support we were offering and looked at what we were already doing well and what more we could provide
“There is more of a need than ever to get it right for these children. Early identification is key in a young child’s journey.
“A lot of two-year-olds are coming into us pre-verbal. We gather information at the registration visit to establish what support they may need to develop speech, language and communication.
“Within the Balanced System® we look closely at the universal level for everyone first and then target help to those who may need a differentiated approach and finally work with specialists for those requiring an enhanced level of support.”
“The Covid Recovery Programme through KCC was really welcome with staff development being a crucial part of what we took from that,” Carol continued.
“These were all things that we thought were really impactful.
“One of our children had English as an additional language so we developed a communication language board for the family to use with the child, which had pictures of what their parents were doing at home and what she was doing at the setting.
“It really helped her to settle and now we offer these communications boards to support children that are finding it hard to settle.
“Achieving the Centre of Excellence status was a lot of work over two years. We had to pull all of our evidence together as a team with the changes that we had made, create more communication friendly spaces to provide children with calm, sensory areas that support their language and communication.
Briary Pre-School has 52 children on the roll with more than half of those on the school’s inclusion register around speech language and communication.
Discovery Day Nursery and Woodland’s Under-5s Pre-school in Maidstone, and Ladybirds Pre-school in Canterbury have all successfully completed the Balanced System® Scheme for Schools and Settings accreditation.
Abacus Nursery in Folkestone and Borden Village Pre-School in Sittingbourne have also been named as Centres of Excellence along with Briary Pre-School.
Marie Gascoigne, Director at Better Communication CIC said: “We have been incredibly impressed with the range of impact evidence that early years settings and schools have shared as part of their Balanced System accreditation.
We have seen real examples of change for children and their families, through staff development, creation of environments that support communication, early identification of needs and appropriate support.
These early years settings have been particularly remarkable in the range, quality and impact of their support which has further enhanced their practice supporting and developing speech, language and communication for all children in their setting.”
The Balanced System® is being rolled out at pace with the support of Better Communication CIC and is already operating across the majority of Kent, with plans to expand countywide in the future.
If you are in a Kent school or setting, find out more about the Balanced System®.
You can also find out more about speech, language and communication on the SEND Information Hub.
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