Scheme for Schools and Settings video transcript

Video transcript for the Scheme for Schools and Settings celebration event page.

[People sat around tables listening to a speaker at the Scheme for Schools and Settings event]

Hester Mackay, Professional Lead Teacher for the Balanced System®: So today we have had a big celebration event for our Balanced System® accredited Scheme for Schools and Settings.

[Hester speaking to an audience presenting at the event]

Hester Mackay: So we knew five years ago when we started a big transformation project in Kent around how we support speech language, communication needs, that we were going to be working with a group of schools and settings

[Close up of Hester speaking to the audience]

Hester Mackay: to support them to develop their provision for children and young people around speech, language communication.

[Hester speaking to camera]

Hester Mackay: And there was always an ambition to make sure that we took the opportunity to celebrate the difference that they're making for children and young people. And today was that day.

[Rebecca Hughes and Dinah Lowdell, from Temple Hill Primary Academy, speaking to camera]

Rebecca Hughes: We've noticed a huge improvement in our universal offer. It's more streamlined across the school.

[People sat at their tables listening to a speaker during the event]

Rebecca Hughes: The universal offer, for example, in early years used to be quite strong, whereas now you kind of see it consistently throughout the whole school.

[Close up of Marie Gascoigne presenting next to a projector]

Dinah Lowdell: We've got things like visual timetables across the entire school.

[Dinah Lowdell speaking to camera]

Dinah Lowdell: We've got an approach of, what's good for SLCN children is good for all. So actually, thinking about that good practise, not just, as Rebecca said in early years, but how can that be used in Year 6 to support pupils with their additional needs. And I'd say that we've got quite a focus on early identification and really thinking about once we're identifying those children as early as nursery or reception, what can we do to support them. So hopefully those children will need less support as they move throughout the school.

Rebecca Hughes: And it's putting that targeted support that is needed in earlier.

[Suzanne Legge, Newington Community Primary School, speaking to camera]

Suzanne Legge: For me, it was about it becoming a whole school approach and that's fundamentally what the Balanced System® gave our school.

[Four speakers, including Suzanne Legge, speaking to the audience in front of the projector]

Suzanne Legge: Previously it was very much around language link intervention being done in isolation outside of the classroom and then those targeted children working with our speech and language therapy assistant.

[Close up of Suzanne Legge speaking to the audience]

Suzanne Legge: But what the Balanced System® gave us is basically that that knowledge and that skills and that overview of the speech and language running through the thread of everything we do at school.

[A group discussion taking place at one of the audience tables]

Carol Smith, Briary Pre-School: We joined the Balanced System® three years ago.

[Carol Smith and Nicola Wheeler speaking to camera]

Carol Smith: We're a charity pre-school and with high levels of SEND and children coming through with delayed speech and language, we felt it was a really critical time for us to work as a whole team and to be the best we could and make an impact on children's speech language.

[Close up of Carol Smith speaking to the audience]

Carol Smith: So we've seen children that were pre-verbal being able to use subtle gestures like face watching, being able to share joint attention for a couple of minutes.

[Representatives from schools collecting their accreditation certificates]

Carol Smith: We've seen language developed through different strategies we've used that, we use a vocabulary word flower around the setting for the teams.

[Nicola Wheeler speaking to camera]

Nicola Wheeler: Nursery rhymes we're quite big on, aren't we? We get our practitioners to sing at the end of the day, so every child will sing nursery rhymes and because it's quite important as well. I was just saying that communication and language is the most important and then everything else will follow.

[Teachers and school representatives standing together and holding their certificates to celebrate their achievement]