Rafa Posted April 12, 2018 Share Posted April 12, 2018 Today my Manager told me about a conversation she had with the Head of our feeder primary school. Apparantly, as they are now an Academy they 'have to' test the children on induction to assess if they have Speech and Language needs so as to ascertain the budget for a SaLT. out of 41 newbies only.........5!!!....did not need speech and language support!!! i am shocked and slightly horrified! 😳 29 of those children were from our setting!! 😭 i would NOT have thought THAT many.....maybe a handful plus the 3 that I had sought SaLT for....and of course it is becoming more and more difficult to get referrals unless the child's need is high. i am also disappointed that the school didn't think that this information might have been more useful in the Autumn term, so we may have focused a bit more on CL than we already do......and we do! Baffled as to what more we could do as we have always had close links with Speeech and Language and lots of advice and strategies in supporting CL are royally in place!! it also make me wonder how true a picture testing children in the first term shows too? Surely there are going to be many children who are neither settled or comfortable enough in their new environment to say Boo to a Goose, let alone respond correctly to a lengthy speech and language inquisition! Anyone know any more about such a test? Or any ideas how we could score better in the future?? 😏 Feeling a bit deflated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zigzag Posted April 12, 2018 Share Posted April 12, 2018 Gosh, not quite sure what to say that would be helpful. We are finding it increasingly hard to get SALT referrals as they have so many children to deal with. I agree that they are not going to get a true picture of the children in the first term, why on earth is it not done in the spring term or even the summer term before going into year one? The changes that we see in the children when they have spent two terms in reception from when they left us are big. Surely it would be better to wait. The two schools we feed are both academies and I have not heard that they are doing this test, but I will find out. I am sorry I have not been helpful with my reply but my brain is all GDPR and policied out today! Been a long day. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finleysmaid Posted April 12, 2018 Share Posted April 12, 2018 The academy will have their own rules as to how to do testing. As to the salt issue i suspect a few things...they may have included EAL and those children who do not meet the 40-60 month criteria for reading and writing/phonics etc 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
louby loo Posted April 13, 2018 Share Posted April 13, 2018 Yes, and how much extra funding will they now be able claim for all those children? (coming from the world's worst cynic I should add) When we had my registration meeting with ofsted a day or so after they announced the end of the SEF - I was asked how I would assess our setting. I said I would be basing it from the the LA audit forms (Quality Matters) ... she said this was really not a good idea as each LA will have it own area of development and could be biased towards the LA's own financial gain in the longterm. I guess it's the same for schools. With that in mind, I would take this as a positive feedback from school. Maybe it's just time to reassess how you do your own assessments as a team. You might find you are actually doing everything really well, or you may highlight a few areas of development for you and your team. xx 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnyday Posted April 13, 2018 Share Posted April 13, 2018 3 hours ago, louby loo said: Yes, and how much extra funding will they now be able claim for all those children? (coming from the world's worst cynic I should add) Have to admit that was my first thought too 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mouseketeer Posted April 13, 2018 Share Posted April 13, 2018 And the cynic in me is thinking ‘don’t forget the lower achieving they can say they are on entry the better the value added for them at the end of the year’ ...but don’t even get me started on that one. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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