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WellComm our Nursery Assessment Toolkit

Ms Beaumont Leave a comment

WellComm guide for parents and carers

Wellccomm Assessment Tool is used across schools in NPT and in St Joseph’s Infant School to support the speech, language and communication skills of young children (ages 0 to 5).

A key part of the approach is the WellComm Toolkit. This toolkit helps identify any speech, language or communication difficulties in children early on, so they get the right support as soon as possible.

Introducing the WellComm Toolkit

The first part of the WellComm Toolkit is the Screening Tool. This tool checks your child’s language skills – what they understand and can say. This involves observations, discussions with you, and some fun tasks for your child to complete.

The WellComm Toolkit uses a colour score to help identify what support your child may require.

  • Green: Your child’s language skills are developing as expected for their age – no extra support needed
  • Amber: Your child may need some extra help with certain language skills
  • Red: Your child may need more focussed support to help with language development

It’s important to remember that every child develops at their own pace. The colour score is just a guide to help identify the best activities to support your child’s development.

The second part is the Big Book of Ideas. This book is filled with fun, simple activities to help boost your child’s language skills. You can use these activities at home, and they are designed to match your child’s individual needs.

How You Can Support Your Child at Home

Be Involved in the Screening Process: Your insights as a parent are valuable. Share your thoughts on your child’s communication skills with their nursery or school.

Work with us: Make sure everyone is using the same strategies and activities. We will share activities from the Big Book of Ideas for you to use at home.

Start Small: If you’re given lots of targets or activities to try, start with just one or two. Focus on these before moving on to others.

Ask for Help if Needed: Not sure how to do an activity? Ask staff to show you or see if you can watch them do it with your child.

Make it Part of Your Routine: Use everyday moments like bath time, mealtimes or playing in the garden to practice communication skills.

Check Out Helpful Videos: The GL Assessment videos about adult-child interaction strategies can be helpful for all children.

Ask for Support if You Have Concerns: If you’re worried about your child’s speech or language skills, talk to their school or nursery. They can guide you to useful information and resources, including local groups or services.

How have other parents found using Wellcomm?

One parent described how easy the Wellcomm activities were to use with her child at home:

The activities are great because they just use things I already have at home, like his favourite toys.

She spends a few minutes each day on these play-based activities and talks to the nursery every couple of weeks about her child’s progress. She has noticed her child’s communication has improved and he is connecting better with others. At nursery he is putting 2 words together to ask for things he wants.

The nursery is thrilled with these positive changes, seeing how the Wellcomm toolkit helps children’s language develop both at nursery and at home.

Further support

You can access further support in the following ways:

  • if you have any further questions about how the WellComm is used in your child’s school / setting, please speak to your child’s key person
  • access BBC Tiny Happy People website with lots of advice and activities for how parents can support a child’s SLCN

Speech and Language Screening

Ms Beaumont Leave a comment

Language Link Assessment

Dear parent/guardian,

During the autumn term, your child completed a speech and language screening in school. It is a test which helps the school to identify if your child has any Speech, Language and Communication needs.  A member of school based staff completed the test with your child. The online assessments are picture based and children often enjoy completing them. They take around 30 minutes to complete.

Results

Your child completed the following assessment:

Infant Language Link

Speech Link

Some areas of need were identified, and an intervention will be put in place to support your child.

What happens next?

Group interventions will take place in school. You can support your child at home in many ways. Staff will send home an activity pack. Please complete this activity with your child and let us know how they are getting on via Seesaw.

Home learning activities can also be accessed through the Speech Link parent portal which can be accessed at https://speechandlanguage.info/parents  I am sure that this work will have a positive impact on his/her development.

WellComm

Mrs J James Leave a comment

What is it?

When your child starts Nursery, a member of staff will carry out the WellComm Screen to see how your child’s speech and language skills are developing.

Why is it important?

The early identification of any speech and language difficulty/ delay is vital to improving your child’s overall potential.

It is never too early to consider your child’s communication and to support and encourage this from an early stage.

What will this involve?

Staff will carry out some short activities. Toys and pictures will be used to make it fun and interesting.

And then….

your child may be provided with targets to work on in school and at home, this will support any areas of their language that need to be developed.

 

 

Why One Page Profiles?

Ms Beaumont Leave a comment

Dear Parents,

We have trialled using One Page Profiles in St. Joseph’s Infant School. They are a simple tool,

an A4 information sheet on which we capture important information to help our teachers

to personalise learning. This information enables teachers to be aware of the strengths,

interests and specific support needs of their pupils.

 

One page profiles can be used to inform action planning and target setting, so that these

reflect what is important to the young person and how best to support them. This can make

targets more meaningful and relevant to the young person. On our infant school setting

they are a very valuable way for the our very youngest children to have a voice in how they

are supported in school, and to have their strengths and what is important to them as an

individual acknowledged. One page profiles are also a way for parents/carers to share

their knowledge and expertise on how best to support their child.

Please take some time to fill in the Profile and return to school. Thanks, Ms Beaumont

How are our children assessed in Reception?

Ms Beaumont Leave a comment

Keeping in the loop! How are our children doing in Reception Class?

 

National Baseline Assessment

During the first weeks of Reception Class children will be assessed using the National Baseline Assessment tool. Areas to be assessed include Mathematical Development, Language Communication, Physical and Personal and Social Development.

 

Language Link Assessment

Language Link is an IT tool,  that gives Teachers and Teaching Assistants the ability to test for developmental language delays and put in place support where necessary.

 

What happens next?

At the end of the evaluation recommendations will be generated for any child with difficulties.

We will use the recommendations to put strategies and activities in place for your child. Your child may be included in a language group. We will provide  you with some easy activities that you can do with your child at home.

 

Speech Link Assessment

Speech link is a tool that gives us the ability to assess children’s speech development. It will identify speech delays and recommend speech sound programmes where necessary.

 

What happens next?

We will download programmes and pictures from the web site.

 

 

Finding out how well are children are doing in Nursery

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Assessments tell us how well your child is doing and identifies the gaps to be filled.

In Nursery children will be assessed using Wellcomm assessment and on entry school baseline assessment. Our priority during this exciting step in your child’s life is to ensure that they are happy and settled. The Wellcomm assessment will be shared with parents during Parent meetings and Class assemblies.

 

Making links in learning

As parents are the first educators, working in partnership, targets to work on will be sent home.