What we offer and how children access the SLB

We are a specialist placement for 9 children whose main difficulties are severe speech and/or language. Children from around Darlington can attend the SLB. Their placement will have been recommended by Speech and Language Therapist, Educational Psychologist and the Local Authority and they are likely to have an EHCP at range 4b or above.

 

Children spend the majority of their day in their mainstream classroom and receive additional support in line with the provision outlined in section ‘F’ of their EHCP. They are also withdrawn to the SLB for their speech and language therapy and other associated individual educational needs such as the pre-teaching of curriculum vocabulary. This may be small groups or on an individual basis.

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“The Speech and Language Base is especially effective in supporting individual children to overcome any language difficulties that they may have” – Ofsted January 2019.

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The Speech and Language Base Team

The SLB team are made up of two specialist Higher Level Teaching Assistants – Mrs Popple, and and Mrs Delve. They have regular contact with each child’s Speech and Language Therapist and are overseen by the Resource Base Manager, SENCO and Assistant Head, Melissa Hindmarsh (Covering Maternity leave for Jenna Negus).

 

Ethos of the Speech and Language Base

The SLB team’s main objective is to ensure that the children in our care make the maximum level of progress possible by working together to address the needs of our individual children. We include parents and class teachers as key partners in the team and work closely with them, enabling them to help their children more effectively.

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Whatever a child needs, we try our best to ensure that it is provided. We work closely with other professionals when necessary and implement their recommendations. We are proactive at understanding our children as a whole person. We know that in order for a child to thrive in school and life in general they need to have effective and confident communication skills. We try our best to ensure the best communicative outcomes for our children.