SALT
If your school works with an SLT, before you start on your commitment journey you should discuss your plans with your SLT as their professional expertise could contribute to all five of the priority areas of the Commitment. An SLT will have expertise that will help you on a range of issues including how to establish communication-friendly classrooms, offering formal and informal training to teaching staff, joint teaching with teachers on specific issues, following up classroom activities to ensure children have understood vocabulary etc as well as providing assessment and intervention that is integral to priority area four - supporting children with SLCN.
SENCO
•ensures all practitioners in the setting understand their responsibilities to children with SEN and the setting’s approach to identifying and meeting
SEN
•advises and supports colleagues
•ensure parents are closely involved throughout and that their insights inform action taken by the setting, and
•liaises with external professionals or agencies
MIDWIFE
Your community midwife is there to support you throughout your pregnancy, and possibly during the birth, but also for up to 28 days after the birth. They can also visit you at home for up to 10 days following the birth.
HEALTH VISITOR
A health visitor is a qualified nurse who has had extra training and is part of a team that offers screening and developmental checks as part of the government’s Healthy Child Programme. The job of health visitors is to help families, especially those with babies and young children, avoid illness and stay healthy. You can also talk to your them if you feel anxious, depressed or worried. They will support you with the challenges of the first few days and weeks, such as breastfeeding, coping with your baby’s sleeping patterns, and your family relationships.
KEY PERSON
Children thrive from a base of loving and secure relationships. This is normally provided by a child’s parents but it can also be provided by a key person. A key person is a named member of staff with responsibilities for a small group of children who helps those children in the group feel safe and cared for. The role is an important one and an approach set out in the EYFS which is working successfully in settings and in Reception classes. It involves the key person in responding sensitively to children’s feelings and behaviours and meeting emotional needs by giving reassurance, such as when they are new to a setting or class, and supporting the child’s well-being. The key person supports physical needs too, helping with issues like nappy changing, toileting and dressing. That person is a familiar figure who is accessible and available as a point of contact for parents and one who builds relationships with the child and parents or carers.
Records of development and care are created and shared by the key person, parents and the child. Small groups foster close bonds between the child and the key person in a way that large groups cannot easily do. These groups allow the key person to better ‘tune into’ children’s play and their conversations to really get to know the children in the group well. Children feel settled and happy and are more confident to explore and as a result become more capable learners.
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