In-reach Year One – An Overview

Since starting the tier 3 outreach service we have launched our very own in-reach service that began in January 2019 and was led by our Outreach lead Joe Scales and LASA mentor Lea Hipkin.

In that time we have created a LASA / LSA / TA intervention focused morning which utilised a number of our staff here at Larwood who were able to offer insightful, practical ideas and advice to adults who are supporting with children with SEMH difficulties. Creating this additional service saw colleagues from 25 schools across Stevenage and its surrounding villages attend one of our courses (every school in the area received an invite):

• This resulted in 92% of those attending rating their understanding of individual needs for pupils with SEMH as much or vastly improving (the remaining 8% saw some improvement as a result of the morning).
• 96% leaving with a much or vastly improvement range of strategies they could offer children in their setting (the remaining 4% saw some improvement as a result of the morning).
• 76% heading back to their setting with the perception that they would see much or vast improvement in the behaviour of the children they support (the remaining 24% expected to see some improvement in their behaviour as a result of what they had learnt that morning).

The overall feedback from the in-reach service offered this year was overwhelmingly positive and attendees told us that moving forward:

They particularly valued:

• Demonstrations, observations, sharing of knowledge, inspirational, insightful, environment, consistency, RRR, calmness, seeing it ‘live/1^st hand’, ideas, chance to reflect and discuss strategies.

Believed that to further improve we could:

• Continue the service; offer more opportunities, more shadowing, longer sessions, EYFS focus and examples of the paperwork used.

Suggestions for topics to cover in future courses were:

• Confidence and self-esteem, younger years, behaviour focus, refusal, autism focus and timetabling.

The Larwood Outreach Team held a 3 morning SENCo focused course with 29 delegates from 22 schools ranging from Teaching Assistants and Teachers, to SENCo’s and Head Teachers attending.

The first morning focused on behaviour, led by tier 3 Outreach Lead Joe Scales. The morning focused on behaviour management strategies, ethos, recording of incidents, risk management plans and documentation, the DSPL2 behaviour support tiers, opportunities to workshop ideas and reflect on policy and practice.

The second morning focused on autism and was led by Emma Williams (Larwood Assistant Head Teacher and Space Hub Lead), supported by Joe Scales. The training focused on Autism best practice, Space Hub, strategies to support, advice and guidance, parental links, social stories, empathy and many resources and ideas to bring back to their mainstream settings.

The third morning was postponed due to rising COVID cases in the area at the time and will be rescheduled for late Spring/early Summer 2022 and will focus on external agency support.

The course was well received with all delegates stating their understanding of behaviour and autism, as well as the strategies they could use to support children in their settings, had improved as a result of attending. In addition to this, staff found the networking and workshop opportunities sat with peers from surrounding schools a really beneficial use of time.