Pupils online for speech therapy as budget cuts continue to bite
A YORKSHIRE primary school is using online therapists to teach pupils with speech and communication problems as budget cuts continue to bite.
Chris Dyson, headteacher at Parklands Primary in Leeds, was concerned about the pupils in his school developing the right level of speaking and listening skills to access the curriculum.
But he was also aware of the soaring costs of traditional buy-in therapy services.
He said: “At Parklands, we want to support all our children to learn and thrive at school so they can reach their full potential.
“We needed a service that not only met the needs of all our pupils with speech and language needs, but that was also cost-effective.” It comes after
revealed last month that schools across the region could lose more than £312 million from their budgets with up to 8,378 teachers facing the axe under an education funding shake-up.
This term Parklands started working with the Leeds-based service Mable Therapy, which sees children have online sessions in school, with interactive activities and a speech therapist live on the other end supporting their communication.
Aysha Arian, teaching assistant at the school, where more than 50 pupils have an identified speech, language and communication need, said: “The children can’t wait for their speech therapy session to begin. They come in excited and take part in fun activities to help them learn new sounds and words. The pupils love having their computer time – it doesn’t feel like therapy for them.”
In the past, Parklands had bought in face-to-face therapy from another service, which the school said was costly, not able to track the live progress of pupils or communicate effectively with teachers and parents.
However, Mable Therapy generates weekly reports that are automatically sent to teachers and parents to show how well the children are progressing.
Online therapists and teachers can now collaborate together and tailor the best treatment for each student, according to the school.
Mable Therapy’s CEO Martha Currie, said: “We couldn’t be prouder of the progress the pupils have made with their speech and language skills, and we are thrilled with the close partnership we have with Parklands School. It has always been our aim to increase access to speech and language therapy services for schools and to make the therapy effective and fun.”
In 2015 a report by NYMAZ, the youth music development charity, made the case for pupils to be taught how to play instruments via Skype after it emerged youngsters living in rural areas were missing out on music education.
It followed a pilot project which identified a high-quality, online method of delivering instrumental tuition to children living in isolated areas, while also saving money for local music education hubs. The trial took place in North Yorkshire where, due to the rural nature of the county, teachers spent much of their time travelling between schools.
The project has now expanded to work with music organisations across the country to deliver and further develop the unique approach to online music education, including North Yorkshire, Durham and Darlington, East Riding of Yorkshire and Cumbria and Cornwall music education hubs.