unit 302 2.2 explain roles of external professionals who may work with a school e.g educational psycologist

2.2 Explain the roles of external professionals who may work with a school e.g. educational psychologist

Learning outcome 2 unit 302

There is a large range of external professionals who may work with a school on a regular basis, they are an educational psychologists who are allocated through the local special educational needs department, they support the SENCO by doing observations and making assessments each year to plan the provision for the children that have special educational needs, they also make recommendations for work with individual parents and they will lead meetings with parents.
Children with speech and language problems will have a speech and language therapist, they will not be based at the school they may be based at either a health centre or a hospital; they will come to school to work with children, parents and children.
Specialist teachers may come to school to offer advice and support a range of needs which may be behaviour support needs, social and communication needs such as autism.
The educational welfare officer sometimes known as the educational social worker will usually be based within local authorities, they work with the head teacher to monitor pupil’s attendance.
The education welfare officer will also provide support around absenteeism and they will also work alongside parents to support excluded pupils on their return to school although the age group of the school I work in it not an issue for children of this age to need the services of the educational welfare officer for absenteeism or to support pupils that are excluded from school.
The school improvement partner, they have had previous experience of school leadership or have worked in a senior advisory role in local authority. They will visit the head teacher three to five days each year, they work alongside the local education authority and will support the head teacher in looking at ways of developing pupil progress and school self-evaluation, which means not only academic factors but also looking at extended school provision and liaison with parents.
Physiotherapists/occupational therapists do work at our school with a couple of children within our school they come into the school and advise parents and staff on progress plans that have been set for these children.
We recently had an inspection from head teachers from another school; they spent 2 days observing every class within the school, looking at the curriculum, the delivery of lessons and the break and lunchtime routines. They also took a lot of time talking and listening to the children, asking questions and taking a great interest in the conversations they had with the children.