Planning for Success: Using Implementation Science to Support Speech and Language
- Wendy Lee
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
We have recently started working with a number of new schools here at LINGO; our starting point with our new schools is to capture what they already have in place, what their priorities are and where they see the gaps. This helps ensure whatever we recommend is right for each individual school.
Our ultimate goal is to support all children to communicate to the best of their ability, whether supporting children with significant speech, language and communication needs, or building an inclusive approach to Oracy for all. Our initial conversations help to formulate a vision of what this would look like in each school.
We’ve found what helps enormously with this process is to take account of the evidence base for implementation.[1][2] This systematic approach to gathering information and work planning gives us the best chance of success.
Information Gathering
The key to developing an operationally successful workplan is to start by gathering key information from schools:
Information about children, levels of need, confidence of teaching staff and of the school community
Capturing what is already working; support or intervention already in place, building on established successful practice, rather than reinventing ways of doing things
Readiness of schools and their staff to make changes; choosing a programme of work most likely to achieve positive outcomes
Ensuring plans link with the school / trust values to give it the best chance of success
A Flexible Audit
At LINGO we use a simple audit tool as the basis for discussions, covering areas such as Leadership; Identification of SLCN; Teaching and Intervention; Tracking and Monitoring and Professional learning. We include parent/carer information and where possible pupil voice.
It is often not necessary to rigidly follow the audit, but instead to use it as a way of ensuring all information is gathered. It is also a basis for discussion to determine which elements of the overall picture schools want to prioritise and their long term vision for children with SLCN.
Building a Work Plan
Taking account of implementation theory and building an initial work plan with our schools has been a bit of a game changer over the past few years; understanding how to support and sustain change and what really works to implement new approaches has been key.
We aim to follow the foundations for good implementation, building in time to explore core issues, prepare staff for change, and creating plans for implementation, sustaining and in some cases, scaling of approaches.
The workplan is a way to support the delivery and sustainability phases of implementation and is necessarily based on the initial needs analysis, which takes account of exploration and preparation phases.
Bespoke Approaches
Each school we work with is very different, some want small scale support, focusing on specific children with identified SLCN, others want to effect broader change in inclusive approaches to Oracy throughout their school and community.
We’ve been lucky enough to work with each end of the spectrum, and the levels between. This has helped us to take different approaches for developing workplans, taking a lead from schools and adapting to current practice for implementation and planning.
The process of developing and finalising work plans is very much a collaborative process between key staff members in school and our service leads, shaped initially following the needs analysis, then discussed with senior leaders before being put into practice.
Planning and Preparation
We discuss on a case by case basis how information about our support into schools will be shared with school staff. This is sometimes through a project ‘launch’, through introductory training, or on a smaller scale with key members of staff who are going to be driving the work.
Where schools are looking to achieve whole school change, the communications element is key to success. In others, communications may be limited to core staff members.
We have found the exploration and preparation phases often make a huge difference to the success of work in schools. It is recognised through the evidence base and through guidance on implementation for change and our experience with schools reinforces this completely.
Delivery
Once plans have been agreed and signed off, they are shared with the therapist who regularly visits each school and is used to inform their work. From the outset, systems are discussed to ensure effective implementation and regular reviews are in place to track and monitor progress. These strategies aim to keep things on track, share feedback and keep abreast of progress.
There is an underlying assumption in implementation research that there will be barriers or issues impacting on progress. With this in mind, we have a range of strategies built into our work to review and adapt the workplan when needed. This is a really important part of the process, particularly when change outside of staff members’ control impacts on delivery.
We use simple strategies such as sharing our note of visit, where we can flag to the school SENCo where there are issues or where an additional meeting might be useful. Our schools have fed back really positively about this way of sharing information with busy SENCos – they have even reported positive feedback on them during Ofsted inspections!
We also complete half termly progress records, mapping progress against work plans and talking through with SENCos where we are on track and whether any adaptations need to be made. When working with larger MATs, our Director meets regularly with Trust central staff, ensuring communication is maintained and progress against strategic work plans are on track.
Capturing Outcomes
The workplan includes clear outcomes for any work activities, with space to collect data relevant to these outcomes, such as:
Pupil data – e.g. numbers of pupils identified with SLCN following our support
Pupil data – e.g. pre and post measures on formal / informal assessment following a period of intervention / observation of pupils in the classroom to capture engagement
Feedback on training / professional learning – including implementation of gap tasks
Classroom environment – e.g. using observation tools to capture changes in communication supportive classrooms
Teacher practice – e.g. use of key strategies in class linked to individual personal profiles
Teacher / SENCo views
Feedback from students (and if possible, from parents)
This also helps with the review process, enabling us to monitor impact of workstreams and troubleshoot where there are issues.
Sustaining
It is very easy with any change for the initial drive to get lost amongst the busy day to day activities, particularly when things change; staff move on, leadership changes or new policies or practice come into being.
Regular reviews of the work plan help ensure that any adaptations needed are built into the planning process. It also ensures the maintenance of approach and recognition of progress to help build staff confidence in sustaining and growing their practice.
Our Team
We’ve embedded these elements into our practice so they are part of our DNA as an organisation. We’ve tried to ‘walk our talk’ when thinking about change and how our team could easily and systematically build this into practice without taking time away from the children and young people we work with. Minimising admin and spending direct time is a driving force for us.
There is always room for improvement and as with all change, it’s an ongoing process. However, we feel building the principles of implementation science into our practice has supported better outcomes for the schools and children we work with.
We’d love to hear from you if you are using implementation science to support your practice or if you have other approaches to ensure success of implementing speech and language therapy and wider support.
For more information about implementation – check out James Mannion’s website and books. I’ve been lucky enough to work with James as part of our work at Oracy Cambridge[3] and have learned lots!
[1] Blase et al 2012 Framework of core Intervention components required for successful implementation
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