What can schools do to support my child?

Every school will have a Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENDCo) or Inclusion Manager. You can talk to them about any concerns you have about your child’s stammer. Part of their role is to coordinate the support for your child’s learning and overall development, including speech, language and communication needs, social-emotional well-being and mental health.

SENDCOs / Inclusion Leads may be able to to help with the following:

• Assess needs and monitor progress. SENDCOs can arrange for a Speech and Language assessment to fully understand your child’s needs, set up intervention sessions, monitor progress through an Individualised Education Plan (IEP), observe and support teachers to find the best classroom strategies to use with a child who stammers.   
• Staff Development. Awareness training about stammering for schools can be helpful for staff who have children who stammer in their class.
• Promote Inclusivity. Teaching staff can raise other children’s awareness of stammering and how to be kind and supportive to a child who stammers, arrange buddy systems for vulnerable children to support social-emotional needs and facilitate discussions about teasing or bullying. 
• Collaborate. SENDCos set up meetings between parents, teaching staff, professionals such as Speech and Language Therapists and the child to discuss the best strategies to use in school and monitor how the strategies are helping.

As a charity, we are always keen to be connected with schools to support them in supporting pupils who stammer. Feel free to share our contact details with your school so that they can reach out to us and access the resources available on our website.