Does anyone else have a child who has been referred to SENCO/Speech & Language for being under confident?

[MontyBowJangles]

My Reception child has (he's 5.5). The school have picked up he is still very shy and quiet at school and struggles with his confidence a lot. So they're going to do an IEP and a referral to speech and language to help him.

I think it's great, just wondered if anyone else had experience of this and if it worked? He is doing amazingly academically, just behind on his social & emotional skills.

Ah thank you cheeseheaven I am also going to speak to Ds2's teacher and ask her more about what he's like in class. I listen to readers for an hour a week there but haven't had a chance to pick up on anything (mostly because I'm so engrossed; I flipping love listening to and helping Reception readers!!).

Our Trust employs a SALT to help children with speech and communication issues that wouldn't meet the threshold for an NHS SALT. The growth in confidence in those referred because of it is remarkable and all children have made huge progress. It's something our Trust is very proud of.

The SALT also provides training to TAs as well was supporting the ELSA programme

There is a full-time SENCO teacher at our school, not sure if she does SALT too. We definitely have external SALTs come in.

Spoke to the teacher this morning. She said ds has been very up and down, and he was on an up when she wrote the report. He was borderline expected, just scraped in, which makes sense.

But she's noticed since they've been talking about going up to Yr1 he's been going backwards with his communication and.confidence, and is aware of how sensitive he is. So thought it best to do an IEP/My Passport to ensure he continues to progress next year and not have his confidence knocked and go backwards.

I'm so impressed with her! How very observant and astute. I did thank her profusely, as it would have been easy to class him as non-urgent/severe and not bother with any interventions.

Hi Monty sorry I completely forgot to check back in! I was just browsing Mumsnet and remembered

DSis basically said what the teacher said. She has had very shy and quiet children referred to her just to ensure they don’t start going backwards developmentally as time passes. She said once selective mutism becomes an issue it is much more difficult to combat so it’s better to start working with the child to build confidence etc before anything reaches that stage

No worries! Thanks so much for mentioning it to your sister; that's so kind. Glad she agreed with the teacher.

I've found some useful links and ideas from the SMIRA Facebook group too

I'm just amazed your school's SENCO has referred him tbh. In our school they only refer kids who have meltdowns. They apparently don't have the budget to refer other kids. If you struggle, but do so quietly and are polite, you get ignored and end up in Year 6 still unable to write and spell. Whilst the referral may come to nothing, grab that SENCO with both hands and find out what she can do for your DS in the meantime.

I'm amazed too Pop. Ds is quiet, polite, doesn't make a fuss (apart from crying at drop off).

I'm so so impressed they've referred him despite him not having massive issues. His IEP/passport is so lovely and says they're going to work on his confidence and communication, and use strategies to reduce his anxiety in the classroom. He'll also get ELSA support. It says he's particularly shy at lunchtime and play times so I think it's great they want to help him make friends, as it's so important at this age.

Could I have used the word 'so' any more times in that last post

Just thinking of a kid in one of my children's classes who wouldn't speak above a whisper for all of reception and a lot of year 1 - suddenly the floodgates opened one day and you really couldn't shut them up!

As for the recent regression - if he's an anxious kid the transition really can get to them very badly - my eldest is very very anxious by nature (but tries to hide it by getting louder and louder and sillier and sillier unfortunately) and she hits complete overdrive by the start of the final half term of the year - unfortunately she bonds very closely to her teachers as well which makes it much worse as she's completely thrown by the idea of moving on from them! Made even worse this year by the fact the younger sibling is taking HER teacher away from her (and shamelessly shit stirring with glee over the fact).

Our area is like bottom of the funding league for SALT though so the situation is incredibly dire and my kiddo slips through the net a lot as she's placid and compliant and desperate to please - we ended up paying for a private therapist to come in and work with her for most of the last year. Next year we don't have that luxury as ironically I'm going back to uni to retrain as a SALT so we haven't got the spare cash! School just cannot get any referrals they're making taken on by the NHS at all - and our SENCO is bloody amazing and is still getting thwarted at every turn.