School Entry Assessment Project
Interested? Please tell us about your school on the sign-up form, there’s no commitment at this stage. You can also find out more project details below.
The impact of Speech, Language and Communication Needs (SLCN) for children can range from difficulty developing literacy skills and poor academic attainment, through to challenging behaviour and school non-attendance. In order to support these children, we have to firstly identify who they are. This is a huge challenge for schools when, for many of these children, their language difficulties are hidden.
We are delighted to be partnering with the University of Cambridge in delivering a national study aimed at identifying children with speech and language needs at school entry.
The Project
The project is taking place from September 2024 to July 2025. Each school will be asked to complete our online assessment with a minimum of 20 children. The assessment takes 15-20 minutes and is delivered online through our website.
Each school will be allocated a 2-3 week period to complete this work.
Eligible schools will:
- Be mainstream state primary schools in the UK.
- Have minimum of 20 eligible pupils in Reception/Primary 1
- Not currently use Infant Language Link.
Benefits for schools
All schools that take part in the project will receive the following incentives as a thank you:
- A free subscription to our award-winning Infant Language Link for 1 year.
- A summary report for the group of children assessed.
- A cash payment to cover the time required for a member of TA/CA/PSW staff to complete the assessments.
What is Infant Language Link?
Infant Language Link is an award-winning package designed to identify difficulties understanding language and provide timely targeted intervention, as part of a whole school approach. It allows schools to track and support children from Reception/Primary 1 to the end of Key Stage 1/Primary 3, so no one is missed, or misidentified. Every school year approximately 120,000 Infant Language Link assessments are completed in the UK.
Watch our video to find out more about our Infant Language Link package and why this approach is needed.
How to get involved
If your school would like to help with this research, please complete the form below to express your interest – there’s no commitment at this point.