Schools Outreach

Understanding the current pressures faced by education settings, we have designed a Schools Outreach Clinic to jointly benefit our local schools and the development of our Student Speech and Language Therapists. Speech and language therapy students at the University of Sheffield run the Language Enrichment Activity Programme (LEAP) programme with groups of children in local schools/early years settings. This service is free for schools. The Schools Outreach clinic is led by Hattie Powis (University Teacher & Speech and Language Therapist). 

What is LEAP?

Language Enrichment Activity Programme (LEAP) is a language programme designed for Early Years Foundation Stage/Key Stage 1 children. LEAP aims to support young children who have speech, language and communication needs. LEAP was developed by speech and language therapists at the Sheffield Children’s NHS Trust.

How does the LEAP placement work?

Final year postgraduate students on our MMedSci Speech and Language Therapy programmes work in pairs and visit school twice a week for 8 weeks to deliver the LEAP programme with small groups of children. We run this placement once in the Autumn term and once in the Spring/Summer terms. Each student pair runs two LEAP groups in their school, with up to four children in each group. The identification of children for the LEAP groups is done by school staff, usually the SENCO. Students are supervised by a speech and language therapist at the University. Supervisors visit the school/early years setting twice during the placement to support and monitor the SaLT students. Schools therefore do not need to provide supervision. 

Other outreach opportunities

Additionally to the LEAP placement, we also provide bespoke speech, language and communication support to a small number of local schools. Our students work on a voluntary basis (with support from a supervising therapist) to provide speech, language and communication input such as vocabulary or AAC groups. We are always keen to work with schools to provide support which would jointly benefit the school and the development of our students. 

How to sign up?

If you would like more information or if your school is interested in taking part in the LEAP placement or another form of outreach support, please contact Hattie Powis at h.powis@sheffield.ac.uk .