Information for Schools

What is an educational psychologist and what do educational psychologists do?

All eps have been teachers: they have a first degree in psychology and a higher degree in educational psychology.  They know about

  • How children develop
  • Effective teaching and learning approaches
  • Positive behaviour management
  • Specific difficulties that affect learning, for example, dyslexia or autism
  • Ways to intervene with children and young people to help them change
  • Assessment methods
  • Legislation, local policy and procedures and national research

Eps work with and on behalf of children and young people up to the age of 19 years.  They do not work with children without the permission of parents and carers, but they do work in consultation with others to meet the needs of children. When schools want us to work with them about concerns relating to a named child, it is essential that the child's parents or carers know about any discussions beforehand and give their consent to our involvement.

Service delivery- psychological consultation

The educational psychological team uses psychological consultation as our method of service delivery to work with schools in connection with concerns related to individual children, to groups of children and to whole school issues.  Within psychological consultation , educational psychologists (e.p) work in partnership with teachers, parents/carers and others through consultation meetings to achieve beneficial change for children. 

The consultation meeting

The aim of the consultation meeting is to spend some time considering the concerns, but most of the time is spent developing strategies and approaches and some time is reserved at the end of the meeting to record the plan.  The plan outlines the strategies and targets needed to help the child make progress and outlines how the child will be involved in developing and monitoring the plan.  It also clarifies the ongoing involvement of the ep.  All participants in a consultation meeting receive a copy of the plan.  This copy is not intended to replace school's own record of the meeting.  If the child's parents or carers are not able to be present, we ask the school to share the plan with them.

To prepare for the consultation meeting we ask schools, in partnership with parents or carers and, when appropriate, with input from the child or young person concerned, to complete a request for consultation form.  This form asks for basic information and also asks for the school and parent or carer views about the nature of the concern.  School arranges a consultation meeting , which should aim to take place within six school-working weeks of the work being prioritised.  It is important that the child's parent or carer and teacher, with responsibility for writing and monitoring the child's individual education plan, are involved in the meeting or involved through subsequent consultation meetings.

Direct ep work with children and young people

Educational psychologists work directly with individual children when a consultation meeting agrees that such work will be helpful to support the development of a plan.  The purpose and nature of the individual work and the hoped for outcomes are all agreed in the consultation meeting .  Individual work may involve observation, discussion with the child or young person, assessment, counselling or a brief intervention.  We ask schools to arrange for the educational psychologist to have a suitable quiet place in which to work with a child or young person.

The conclusion of ep involvement is determined in a consultation meeting .

Planning and negotiating work

Work is planned in an annual overview meeting.  This meeting normally takes place at the beginning of the new school year and involves the e.p., head teacher and senco.  The purpose of the meeting is to review the work of the previous year and to plan to use the available time efficiently and evenly across the school year.   The planned work may be with individual children, with groups of children or with issues of concern to the whole school.

Access to the eps for parents or carers and other professionals

Most of our work concerning individual children is carried out at the request of schools.  However parents or carers and other professionals can contact us directly.  When parents or carers or other professionals contact us, we ask for information about the nature of the concern and suggest that the concern should be discussed with the child's school as a first step to resolve the problem and to clarify the nature of our involvement.  Once the need for our involvement is agreed, we usually seek to include parents or carers, the school and other professional colleagues in discussion.

Accountability

The eps wish to work accountably and in partnership with schools and other service users and to learn from the feedback we receive.  We ask schools to evaluate our work and provide feedback on our overall service on an annual basis.

Staff training

Inset is available to all schools.  It is free of charge if the school chooses to use some of its annual allocation of ep's time, but, if additional time is needed, a charge is made.  Requests for inset should be made via the school ep or by contact the principal educational psychologist, janet philpott.  All inset is evaluated.

Development work to support school improvement

The aim of development work is to research and address issues raised by individual schools.  Initial discussion and planning takes place with the school ep.  If an ep is available to do the work, he or she consults the school to clarify what is needed and completes a proposal form with the school.  When the work is completed we ask the school to evaluate the outcomes.