Putting psychology at the heart of learning
We offer a wide range of educational psychology services for schools and educational settings, services for other psychologists, and can provide educational psychology services directly to parents, in Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, and neighbouring counties.
News
Blog Post Part 1: Reading Fluency, Why Assessment Matters
A new blog post by Dr Paula Williams, Educational Psychologist at Psychology4Learning Ltd, is based on her doctoral study undertaken at University College London (2014-20). Paula writes “Thirty years as an Educational Psychologist in the UK and I am still routinely asked how to help children who are struggling to learn to read. The UK’s illiteracy rates are high (around 20% for school leavers at ages 11 and 18) and have been for decades. I wondered why research (predominantly from the US) was not being applied in UK settings.”
Blog Post 2: A Reading Fluency Intervention in the UK, 2021
This study evaluated a 12 week intervention delivered by regular teaching staff as a whole class, to assess whether it could make a difference for 8-9 year old children. The study included 103 students from two Local Authority schools and five teaching staff. Both schools were rated as outstanding by OFSTED and had similar demographic statistics. Separate schools were used to prevent leakage of intervention practices into the control classes.
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Educational Psychology
Our team of ten Educational Psychologists help schools, other educational settings and parents across Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, and neighbouring counties. We help children and young people aged 0 to 25 by providing advice and training on how schools, parents and carers might help children who are struggling at school or college.
Educational Psychologist support can be requested due to concerns regarding learning difficulties / special educational needs.
Services
Schools are welcome to contact P4L to request individual pieces of work / ad hoc days of work throughout the academic year. However, we will need to check educational psychologist availability before accepting the order as work on annual contracts takes priority.
Consists of a 45 minute phone discussion between the school and the Educational Psychologist, plus 15 minute report writing by the psychologist to ensure there is a record of the discussion.
P4L is able to provide bespoke training delivered on school site or via Microsoft Teams. Training can be for school staff or parents. Further details can be found on the training page.
The psychologist may recommend implementing a specific intervention. The psychologist will be able to advise on how to run the intervention, can offer training to school staff so that they run the intervention, or can manage its implementation on the schools behalf.
Educational Psychologists can provide individual or group supervision for school staff, thus providing school professionals with a trusted environment in which to review, discuss and problem solve.
Parents can also directly purchase the services of P4L Educational Psychologists. If a parent / carer has concerns regarding their child’s learning, they can purchase time with an educational psychologist. Where ever possible the work is undertaken on school site, with the full cooperation of school staff. The work usually entails a psychologist led consultation meeting with school staff and parents, pupil observation in school, and 1 to 1 assessments with the child / young person.
Special Educational Needs
Asperger’s Syndrome is a Pervasive Developmental Disorder that falls within the autistic spectrum. It is a life-long condition, which affects about 1 in 200 people, more commonly in men than women. Those with Asperger’s Syndrome are usually of average or above average intelligence.
ADHD is a group of behavioural symptoms that include inattentiveness, hyperactivity and impulsiveness.
ASD is a condition that affects social interaction, communication, interests and behaviour. It’s estimated that about 1 in every 100 people in the UK has ASD. More boys are diagnosed with the condition than girls.
Dyspraxia is a developmental co-ordination disorder (DCD), affecting physical co-ordination that causes a child to perform less well than expected in daily activities for his or her age, and appear to move clumsily.
Dyscalculia is usually perceived of as a specific learning difficulty for mathematics, or, more appropriately, arithmetic
Dyslexia is a Specific Learning Difficulty (SpLD) that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling. Note that there are lots of reasons why a person may have literacy difficulties, it may not be classified as dyslexia.
There are a range of catch-up literacy interventions that can be used with children and young people.
There are a range of numeracy based interventions that can be used with children and young people.
According to the latest (November 2017) Department of Education research report, there are six general principles to facilitate transitions from primary to secondary school.
… such a comprehensive report. It is very clear to see needs, strengths and really useful advice and practical suggestions to use.
SENCO, Oxfordshire Primary School
Our Educational Psychologists
Psychology4Learning is committed to providing a high quality educational psychology service; seeking to continually improve so that we can ensure the best possible outcomes for children and young people. All of our educational psychologists have many years experience working in the education sector, and have worked as educational psychologists within local government.
Our educational psychology services are fully customised to the needs of the school.
Health and Care Profession Council (HCPC) – all psychologists are registered with HCPC
Code of conduct and ethical guidelines – we adhere to the British Psychological Society guidelines
Enhanced CRBs – all psychologists have enhanced CRBs
Private insurance – all our psychologists are fully insured to work privately
Please can you express to the Educational Psychologist my deep gratitude for her comprehensive reports. They are excellent; so informative, useful and comprehensive. Thank you so much and we are so grateful for these
SENCO, Buckinghamshire Primary School
The Calming Cat programme, developed by
Dr Paula Williams and TTS
Mental health and Wellbeing programme – a skill development programme for primary school children
30 cm high cuddly cat – the product includes a weighted, 30 cm tall, fabric and velour cat for children to cuddle
Contains 140 coaching cards – helping children to learn how their bodies react to feelings and how to manage them. Can be used 1 to 1 with pupils or as a whole class resource.
Available to buy now – the Calming Cat is available to buy from TTS
I’ve just come out of my meeting with the psychologist and class teacher. I just wanted to drop you a line to say what a positive experience it was. The psychologist was really wonderful. It’s quite a daunting thing to go to as a parent but made me feel very relaxed and she absolutely nailed listening without judgement. I felt heard and understood and I left feeling very confident that she will help us to identify how we can help our son.
Parent, Primary School
Extra information …
Other websites – links to other websites that contain useful information regarding learning disabilities, SEND, interventions etc.
External documents – links to a range of external documents related to children and young people with special educational needs.
Parent Leaflet – providing a short overview of educational psychology and what to expect when working with an educational psychologist.