TALC support 'nothing but positive'
A senior leader at a Gloucestershire school has praised the Team Around the Locality Cluster (TALC) intervention and encouraged other schools in the county to use the support.
As part of the wider Additional and High Needs Transformation Programme, TALC was piloted to help support schools to provide additional help to those who need it, when they need it.
Tewkesbury School was one of those included in the trial and assistant head, Paul Smith, has complimented the work of TALC as ‘nothing but positive’.
Mr Smith said: “TALC has been nothing but a positive. For us, we’ve been really fortunate in the sense that it has allowed us to engage a lot wider with multi-agency support and the representation there.
“As a senior leader for the last six or seven years, I consider myself to know a lot of the agencies.
“However, they were there and their roles became a lot clearer as a result of the TALC involvement.
“In a short space of time it allowed, because it was that open forum, us to start building some relationships with agencies that I had not previously had any dealings with.”
Tewkesbury School was initially part of the Universal pilot offer, which ran from October 2020 to March 2021, and remain engaged now that the intervention has transitions into the permanent dual locality model.
The school used TALC support to compliment the processes already in place, and used it to help with complex cases in the Early Help arena.
Mr Smith added: “TALC adds to what we already do. I don’t think I’d have been able to access and engage with the agencies as well, and as easily, if it hadn’t been for the TALC.
“For two cases I can think of in recent times, really complex cases, we got the right result for those young people. I would argue in both cases that we avoided permanent exclusion.”
The assistant head of the secondary school also encouraged other colleagues to engage with TALC support when needed.
“I was initially sceptical,” said Mr Smith.
“I’d encourage other schools to try get over that initial scepticism and to engage with it.
“The initial referral is super and is really important because that gives the TALC a really good understanding of what the needs might be.
“It also allows the right people to be in the meeting that takes place.
“And we have got a great result for two of our young people.”
For more information, or to access TALC support, email TALC@gloucestershire.gov.uk.
|