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Educational Psychologists (EPs) work with you, your child, and their teachers to help to understand and improve children's learning and wellbeing.

Educational Psychologists gather information through assessments, observations, discussions, and questionnaires and pull this information together to help to create an understanding of what school might be like for your child.

EPs focus on strengths (what your child can do well) as well as difficulties they may be experiencing (things they find hard). EPs also look at the environment and whether some of a child's needs might better be explained by what is happening around them.

EPs take a holistic approach to understanding your child.

Educational Psychologists (EPs) will usually become involved with a child if there is a concern about an area of their development. This might include one (or several) of the following: learning, friendships, wellbeing, social skills, academic skills (reading, writing or number), interactions, communicating with others, emotions, attendance, motivation, retention, independence, or behaviour. Your child's school should have talked to you in detail about the areas of concern before making a referral 

Educational Psychologists (EPs) usually become involved at the request of an educational setting (school, nursery, or college). Educational settings can buy in packages of support from an Educational Psychologist Service. This can include individual assessments, interventions, or whole school work and training. Some Local Authorities provide EP support to schools as part of a local offer.

EPs may also become involved with you and your child as part of an Education, Health and Care Needs Assessment (EHCNA). This tends to be a short, stand-alone assessment, as part of a specific statutory role. This is commissioned by the Local Authority who is carrying out the EHCNA.

EPs can also sometimes become involved at the request of parents or carers, although EPs will still need to work with your child's school to best assess your child in the context of their educational experiences. Our advice at Pathways NE is to contact your school SENDCo in the first instance and discuss your concerns. There are usually a number of school based assessments and observations which should be considered as a first point of call. If the school is unable to provide further EP assessment and parents and school feel it may be beneficial then please feel free to contact us at Pathways NE and see if we may be able to offer any support via a parent funded assessment.

Educational Psychologist (EP) assessments are tailored and bespoke according to the needs and description of the child being referred. This means that assessments can vary between children.

An EP will usually take time to talk to your child's teacher (or teachers) as well as the school SENDCo (Special Educational Needs and Disability Coordinator). This will allow them to ask questions about why things might be happening as well as finding out what is happening.

Often an EP will meet with a child or young person to gain their views, including what they like, what they don't like, what they find hard, and what they think would help. EPs can use lots of different methods to work with a child to gain their views as they may work with children who are unable to use language or who are very young.

EPs may carry out specific assessments of a child or young person's skills. This may include their cogntive skills, their learning skills, their memory, their emotional understanding, their organisation and planning, their problem solving, their visual processing, their language skills, their sensory needs, and their social interactions. This can be done through formal standardised assessments, play based assessments, games, or observation, depending on what would be most appropriate for the individual child.

An EP will usually try to discuss their involvement with parents or carers and to find out how your child presents at home (as you know them best!) This can sometimes be a meeting in school, or sometimes via a phonecall.

The type of feedback that an Educational Psychologist (EP) offers is usually agreed at the outset of any work and will depend on the type and package of assessment.

EPs will often write a formal report that provides details of their work and assessments, as well as some conclusions, and recommendations for next steps/things that might help in the specific circumstances.

At times EP feedback may be shorter and focus on a pupil profile which can be a shorter summary for staff, focussing on strategies, that can then be discussed and ammended with all those involved.

EPs will usually attend a review meeting at school with parents/carers (if they would like to attend), teachers, and where possible with other professionals. Where possible we aim for this review to be within the term that we have worked with your child. This review meeting is arranged by the school. This can be a chance to talk about the work, and jointly discuss and agree next steps and strategies. This is another chance to talk to the EP and ask any questions. 

At Pathways NE, our EPs will include their contact details on the bottom of reports. We are friendly and will always do our best to be approachable and to answer any questions you have. There is no such thing as a silly question!