Starting your NELI intervention with a new group of children can be daunting – here are some step-by-step notes to help get you started:
The information below references steps in the NELI online training courses and delivery support hub, which we hope you have accessed, as well as the contents of the NELI resource pack, which your school should have received. If you are missing anything, please contact us for support.
Week 1 of NELI Delivery
Monday and Tuesday - Assessment of Narrative Speech and Grammar
A detailed timetable for NELI delivery can be found on page 15 of the Part 1 Teaching Handbook, as well as on Step 1.1 of Course 2.
Where possible, we recommend you start your NELI programme on a Monday. As you can see, the first two days are set aside for you to complete the ‘Assessment of Narrative Speech and Grammar’ sheet (Part 1 Teaching Handbook, p. 106-107) with each child in your NELI Group. Don’t worry, this won’t take two whole days, just 5 minutes or so for each child.
This assessment will give you a good indication of the level of language skill each child has and will enable you to set appropriate narrative targets for each child right from the start of the programme.
You can find useful demonstration videos of these initial narrative assessment sessions in the Delivery Support Hub from Steps 1.12 to 1.16 alongside example completed assessment sheets. The assessment sheets look like this:
For this assessment, you should use a three-sequence picture story card; it doesn’t matter which one you use but remember to use the same story card each time you conduct the assessment (at the end of week 10 and week 20). You will find the three-sequence picture story cards in your set of green flashcards - here is an example:
Write down the child's story (with no prompting), conduct the assessment and set three targets. Example targets might be “use of past tense”, “use of pronouns he, his, she, they etc”, “identify character in story”.
Please see Step 1.17 of the Hub (Effective record keeping – tracking progress and setting targets) where you’ll find the Grammar toolkit and Narrative Assessment targets in the Downloads section.
You may also like to complete the Attitude and Behaviour record sheet which can be found in the Part 1 Teaching Handbook (p. 108).
Wednesday - First Group Session
On the third day you undertake the first NELI Group session. The structure, content and format of the Group sessions are laid out in detail in the NELI Handbooks. Refer to Session 1 in the Part 1 Teaching Handbook (p. 27-29) for the first Group session plan. The structure and timings are slightly different from the other Group sessions as the children are introduced to the programme and no vocabulary is taught. See Steps 1.3 – 1.10 of Course 2 for full instructions on delivering NELI Group sessions.
You can also find useful demonstration videos of the Group Sessions in the Delivery Support Hub, Step 1.11 ‘Group Sessions in Action’.
The first video on this step is Session 1. This is the first time our NELI practitioner shows the ‘Ted’ puppet to the children and introduces the ‘Days of the week’, ‘Listening Rules’ and the ‘Best Listener sticker’ and board. We hope this provides inspiration for your own first session.
Thursday - First Individual Sessions with each of the Children
On the fourth day you will begin Individual sessions with each of the children. The structure and timings of the first Individual session are different from the rest, as the children won’t have any vocabulary to learn yet. This first session is an opportunity for the child to get used to the session format and location, feel secure in their learning environment and understand what is expected of them. A good plan for this first session could be:
- revise the Days of the Week and explicitly teach and reinforce the Listening Rules (using Ted to act them out will be especially useful since this takes the focus away from the child)
- play a Listening Game
- look at the ‘Ted and his big ball’ story from Group session 1
The rest of the Individual sessions follow the standard full Individual session structure and timings; see Steps 1.12 – 1.19 of Course 2 for full instructions on delivering NELI Individual sessions.
While the Group Sessions follow detailed session plans, the Individual sessions allow you more flexibility to meet the needs of each child based on their Assessment of Narrative Speech and Grammar. However, we know that planning time is often limited and to get you into the swing of delivering NELI, we have provided optional session plans for every Individual session. See Step 1.23 of the NELI Delivery Support Hub.
Friday - Second Group Session
On the Friday you undertake the second Group Session. By now we hope you will be in the swing of your NELI delivery, and it will be less daunting. Please refer to Session 2 in the Part 1 Teaching Handbook (p. 30-32) for the second Group session plan. You can also refer to the videos in Step 1.11 of the Delivery Support Hub ‘Group Sessions in Action’ for inspiration.
Week 2 of NELI Delivery Onwards
In the second week delivery falls into a standard pattern of three Group sessions (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) and two Individual sessions with each child (Tuesday and Thursday). The full timetable for NELI delivery can be found on page 15 of the Part 1 Teaching Handbook, as well as on Step 1.1 of Course 2.
The NELI Teaching handbooks and the NELI online training provide you with all the tools you need to continue your NELI delivery to pupils throughout the 20-week programme.
If you have any questions, please contact us at support@oxedandassessment.com or post a message in one of the Comments sections on the NELI Delivery Support Hub or other Courses and our Mentors will be happy to help.