1. Measuring the impact of Occupational Therapy intervention to develop the self-care skills of Reception aged children in a mainstream school
School based Occupational Therapists are well placed to provide early intervention to help develop a child’s occupations (Stephen 2001) and can work to support school staff to develop a child’s skills to enable to them to successfully participate in the classroom (RCOT 2015).
1. Introduction
Topcliffe Primary in Birmingham became the first mainstream school to purchase this additional service
The school identified their top priority was to ‘promote the self-care skills of children in the Reception class’
All children in the one-form entry Reception class (4-5 year olds) were observed to carry out self-care skills
5 children were identified as requiring development in the areas of:
Using cutlery
Fastening a coat
Fastening buttons
‘BCHC Plus’ enables schools and other educational settings to purchase additional Occupational Therapy provision to meet specific needs, outside of the core NHS provision (BCHC Plus 2017). The BCHC Plus Occupational Therapy service was launched in Autumn 2017.
Goal Attainment Scale (GAS) goals were written for each child
The children attended a weekly group during the school day (Jan-April 2018). Skills were worked on in a fun and interactive way, using play-based activities to practice the goals. Homework and advice was sent home too. The group was led by an Occupational Therapist
“Billy is doing better, especially using a knife. We bought him Lego and other tiny toys to help him…just as the advice said.”
4. Results
Children’s GAS goals were re-assessed and scored
The graph shows changes in 4 out of 5 children
An environmental change is likely to have contributed towards the reduction in one GAS score
5. What Did We Learn?
Practicing skills in a group rather than a 1:1 basis appeared more motivating for the children as they talked openly about what they could do and what they found tricky too!
In future groups, a joint child/parent workshop would be included as part of the programme
A larger sample size would be considered when measuring outcomes
The therapy team has discussed the use of a child-friendly self-evaluation tool for future groups
References
Birmingham Community Healthcare (BCHC) NHS Foundation Trust (2017) “BCHC Plus”. URL: [Accessed online: ]. 
Royal College of Occupational Therapy (2015) Occupational Therapy with children and young people fact sheet [online] London: RCOT.
Stephen LC, Tauber SK (2001) Early intervention. in: J Case-Smith, ed. Occupational Therapy for Children 4th ed. St. Louis, MO: Mosby
Goal Attainment Scale (GAS) changes
Jenny Gregory – Professional Clinical Lead in Occupational Therapy
@Jen_PCLOT