Research School Network: Concept Cat.… he’s a clever, clever cat!

In 1985 Ann Locke produced a structured programme for teaching understanding and use of spoken language called Living Language (Locke, 1985). Part of the Living Language materials called the Starter Programme focuses on teaching understanding and use of the first hundred words that young children typically learn. Ann also lists a vocabulary of properties and relationships which consists of just over 200 basic words – adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, etc. These words are grouped in levels of increasing difficulty and unfamiliarity. Much of this vocabulary list contains words that are likely to be introduced in the earliest stages of mathematics teaching or in basic science activities. Most children pick up concepts easily and exposure to them is enough to learn them. However, for those that find learning concepts more difficult they need a rigorous experiential learning experience. They need several steps of exposure to the word and its meaning in order to learn it.

Concept Cat is an approach developed by speech and language therapists, Anna Branagan and Stephen Parsons from Word Aware as a practical and effective way to ensure all children in the early years become secure with this fundamental vocabulary and can use it independently. Each week, a new concept is introduced to the children through an enacted story. The class teacher reads the Concept Cat story while a teaching assistant acts it out, using small world role play items. The class teacher acts out the story twice during the day, to ensure all the children have had the opportunity to engage with the modelled session. All the small world materials are then available for the children to access independently. During the following days, the teaching assistant works with small groups of children to support them to act out the story. The children are encouraged to use the language themselves and independently act out the story.

The Aspirer Manchester Research Hub is offering 15 school places as part of a funded project by the IEE in order to deliver and assess the impact of Concept Cat in teaching this fundamental vocabulary. The project will run for ten weeks and will involve two afternoon training sessions, a support visit and all resources and materials needed to deliver the programme. Six children from each Reception class will be selected to assess their understanding of ten key words at the start and at the end of trial, using the visual assessment materials devised by Anna Branagan, Stephen Parsons & Sarah Smith. An online questionnaire will be shared with all the schools involved in the project at the beginning of the project to capture their views what sort of training they have received around vocabulary teaching and learning, linguistic concepts, the support and scaffold of oral language and what sort of meaningful difference would be convincing to the teachers. During the project, the engagement of the schools in the project will be collected (attendance at training, fidelity records of how often Concept Cat is delivered and feedback collected at the end each training session). A further online questionnaire will be administered at the end of the intervention period to capture views on the effectiveness of the intervention and any challenges faced.

To find out more about Concept Cat and all things related to the Manchester Hub of the Aspirer Research School, get in touch with the Principal at Wilbraham Primary School, Steve Wheeldon, s.​wheeldon@​wilbrahamprimary.​com or Megan Dixon, Co-Director of the Aspirer Research School mdixon@​aet.​cheshire.​sch.​uk

If you are interested in taking part in this project, please contact Rachel Swann at rswann@​aet.​cheshire.​sch.​uk to express your interest by 7^th February 2020