A Collaborative Review is facilitated by a member of The Harbour team to support school staff to reflect on a child’s strengths and needs, and gain a shared understanding of a child. It is most effective when all staff supporting the child attend the review meeting (this may include teachers, teaching assistants, SENCO and members of the school leadership team).

This solution focused approach aims to enable school staff to think about what they are noticing about a child and what might support them next.

A key part of The Harbour approach is gathering information from parents, the child and school staff around a child’s story and giving the time and space to support solution focussed discussions. For a Collaborative Review this information gathering is the responsibility of the school (unlike in a Formulation Meeting where this is undertaken by The Harbour Team):

Parent and Child Voice

Parent and child’s voice are captured by the school prior to the review meeting. The Harbour provides school staff with a format to aid gathering parent information, and ideas for gathering the child’s voice. Using these suggested prompts during a discussion with parents aims to elicit key information about a child, and ensure that the parent’s voice is heard and included in the Collaborative Review Meeting.

Our suggested prompts for discussion with parents include:

  • Strengths – tell us about their interests, strengths and what’s important to them.
  • Family – tell us about the family and the relationships they have at home.
  • Early Developmental History – tell us about pregnancy, birth, developmental milestones, medical etc.
  • Relationships with others – tell us about relationships with other children and adults; sharing, taking turns and how they play.
  • Feelings – tell us about how they react in different situations.
  • What are we noticing? – tell us about what you are noticing at home and at school; what are they doing? what are they saying?
  • What would be great? – tell us about your hopes for your child.

The child’s views can be gathered by:

  • One Page Profile
  • Allowing the child to photograph 5 things that are important to them (at home and school)
  • A familiar adult asking the child or having a scaffolding conversation
  • A child drawing their favourite things, things they enjoy or things they find tricky

Collaborative Review Meetings

The first part of the meeting dedicated to exploring the child’s strengths, interests and the positives about the child. Often when we feel stuck, or feel that things are working, it is easy to start with listing all the problems or barriers.

Prioritising the first part of the meeting to share the strengths and interests of the child, helps to focus our thinking on the individual child that is at the centre of the discussion. The parent and child’s contributions are also shared during this discussion, and all of these things are added to the inner part of the person outline.

Time is then given to share what else is happening for the child, and what is being noticed. This might include family history or background, relationships with others, emotions and behaviours, barriers and challenges to overcome. All of these things are added to the outer part of the person outline.

Towards the end of the meeting, through collaborating and being solution focussed, we agree priorities, approaches and strategies that can be tried by the school. It is the school’s responsibility to share outcomes with the parents/carers.

What are they saying?
What are you finding difficult?
What are they good at?
What do people like about them?
What do they enjoy doing?
What are their interests?
What is important to them?
What are they proud of?
What are you noticing?
Tell us about their relationships with others?
What are the barriers?