Labour Children and Education Policy Commission - Delivering a step change in early intervention and the early yearsDraft response from The Communication Trust

Early help services – developing a vision for services from pregnancy to school for the families that need them

1) How can we build on the work that Sure Start children’s centres started to ensure families can access these services?

From birth to school is a crucial period for children to develop strong and effective speech, language and communication skills, essential to support learning, attainment and good social and emotional development. Many children struggle to develop these skills; and many families require coordinated services to ensure that their child’s speech, language and communication skills are effectively supported, any needs are identified and supported early. Sure Start centres have provided such coordinated services for language and communication, linking universal and targeted approaches in speech, language and communication.

The early years services landscape needs to be thoroughly reviewed. Sure Start Children’s Centres were the key mechanism through which under 5s and their families were reached over the last 10-15 years. Now that the number of Children’s Centres is significantly reduced (40% will have been closed since 2010) the purpose of the centres needs to be revisited and the means through which young children and their families are supported reviewed.

Delayed speech language and communication skills are particularly prevalent in areas of social disadvantage so it is essential that in terms of speech and language specifically, particular areas of focus include ensuring that there is sufficient support for the most disadvantaged children. Despite the existence of the early education offers for two, three and four year olds, the take up of the two year old offer is lower than anticipated and before the age of two the majority of disadvantaged children will not access childcare.

The role of Children’s Centres should:

o Include a real focus on 0-2 year olds, based on evidenced early language and communication activities and preventative engagement, support and intervention, through linking to wider services. International studies show that when a baby’s development falls behind the norm during the first year of life, it is then much more likely to fall even further behind in subsequent years, than to catch up with those who have had a better start.

o Emphasise support to parents and carers in the first two years of the children’s life, particularly in relation to speech, language and communication, based on the premise that support given early will continue to benefit the children and their parents/carers as they get older

o Have a key role in ensuring young families access the early education offers (including through the disadvantaged two year old project)

o Drive the quality of childcare and early education within their area, offering support, training and signposting for all types of settings

o Ensure that childcare settings within the Children’s Centre locality are effectively engaging with parents and supporting them to give their children a ‘communication rich’ home environment

o Facilitate and coordinate links between different services, including health and education

Sure start centres also provide a valuable way in which parents can engage with services in a supportive manner – sessions such as ‘stay and play’ within Children’s Centres play a vital role in supporting parents and providing an opportunity for signposting and identification. For parents who are struggling, this facility to see ‘how to do it’ and try things out within a Children’s Centre is really important. With a reduced number of Children’s Centres, it is the view of the Communication Trust that their purpose should be refocused on the 0-2s, to maximise this crucial period for speech, language and communication development, with a lighter touch for the older children although with some support still available until children start at school.

2) What can we learn from examples of partnerships between health services and social workers?

3) How can we improve services for parents and carers of new born babies? And what are your experiences of the services available in your area?

Professionals working in services for families with new born babies, health visitors and midwives (and any other professionals who are involved with a family) should be knowledgeable, skilled and confident in sharing information with parents and carers about the importance of talking to their babies from birth and developing early interaction skills between parents and their babies. These professionals also have a role to play in sharing information about typical language development and helping parents whose child may be struggling with this to relevant local additional support. It’s critical that parents are supported to encourage their child’s language and communication development right from the start. Moreover, there is a role for ensuring good patterns are laid down pre-birth and a rising voice for ensuring parents have the knowledge about how their input affects children’s brain development. Ideally, parents should know what to expect, rather than waiting until they are concerned, before they look for information about ages and stages and how to support communication development.

The inclusion of the 0 – 2 age range within the reformed SEND system is very welcome, but more must be done to ensure that babies with SEND are identified and supported early. Although the SEND reforms of both the current and the coalition government effectively enshrined the age extension in legislation, anecdotally we’ve been hearing that the implementation of these reforms is not yet achieving positive outcomes for babies and children in these earliest years. It is important to identify services and support accessed by children in this age range and target support for these families via these services. In addition to this, it is vital that there are enough services available and that they are of the right quality to provide all the support that is needed.

There is a wealth of high quality support available within the voluntary and community sector. The Trust’s Consortium Catalogue for Early Years and Local Offer page provides information about products and services (free and fee-based) for parents from over fifty different not-for-profit organisations. In addition, the What Works database , a library of evidenced interventions and approaches to support speech, language and communication across all phases, contains a variety of evidence-based interventions that are applicable to an early years audience.

The work from NFER on parent support programmes for disadvantaged children provides evidence about the effectiveness of programmes designed to support parents. Although it was published with a schools audience in mind, there are learnings for the early years sector too and it will be a useful resource for service improvement work in this area. The Early Intervention Foundation’s The Best Start

at Home report also looks at a range of interventions that enhance parent-child interaction with a view to improving attachment and parental sensitivity, and children’s social and emotional development and language and communication. Additionally, there is further evidence regarding the impact of parental engagement as an important early intervention tool from the Education Endowment Foundation’s Early Years Toolkit. This toolkit highlights the high impact that language and communication approaches can have for a child when implemented in the early years.

Services that support parents and carers of new born babies need to prioritise the sharing of information with parents about the importance of the home learning environment, quality adult-child interaction and attachment and their impact on the physical characteristics of the child’s developing brain. It’s possible that for some families, these elements are not a priority within the home (particularly in situations where parents are facing multiple challenges) or parents are not aware of them. The evidence cited above highlights how these early years services can have a significant impact on children’s outcomes and are worth investing in.

Children’s Centres therefore play an essential role in supporting parents and carers of new born babies. This should be part of a Children’s Centre wider role in early family support, which we refer to in detail in our response to question 1.

4) What can we do to encourage families to seek out these kinds of services, particularly parenting skills programmes?

Universal services that all families have the opportunity to access, such as health visitors, GPs or children’s centres are in a strong position to encourage and support parents to access skills programmes. Providing information about additional support via universal services the majority of parents routinely use is an effective way to share important information and sign posting to all families and those who are harder to reach. In addition, this universal offer reduces the stigma of being provided with skills development opportunities. Further, the vocabulary used is important here - the offer of ‘support for parents’ may be better received than the offer of ‘parenting’ courses.

For families with more complex needs, child and family social workers are particularly important multipliers.

More can also be done to help facilitate parent to parent information sharing – we’ve had feedback that this is a commonly used route for many families. Parent-parent programmes focusing on language and communication development such as I CAN’s Communication Ambassadors have demonstrated positive outcomes.

In addition to universal support for families, it is absolutely vital that parents of children who have been identified as having SEND have access to high quality support and accessible services to help them develop the knowledge, skills and confidence they need to achieve positive outcomes with their child. Additionally, parents of children with SEND often struggle to find the services their child needs. Parents of children with SEND therefore might need access to extra parenting support to support them with understanding their child’s needs and accessing the specialist support that they require. Whilst it’s important that parents who have been identified as struggling received targeted support in this respect, all parents of children with SEND should have support available to them.

A high quality childcare system – delivering an early years revolution fit for modern families

5) How can we change the focus of the early years phase to encourage and develop communication skills?

We very much welcome the recognition of this crucial area as a policy priority. There continue to be too many children starting school without the speech, language and communication skills they need to do well at school and to have positive educational, social, emotional and mental health outcomes. This can be a particular challenge in areas of social disadvantage where in some cases between 40 and 50% of children are starting school with delayed language1, which puts these children behind from the start in terms of their social and academic development. We know that many early years settings have a strong focus on language and communication, while others do not. To support the focus on language and communication development in the early years we would recommend:

Increased training, qualification and support pathways in place to ensure all members of the early years workforce have a good understanding of:

- The typical speech, language and communication skills for the age group of children they are working most closely with. This will support early identification of Speech, Language and Communication Needs (SLCN); we know that under identification is a huge issue for children with SLCN and that communication difficulties can be misinterpreted or missed altogether, meaning that effective, early support cannot be implemented and these children’s difficulties can become compounded as they enter more formal schooling.

- How to support language and communication development at different ages.- The importance of communication in the development of other skills and elements of

wellbeing such as literacy, social development and mental health. It will also be vital that they understand the impact poor communication and language skills can have on children in the long term and the role of the early years in minimising this impact.

Building this knowledge and skill across the EY workforce will ensure early identification of children whose skills aren’t developing as expected, so early support can be put in place. The Communication Trust and our members provide a range of support for early years professionals around the importance of speech, language and communication available on our website here – www.thecommunicationtrust.org.uk/earlyyears.

Ensuring that better qualified early years staff are able to support children’s speech, language and communication development more effectively.2 All settings with a high intake of children from disadvantaged backgrounds should be required to ensure all staff have training and professional development in speech, language and communication development and each setting has staff members qualified in speech, language and communication at Level 3 (either as part of a broader EY qualification or as a standalone qualification). Early Years Pupil Premium could effectively be used to support this training and development. At present, only 20% of the early years workforce are qualified to Level 3 - considering the profound impact of speech, language and communication development, it is essential that workforce development in this area is prioritised.

Supporting EY practitioners to understand the evidence behind communication and language approaches will also help to increase the focus of these essential foundation skills in the early years. The Communication Trust’s What Works database and the EEF Early Years Toolkit also

1James Law, Kirsty McBean and Robert Rush ‘Communication skills in a population of primary school-aged children raised in an area of pronounced social disadvantage’ International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, November-December 2011, VOL. 46, NO. 6, 657–6642 Nutbrown, C. (2012) Foundations for quality - The independent review of early education and childcare qualifications. Crown Copyright.

provide important information and evidence for those working to support the communication and language skills of children aged 0-5.

There needs to be an expectation that all early years settings make communication and language part of their planning, to ensure it’s part of every activity, every day. All too often, language and communication is seen as something that is implicit; a skill that children will develop incidentally. However, we know that children develop their language skills through quality interactions with responsive adults. By focussing on the development of these skills during planning, it will ensure that practitioners are consistently considering their interactions with children and how they are actively supporting speech, language and communication development across the setting.

Evidence from the Better Communication Research Programme suggests that the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP) provides a valid measure of understanding of spoken language3. The structure provided by EYFSP supports teachers to think explicitly about communication and language in their planning and supports them to accurately measure pupils’ progress in this vital area, however, it was made non-statutory under the coalition Government. A re-focussing on the role the EYFSP can play in supporting children in the early years therefore would be welcome.

For all early years settings to promote a communication supportive environment, both within their setting and within the home. Evidence shows that a communication supportive environment is important for children’s outcomes and therefore should be an important focus for early years settings and practitioners. The strongest predictor of children’s language development is the quantity4 and the quality5 of the language children hear in their environment. Research shows that activities that improve a child’s communication environment (the early ownership of books, trips to the library, attendance at pre-school, parents teaching a range of activities and the number of toys and books available) are a more important predictor of language development at two, and school entry ‘baseline’ scores at four, than socio-economic background alone.6 So it is not disadvantage per se that causes slow language development, but the fact that disadvantage is so often associated with an impoverished communicative environment7.

Save the Children’s Lighting Up Young Brains supports this, highlighting that a child’s home learning environment at age 14 months has an impact on their language development at age three. Research has also found that even if these elements of a positive home learning environment are introduced after the first year or two, it can still have an impact on a child’s early learning.

Early years practitioners need support and training to ensure they feel confident in sharing crucial information about speech, language and communication development and shaping the home communication environment with parents. The home learning environment has a significant effect on children’s early language development and early years practitioners are ideally placed to support parents to recognise and build on this by effectively supporting their child’s language and communication development at home.

3Snowling et al, Better communication research programme: Language and Literacy Attainment of Pupils during Early Years and through KS2: Does teacher assessment at five provide a valid measure of children’s current and future educational attainments? DfE, 20114 Ambridge, B., Rowland, C.F., Theakston, A.L. & Kidd, E.J. (2015). The ubiquity of frequency effects in first language acquisition. Journal of Child Language, 42(2), 239-735McGillion ML, Herbert JS, Pine JM, Keren-Portnoy T, Vihman MM & Matthews DE (2013) Supporting Early Vocabulary Development: What Sort of Responsiveness Matters?.IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development, 5(3), 240-248.6Roulstone, S. et al (2011) Investigating the role of language in children’s early educational outcomes DfE Research Report 1347Hoff E (2003) The specificity of environmental influence: Socioeconomic status affects early vocabulary development via maternal speech. Child Development, 74(5):1368–1378

Ensure that language and communication continues to have a strong focus within statutory requirements in the early years, such as Ofsted inspection frameworks and the Early Years Foundation Stage framework. Statutory frameworks, which include and highlight the importance of language and communication in the early years and as a central part of children’s development will support ALL settings to have a focus on this crucial areas

6) What assessment have you made of the quality of childcare places locally?

We know that there is significant variability in the quality of early education across the country. Of particular concern is that PVI settings in areas of disadvantage tend to be of lower quality, with specific challenges around the support these settings provide for language and literacy8. We also know that the majority of children under 3 accessing childcare are doing so via PVI settings. This compounds the risk children (and particularly the very youngest in the 0 – 2 age range) from disadvantaged backgrounds are at risk of receiving lower quality early education and of not being supported to develop the language and communication skills they need, which in turn has a direct effect on their later academic and social and emotional wellbeing outcomes.

There is some concern that the current government proposals looking at extending the free entitlement offer to 30 hours places too much focus on flexibility and not enough on the importance of quality early education provision to support children’s outcomes. This may need to be a future consideration in assessing the quality of local childcare provision.

There is also variability across local authorities in the training that is available to early years settings, which then leads to variability in quality of settings in a local area. This is particularly relevant for settings and practitioners who may have very specific training needs, for example if there are high numbers of children with SEND or at risk of developing SEND attending the setting.

7) How can we improve qualifications and training of the early years workforce, including childminders?

Make qualifications accessible, flexible and ensure they are accredited. There are a range of high quality training programmes now available from our consortium, and local providers, a number of which appear on the newly developed What Works training database , which outlines training packages that are evidenced as having an impact on practitioners’ practice and children’s outcomes

Platform 3 is an online route to achieving a level 3 qualification in supporting children’s speech language and communication and was developed by The Communication Trust in response to a demand from practitioners wishing to take the qualification, where it wasn’t being offered by local approved centres. From the two Platform 3 pilots (both funded through DfE VCS grants; one for general EY practitioners, the 2nd specifically for childminders) the overarching benefit that learners highlight is flexibility; being able to access accredited qualifications without needing to attend a specific class at a specific time of day and fitting it in around working hours, as well as cost effectiveness; not needing to spend money to attend courses/or organise cover. This is especially relevant for childminders who are often working in isolation.

Other training programmes offered by our consortium members showcase a range of accessible routes. For example, I CAN Early Talk (0-5 years) uses a cascade model of training whereby local skilled practitioners are trained to deliver to and support local settings. Building expertise locally ensures sustainability of skills and knowledge learnt. This was based on the DfE funded Early

8 Mathers, S. and Smees, R. (2014) Quality and Inequality – do 3 and 4 year olds in deprived areas experience lower quality early years provision?

Language Development Programme (ELDP) evaluated as having an impact on children’s early language development9

Ensure that any initial early years qualifications (such as the Early Years Educator) retain in the future a strong and mandatory component of learning around speech, language and communication.

Ensure that training offered meets the needs of practitioners/whole settings – often professional development needs can be hard to identify. The Trust developed the Speech, Language and Communication Framework to allow practitioners to evaluate their confidence around supporting speech, language and communication and SLCN. A framework like this is essential for practitioners and settings to be able to plan their professional development and ensure that it is effectively meeting both practitioners’ and children’s needs.

Ensure that training is evidence based where possible – In addition to evidence based programmes listed on the What Works training database , we would also recommend looking at ways to support learning in practice such as through coaching and mentoring approaches in settings (in a similar way to Every Child a Talker). The notion of every setting having a designated communication champion/lead to support speech and language would also be a beneficial addition.

Ensure that the workforce is signposted to relevant training and resources. The products and services available within the voluntary and community sector, many of which are listed in The Trust’s Consortium Catalogue for Early Years and Local Offer page contain a variety of different resources and information to improve the training and qualifications of the workforce.

Ensure that there is a requirement for all settings to show evidence of how they have supported children’s communication and language skills through systems such as Ofsted inspections, access to 2, 3 and 4 year old funding , mandatory recording of young children’s skills such as through the integrated health and education review at 2 year or the EYFS profile

8) What practical things can we do to improve the status of the early years so that people recognise its importance?

Provide a clear learning/career progression pathway and offer professional development for early years practitioners to motivate those who are entering the profession. By ensuring that EY settings have increased funding specifically to support their staff, both staff retention rates and staff confidence and morale will see a similar increase.

Provide opportunities for more specialist roles within early years settings, following professional development, such as a communication lead or communication champion, to help motivate practitioners to undertake professional development opportunities and remain in the sector

Raise the status of practitioners working in the early years by offering more funding to the sector, to allow the profession to be viewed as a higher status role and to support retention of practitioners through funding of professional development opportunities. The profile of the sector deserves to be raised considering all the evidence and research that highlights the importance of a child’s earliest years in predicting their later academic and social outcomes. There is also currently an inconsistency in the status of early years teachers, who are unable to become primary teachers without further qualifications despite the fact that primary teachers can be early years teachers

9 (http://www.ican.org.uk/~/media/Ican2/Whats%20the%20Issue/Evidence/ELDP-Extended-Evaluation-Report-Feb2015.ashx)

without additional qualifications; additionally there are considerable challenges in recruitment to EY teacher training, with high numbers or courses reported to be closing.

Be clear on the importance of play in the early years. All too often early years isn’t given the recognition is deserves because it is more unstructured and play based than formal schooling. However, clearer messaging about the fundamental importance of play in the early years, how it is essential for children’s early development and how it takes skill and expertise to support a child’s progress through play, would provide huge recognition for early years practitioners.

Provide clearer public messages about the impact of not intervening early, particularly to support children’s language and communication development ; children not achieving academically, struggling to make friends, developing mental health issues, developing challenging behaviour and possibly ending up in the youth justice system. Many people (both general public and early years practitioners themselves) are still not aware of this trajectory and the importance of the early years in crucially altering the possible outcomes for children. Research in neuroscience shows the pivotal importance of the first three and a half years of a child’s life in determining their life chances10 - vocabulary at age five has been found to be the best predictor of whether children who experienced social deprivation in childhood were able to ‘buck the trend’ and escape poverty in later adult life.11 Closing the gap between the language development of the country’s disadvantaged children is of the utmost importance - there is strong evidence to show that the development of speech, language and communication in the early years has a profound and far reaching impact on a child’s chances in life.

Supporting vulnerable children – how can we narrow the gap between vulnerable children and their peers?

9) What more can we do to help vulnerable groups such as children with SEND in our communities?

Remove the barriers that currently exist that prevent children with SEND from being able to access the same provision/services/opportunities as other children and provide the services that will enable children with SEND to have positive outcomes early on. This includes frequent speech and language therapy provision that is available to all early years settings. It is not just a case of the children being in the settings, but ensuring they have the support that they need to ensure they get the best out of these settings. In the EYFS there is an attainment gap of 46% between pupils with no SEN achieving a good level of development, and those who have been identified as having SLCN as their primary need.12 This trend continues throughout a child’s journey through education: just 15.8% of pupils with SLCN achieved 5+ GCSEs at grades A* to C including English and mathematics GCSEs. This is compared to 64.2% of pupils with no identified SEN – an attainment gap of 48.4%.13 A recent study also found that 40% of families with disabled children are not accessing the full current free childcare offer of 15 hours a week because they believe there is a lack of appropriately trained staff and provision that is unable to meet their child’s additional needs. We can seek to narrow this gap by:

Developing an awareness amongst the wider workforce in a community about SEND e.g. Stoke Speaks out was a community wide approach to supporting children’s Speech, Language and Communication (SLC) development – the workforce training delivered as part of this programme had a huge impact – 64% of children starting nursery with poor language skills in 2004, by 2013 this

10Suskind, D., (2015) Thirty Million Words: Building a Child’s Brain, Penguin Random House11Blanden, J., (2006) Bucking the Trend – What enables those who are disadvantaged in childhood to succeed later in life? London: Department for Work and Pensions12 SFR 36/2015:Early Years Foundation Stage Profile results in England, 2015,13 October 201513Children with special educational needs in England: January 2015. London: DfE

number dropped to 46%. In a similar vein, the Talk of the Town pilot study conducted by The Communication Trust between April 2011 and September 2012 resulted in increased skills and knowledge for staff in identifying children’s SLCN with under identification falling from between 31-50% at the beginning of the project to 5-15% at the end, together with a 16% increase in staff confidence in providing positive strategies to support the speech, language and communication development of children.

Training of the EY workforce around identifying and supporting children with SEND – we know this is an area many practitioners don’t feel confident with, and that 40% of families with disabled children are not accessing the full current free childcare offer of 15 hours a week. Parents of disabled children report factors including a lack of appropriately trained staff and provision that is unable to meet their child’s additional needs as reasons they have difficulty accessing their free childcare offer.14

Including more about SEND and SLCN specifically in ITT programmes – every teacher needs to be aware that supporting children with SEND is everybody’s business and they have a role to ensure that their universal support in the classroom ensures that children with SEND are included and supported to engage and participate. The recommendations of the Carter Review recognise this and provide useful building blocks for taking this further. It’s essential the current government is held to account on delivering on the recommendations of the Carter Review.

Recognising the pressure local authorities are under and their significant responsibilities to support children with SEND and resourcing them to do this effectively. It’s important LAs have the funding and guidance they need to fulfil their responsibilities to these children, in particular ensuring there is high quality support and professional development opportunities around SEND and SLCN available to schools and settings is vital.

Anecdotally we’ve been hearing from our networks and members that many local authorities are have not been able to effectively embed the principles of the new Code of Practice across their local areas – particularly for children with SEND in the0 – 2 age range. The findings that come from the new joint CQC and Ofsted local area SEND inspections may provide some useful evidence to highlight where areas need to focus their improvement.

Ensuring that specialist services for children with SEND and their families are valued and funding for them continues. In many services, for example speech and language therapy, there is a real concern that a reduction in the capacity and funding of specialist services is having a significant impact on children with SEND who need specialist support to allow them to achieve their potential. The importance of accurately identifying needs in local areas and ensuring this directly impacts on commissioning decisions should not be overlooked. Feedback we’re receiving indicates that the structures for effective needs analysis and subsequent commissioning decisions are not always working effectively and that this is having a significant impact on the resources available in local areas for some of the most vulnerable children.

In particular, specific attention needs to be focussed on those children who have SEND but do not have and education health and care (EHC) plan or statement. Children in this ‘SEN support’ category make up the vast majority of those with SEND and it’s essential there are effective universal and targeted support systems in place throughout their education to ensure they’re able to reach their full potential. Children and families in this group rely on the local offer in their area to access services and support. We know that the quality of local offers across England varies

14 Contact a Family (2015), Levelling the playing field: Equal access to childcare for disabled children - One year update, London: Contact a Family.

significantly and that commissioning arrangements for services for this group of children and families can be strengthened. To support in this, The Trust’s local offer page brings together the services our 53 members offer for families nationally to support their SLCN, however a local and national focus on support for children in this group would be extremely welcome and support improved outcomes for the 190,475 children identified as having SLCN as their primary need.

Children from disadvantaged backgrounds also need support to narrow the gap; attainment for children eligible for free school meals is consistently poorer across the early years up to GCSE and children growing up in socioeconomically disadvantaged families are at an increased risk of early language problems. Without the right support in place early, these children don’t catch up and are at risk of longer term difficulties and SEND15. Early identification and intervention in the early years is therefore crucial; but it’s also important that identification can take place effectively at any time, and in any setting, for a child or young person, to lead to clear assessments of needs, and access to evidenced intervention and support to help narrow the gap.

10) Have you seen children’s social care change in your community? Has it been positive?

11) What can we learn from past effective programmes that support vulnerable children and how can we build on them?

There have been a number of national programmes in the recent past, which focused on language and communication, particularly in the early years:

A specific example of a past programme is the Every Child a Talker Programme, the evaluation of which highlighted the importance of raising the profile of early language in early years settings and ensuring that settings have both the funding and external support available to them to do so. ECAT also demonstrates the importance of investing in professional development opportunities for staff and the benefits of coaching and networking to support the knowledge and skills of practitioners. The Ofsted report ‘Removing barriers to literacy (2011) found that in those settings involved with ECAT, children had “an increased vocabulary, other improvements included: children showing a more sustained interest in activities, children with additional needs reaching the targets in their individual educational plan more quickly, and improved behaviour, particularly for boys”16

As well as a range of local strategies and programmes, including Stoke Speaks Out, Nottinghamshire’s Language for Life and Sheffield’s ESCAL strategies, we know that the VCS SLCN sector has been working in this area to deliver effective support programmes focusing on speech, language and communication for a number of years. Some examples from our members are provided below and we would be very happy to discuss any of these or wider work in the sector in more detail.

The national, DfE funded Early Language Development Programme (ELDP), delivered by I CAN, trained local lead practitioners in awareness-raising and skills development supporting children’s early communication development. Lead practitioners then provided training and support to other practitioners who worked with young children in their locality. The evaluation demonstrated that specific training to develop early years practitioner skills had a measurable impact on children. It found that children made significant gains in their language development (comprehension and expression) following the ELDP training as measured by the direct standardized assessment of language. This was after the relatively short time period of approximately 8 weeks17. The evaluation demonstrates that

15 Roy, P. et al (2014) Language and Socioeconomic Disadvantage: From Research to Practice16 Department for Education (2011) The National Strategies 1997–2011 A brief summary of the impact and effectiveness of the National Strategies17 Clegg, Vance and Rohde (2015) ELDP Short Report, University of Sheffield

good, consistently delivered training programmes can impact a very large number of practitioners (16 000 trained through ELDP) and that this has a direct and significant impact on children’s language development in terms of accelerated understanding and use of language.

The Cued Speech Association UK is a national charity run by parents and professionals users of Cued Speech; it is the only organisation in the UK which provides Cued Speech information and training. Profoundly deaf babies and children, especially those who do not fully benefit from hearing technologies such as cochlear implants, can be perceived as being one of the most likely groups to have problems understanding and using the English language – and many do. However, training parents to use the lip-reading supplement CS will give deaf children full visual access to the English language (or other spoken languages) without delay1.

International research demonstrates that deaf children brought up with CS achieve reading scores equivalent to hearing children2&3, and that they felt included at home and in wider society4.

The Cued Speech Association UK, can train parents (and the professionals who support them) in as little as 20 hours. Training for this low-incidence group can be delivered remotely, UK-wide, by ‘Skype’, and arranged within a week. Take-up is limited mainly by lack of knowledge that CS exists. This low-cost, high-impact intervention gives deaf children access to English which equals that of hearing children.

I CAN’s Early Talk 0 – 3 pilot was an authority wide initiative, helping areas to audit their activity in supporting young children’s speech, language and communication and put in place activities, strategies and initiatives to meet specific local needs. It demonstrated that a local authority-wide approach to supporting babies’ and toddlers’ early communication development can be supported through a strategic lead, with cross-organisational delivery and systems change. This was seen to have an impact across the four local authorities who took part (each had a high level of disadvantage). The pilot was backed up by key training programmes and resources made available to families and practitioners, ensuring consistency and quality of messaging. The evaluation found that the authority-wide approach was key to enabling departments to work much more closely together.

Auditory Verbal UK (AVUK) is an award-winning charity which teaches deaf children to listen and speak without the need for lip reading, sign language or other visual cues. We help them to develop the lifelong communication and social skills they will need to participate fully in school and beyond, maximising their educational opportunities and making them advocates for themselves in the hearing world. Since 2003, they have supported over 1,000 children from across the UK, and 80% of children who graduate from the programme at AVUK have language skills at least equivalent to their hearing peers.

AVUK’s specialist experience working with families of pre-school deaf children throughout the UK highlights this critical importance of the years 0 to 3 for every child’s language development, and the life changing results that an early intervention programme of auditory verbal therapy can have. AVUK will shortly be launching a cost benefit analysis of auditory verbal therapy at AVUK that finds that for every £1 invested in auditory verbal therapy, there are a minimum of £4 of benefits.

12) Have you seen programmes in your community that have improved outcomes for the lowest achievers academically and professionally? What were they and can they be replicated?

Talk of the Town, an integrated, community led approach to supporting speech, language and communication in children and young people was piloted by The Communication Trust from 2011-12. Evaluation showed positive outcomes across all key aims including early identification of SLCN (with

under identification falling from between 31-50% at the beginning of the project to 5-15% at the end), joint working between practitioners across health and education and better outcomes for children in relation to their language levels. The evaluation report can be found on our website here.

I CAN’s Early Talk 0 – 3 pilot programme worked in 4 different local authorities in England, each with a high level of deprivation. The focus was on supporting very early language development with babies and toddlers. The outcomes demonstrated the usefulness of an authority-wide strategy championed by a strategic lead with engagement from a range of practitioners, departments, parents and families. The independent evaluation report noted that ‘The Early-Talk 0-3 pilot was praised as helping sites to kick-start ongoing activity to improve SLC development amongst 0-3s’. Specific outcomes were increased practitioner and parent awareness, ownership of the SLC agenda and joint working, increased information provision, increased practitioner competence in identification and support for SLC development, integration and sustainability.

13) In your view which Education policies and key messages in the last manifesto most resonated with voters? Which policies did not resonate so well? Was there anything missing from our policy offer to voters on this issue?

Labour’s ‘Britain can be Better’ manifesto emphasised the importance of language development in the early years, which is welcome. However, one clear gap in the document was the failure to effectively emphasise and set out an action plan for children with SEND, including those with SLCN, and how Labour would support them to achieve success at school and beyond. In particular we feel there was a missed opportunity in using the manifesto to focus specifically on the importance of quality initial teacher training and CPD to support pupils with additional needs. Given the current teacher recruitment and retention issues we believe this is a particularly important area for policy to address.

As we’ve highlighted in this response, without the right support in place children and young people with SLCN struggle to achieve positive outcomes in terms of their academic attainment and employment but also in wider social and emotional well being. This, and outcomes for children with SEND in general, is an issue which requires policy support from national and local decision makers. Appropriately trained and qualified professionals working on the ground can make a huge different to the trajectory of these children’s lives, but they must be supported by an unambiguous policy framework which recognises the importance of outcomes for children with SEND as a policy issue.

Stronger links between the role of speech, language and communication skills and success in school and at work could also be better promoted by Labour. There has been increasingly high profile coverage in the media of the poor ‘soft’ skills of students leaving school in England, which is affecting their ability to engage in the jobs market. An explicit focus of supporting pupils to develop the language skills they need for the workplace would therefore be a useful focus.

Following on from this, promoting the role of specialist practitioners in supporting children with SEND (and in particular SLCN) could also be useful to include in future manifestos. The role of specialist practitioners and the importance of joint working across health and education and between services and families would be useful to highlight.

In addition to this, given the Government’s current focus on providing flexible childcare for parents, it is important to emphasise that quality is the most important factor. Any pledge around increasing funded childcare places must foreground quality of the settings those places would be in and also be factored into budget workings to deliver it. Under the current budget that the Government are working to, it is going to be difficult to deliver quality places for children without SEN, let alone those with additional needs.