Supporting the changing educational landscape, by Robert Buckland MP

Today I had the honour of hosting The Communication Trust’s Reception in Parliament, which focussed on how schools can help meet the speech, language and communication needs of children and young people.


I was thrilled to be asked to speak as I have long been a fan and a supporter of what The Communication Trust is seeking to achieve. By using its collective expertise, the Trust supports the children’s workforce and commissioners and allows them to provide high quality provision of therapy and assistance. The way in which the Trust spreads good practice and awareness of speech, language and communication needs, whether they be in education or health, is something that I have long considered vitally important.

Being a parent of a child with speech, language and communication needs I have also seen at first-hand the importance of therapy to help young people overcome the obstacles that they face. I have also experienced the benefits that dedicated speech and language therapists can bring, and their importance not only in providing direct professional services but also in the training of other providers.


Speech, language and communication skills are growing ever more important as children and young people enter an increasingly competitive global workforce. They are also now a central part of Ofsted’s revised framework for school inspection, with ‘communication skills’ explicitly referred to as a parameter for inspection in two areas of judgement.


However, the Trust is today launching its latest thinkpiece, A Generation Adrift, which demonstrates that schools often face a challenge in locating the support required for their pupils with speech, language and communication needs, using evidence from the new Better Communication Research Programme report. The Communication Trust can offer schools a range of support to overcome these challenges and help them to support children and young people’s speech, language and communication.


In a changing educational landscape such as the one that we face today, the issue of children’s communication needs to be considered by an ever-wider range of actors. This includes, but is not limited to, Multi Chain Academies, Umbrella Academy chains, independent Academies, Learning Co-operatives, for profit and not for profit learning support agencies, and the wider commission community. There is, I believe, much good work already underway and I am confident that the ongoing work of The Communication Trust and the organisations which it represents will ensure that no child is left struggling with unidentified speech, language or communication difficulties.

You can find out more about Robert Buckland on his website.

A Generation Adrift can be downloaded here.

The debate is being had – are you in or out? Laura Smith, Media and Campaign Manager

As a media professional, I know the importance of the phrase ‘if a debate is being had it's better to be in it than out and watching from the sidelines’. Media work is tough - you cannot ‘manage’ or ‘control’ the message but it is our job to frame the debate in the best way possible.

Yesterday, a piece on the BBC Today Programme (which has over 1 million listeners a day) set the pace for the news agenda. This has continued today with stories in the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph.

Journalists have been drawn to Frank Fields MP, the Government’s poverty czar, anecdotal comments that some children start school unable to say their name or even unaware that they have a name. We are talking about a small minority of children but experts like Jean Gross, Communication Champion, and other head teachers have said ‘sadly it does happen’.

Neil Wilson, a Head teacher of a federation of schools in Manchester, was brave enough to put his voice out there and say “This is the Holy Grail of breaking barriers of underachievement and disaffection”. And by ‘this’ he means improving children’s communication skills.

It's our job (and I mean the collective we) to broaden the debate out. To ensure that messages come through that communication underpins everything else, that we are not talking about one ‘homogenous’ group of children and importantly that the solutions are out there and great work is being done on the ground. Jean did this very well in yesterday Today’s Programme – you can listen again here.

The Communication Trust represents 40 voluntary and community organisations with expertise in speech, language and communication. Many of the children and young people we represent have a long term communication need that has absolutely nothing to do with social and environmental factors. They need specialist help at the right time and deserve greater understanding from society.

However, we also advocate for those children with delayed language and this is a large group - 50% in some areas of social deprivation. They are important because this is about children’s life chances and with the right help they can catch up with their peers. Our consortium understands more than most how challenging life is if you struggle to communicate and no child should do so needlessly.

This is why the Hello campaign (national year of communication) is working to help both groups of children and to make communication a priority for all. We have developed posters, top tips leaflets, ‘ages and stages’ booklets for parents and professionals that are all available free at www.hello.org.uk/resources

Within our consortium help lines are available (such as Afasic’s and I CAN’s enquiry service) and the British Stammering Association’s facebook page is an excellent example of support and advice that can be provided to others. If you haven’t – take a moment to find out more about our consortium here.

So I ask you to add your voice to the mix. Comment on newspaper articles, write your own blog, post up your thoughts on Facebook or Twitter and talk to others because that what’s the media does – it starts a conversation and then we need to fill it.

‘Three strikes and you’re executed’ - Dave Mahon, Programme Manager

A suggestion I read on the Treasury’s website inviting the public to make suggestions on spending cuts. The entry suggested that with a conviction for a third offence the person could be taken round the back of the court and justice dispensed. While this would undoubtedly save the state money the idea of executing three time shoplifters doesn’t sit particularly well with me. I think I would prefer to see the state save money by looking at the variety of factors that can contribute to offending and this includes issues around speech, language and communication needs.

The Trust’s youth justice programme is now entering a new phase as training will be delivered to frontline staff at YOTs across the country. The training helps staff to understand how communication needs can manifest themselves and how simple strategies can produce better outcomes for everyone.

This is not to say that if you understand the communication needs of young people youth crime will be eliminated, there are many, many different reasons why people offend. However, the number of young people in the youth justice system with communication needs is disproportionate to the general population so there is clearly an issue here to address.

An important part of all of our work is in the evaluation, about showing how the work we do is having a positive effect on the people it is aimed at, the youth justice workforce and ultimately the young people in their care in this case. We need to show more clearly the scale of the issue and identify gaps in service provision. We need to look at how young people are supported, how the training helps to change working practices and how it might affect YOT completion rates, attendance rates and breach of order rates.

As I mentioned, the communication needs of young people in the youth justice system are part of the broader issue but in the longer term we would hope that these needs are better recognised and that this recognition can have a positive effect on the lives of these young people.

For my money I would much rather see the state investing in prevention and helping young people to better understand the system they can find themselves a part of. Ignoring the needs of young offenders is unlikely to do anything in diverting them away from crime. As a society I hope we recognise that young offenders are not all ‘hooded wrong uns’ but young people that in many cases require support that may have been absent for most of their lives.

Diamond Lights - Guest slot, Andrew Ball, Campaign Director

This week marks my 10th anniversary of joining the voluntary sector. In that time I’ve been fortunate to have met some very remarkable people (and some pretty unremarkable ones too) but probably none more so than the parents and professionals working to support children who need help to communicate. As anyone that has ever volunteered, worked for or supported a charity will tell you, personal experience is one of the most important reasons why they give their time and support to their chosen cause.

Since I joined The Communication Trust it’s become very clear that for a long time so much of the great work that goes on in the children’s communication sector is a result of the passion and dedication of a small number of individuals – most of whom have firsthand experience of the struggle that they, their children or children close to them have faced because of some form of speech, language and communication need. What’s more, this relatively small band of people have faced the uphill task of creating a better understanding of this issue without the media spotlight or glare of publicity that many other causes have benefited from at various times over recent decades – despite this being an issue that impacts on more lives in the UK than most of the big cause célèbres we could all name.

Help, however, is now at hand with the fast approaching national year of ENTER WORKING TITLE OF CHOICE HERE! This awareness campaign will shine a big, bright light on our sector and build on recent successes in emerging this cause. The national year will increase broad understanding of how children’s communication skills should be developing , what the effects are of speech, language and communication needs and what local services parents and children need in order to make a real difference to such needs. If you have anything in particular that you would like to see happen during the national year then please do get in touch – you can tells us your views at enquiries@thecommunicationtrust.org.uk .