A year of communication action

The idea of a National Year of Communication was outlined in the government's Better Communication action plan in December 2008, but it has taken until now for the plans to be confirmed.

Next week the government is expected to announce that a consortium of voluntary and community organisations have been awarded a contract to run the year in 2011.

Under the banner of The Communication Trust, they will champion the need to improve speech and language services for children.

Anita Kerwin-Nye, director of the trust and Communication Council representative for the voluntary sector, says the year will extend the trust's existing work of raising awareness of children's communication needs among the workforce. She believes it is also an ideal opportunity to focus on areas that have thus far been lacking - namely, improving speech and language support in schools.

"There is no reason why every school in the country should not be communication friendly," she says.

"The workforce needs to be skilled at identifying and supporting needs, and work in partnership with speech and language therapists, specialist teachers and educational psychologists."

Kerwin-Nye's vision for a communication-friendly school is one that has considered its acoustics to ensure all children can hear and be heard. It is a place where children are supported as their vocabulary develops alongside the subjects they are taught. It is also a place where teachers consider the use of signs and symbols, and recognise at what stage a child should be at in terms of speech and language skills.

As an organisation made up of 38 charities with expertise in speech, language and communication, the trust is ideally placed to add value to the national year. Many of these charities run existing campaigns. Programmes such as the National Literacy Trust's Talk To Your Baby and the National Deaf Children's Society's Sounds Good? campaign, focused on improving communication environments in schools, are likely to feature in the trust's agenda for the year.

Another programme, A Chance to Talk, is still in the development stages, but will involve speech and language therapists being commissioned to work with clusters of schools.

Virginia Beardshaw, chief executive of communication charity I Can, which will run the pilots along with the trust and another charity Every Child a Chance, says schools should be commissioning therapists to work more closely with them.

Despite five to seven per cent of children suffering from speech and language impairments - more than dyslexic and autistic children combined - Beardshaw believes there is still a lack of confidence among teachers in helping children with additional needs. She also says specialist support is too often based outside of school. "Schools have delegated budgets but do not see themselves as commissioners," she says. "We need to get the evidence-based expertise right into the classrooms where the children are."

Linda Lascelles, chief executive of speech charity Afasic, says local authorities should also be tracking the progress of children with additional needs. "Speech, language and communication is the most important everyday skill we have so there needs to be something measurable so that local authorities are making it a priority," she says.

Communications champion Jean Gross is aware of the issues in schools. She says she will use the run-up to the 2011 event to urge local authorities to address them. "We want local authorities to make communication a cross-cutting theme, so that they include it in their children and young people's plans and conduct a proper analysis of needs in their area," she says.

Gross appreciates budgets are tight but she believes that increasing the skills of teachers while commissioning specialist staff to work with them more closely will save money long-term and improve attainment.

Sounds Good? Helping pupils hear and be heard

The National Deaf Children's Society (NDCS) created the Sounds Good? campaign in response to the 21st century schools programme.

A lot of newly built schools were open-plan with high ceilings, which left children struggling to hear or be heard in the classroom. As a result of NDCS raising public awareness of the issue and campaigning in Parliament, the government introduced regulations to ensure schools are built with acoustics in mind.

NDCS is also working with the government to help existing schools improve acoustics by introducing more soft furnishings, which absorb sound, and reduce background noise, such as children tapping on desks or chairs screeching on floors.

NDCS claims that children with special educational needs improve their attainment more than the average child when background noise drops.

As part of the national year, NDCS is planning to ensure the campaign is promoted at a local level, targeting local authorities and schools. It also intends to extend the campaign to all early years settings to give children the best opportunity to start school with age-appropriate language skills.