Home The Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework and Quality Improvement Supporting Speech, Language and Communication

Supporting Speech, Language and Communication

In Nottingham, we want all 0-5 year olds to develop speech, language and communication skills to the best of their ability. What we mean by speech, language and communication is....

Speech - The sounds they make
Language - The words they use
Communication - How they engage with others

We can achieve this by;

The right support being available at the right time
Our youngest children being prepared for, and enjoying, school
People looking after themselves, making healthy choices and having good mental health and wellbeing
People having good employment prospects and;
People having improved life chances.

Our vision is to ensure that no child or family misses out on the support they might need and that anyone working with children aged 0-5 years, must work together with parents and carers.

Based on information from health, education and children's services, we know that some speech, language and communication activities and interventions will have the most significant impact to help us achieve our vision. The impact of these activities will be seen in;

An increase in participation in free early years entitlement places
Fewer children being identified with language delay at key Healthy Child Programme Reviews
More children achieving a good level of development in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile
Access to a Speech and Language Therapist in a timely manner, if needed

The need for a SLC Strategy in the City was highlighted by the City's children not developing to their full potential in communication and language and literacy, resulting in Early Years Foundation Stage Profile scores consistently below the national average. This need was also identified through the Local Government Association Peer Review (2019), which recommended a collaboratively produced, city wide, 0-5’s Early Years Strategy, focusing on SLC, alongside recommendations to accelerate the integrated approach for 2 ½ year check and increasing participation in free entitlement hours for eligible 2, 3 and 4 year olds to support earlier identification of children in need of support or interventions with their SLC.

In a successful joint bid to the Department for Education's Early Outcomes Fund, with Derby and Leicester City Councils, Nottingham City Children's Services have been involved in work to help us better understand and improve early language identification and support for speech, language and communication needs, so we can better co-ordinate our offer for children and families.

This vision, which we have an aspiration to extend to 25 years of age, is to ensure that all children reach their full potential in speech, language and communication (SLC). This is captured in the SLC Strategy, which is currently in draft format and has been written in consultation with partners and agreed by Health and Wellbeing Board (HWBB), who are the lead body for implementation. Following consultation, we ascertained consultation headlines from the early years workforce and consultation headline from parents and carers, which will help consolidate the final strategy, which will be published and shared, alongside a supporting, jointly-owned, implementation plan in due course. We know this strategy must have shared responsibility for implementation, management and evaluation across all sectors of the 0-5 workforce in order to produce the desired outcomes.

Following our Local Government Association Peer Review in 2019, a need was identified to establish a centralised resource for all local support, focused on speech, language and communication and we worked with Better Communication CIC to develop a local Speech, Language and Communication Pathway as part of a successful bid to the Early Outcomes Fund as part of a collaborative project in the East Midlands with Leicester and Derby City Councils.

Our SLC Pathway is now available to all parents and professionals working with children and young people across the UK. The pathway navigates provisions available for parents, carers and professionals to help children and young people develop their SLC skills as well as providing more tailored resources for those with identified SLC needs.

You can follow a series of questions leading to relevant information, targeted at the 0-5 year age range, choose which are most useful, view or add the resource to create your pathway, which can then be saved or added to at a later date. To watch a demonstration of how the Pathway works, please click here

(Please note that the Pathway functions work best when opened in Google Chrome)

As a ‘Back to Basics’ reminder, please remember the first 100 words that children typically use when they are starting to speak. This isn’t a checklist but is a useful tool for early identification regarding children’s early language that can be used to support interactions within provision, as well as sharing with parents.