Speech, Language & Communication

Why are Speech, Language and Communication Skills so Important? (Advice from the NHS)

Communication is central to everything we do. It affects who we are, how we learn, how we interact with other people at home, at school, and at work.

Children with good speech, language and communication skills find it easier to:-

learn in school
develop friendships
and find employments as adults.

Communication development begins at birth as babies communicate their needs through crying and facial expression.

As they get older, children develop friendships with other children through talking and playing together.
They learn about their world by listening to other children and adults and by talking about what they see and what they are doing.

Talking plays a crucial role in the development of play for example when they have a tea-party and pretend to be making you tea and toast.

Children develop really imaginative make-believe play through talking and sharing ideas for example when they decide to dress up as pirates and use old cardboard boxes as the pirate ship.

Children who have developed good speaking and listening skills often find it easier to learn to read and write.

What we do at Stephenson.

At Stephenson, we are committed to ensuring that all of our children are given the best possible chance to develop their language and communication skills.

We believe that early intervention is the key to success. We work closely with health visitors and speech and language specialists to deliver a coordinated approach to meet the needs of our children. Parents and carers play a vital role and we recognise that they are the real 'experts' when it comes to their children. For this reason, parents and carers views are listened to and acted upon sensitively.

This section of the website offers some general advice and points of reference.

We would encourage any parent or carer to approach school directly to discuss any concerns or experiences.

We are lucky to have Mrs. Wynn working in our school, who leads on the delivery and coordination of speech and language support across school.

In addition, Mrs. Davison supports with the delivery

of narrative programmes across school.

Across school, we use a range of visual resources to foster a whole school approach to the support of Speech, Language and Communication needs. This includes visual timetables, key vocabulary and prompts.