2021
Publication of Speech, Language and Communication Delivery Plan
The Welsh Government announced the publication of the Talk With Me: Speech, Language and Communication Delivery Plan.
This aims to ensure that all children who need additional support to address delays or difficulties in speech, language or communications have access to high-quality support in the early years – including specialist support if needed – to develop their skills. The delivery plan brings together a wide range of policy areas – from health to employability and skills together – and promotes a more joined-up approach to working with families, building on existing policies and what works.
2020
Speech, Language and Communication (SLC) Delivery Plan 2020-21
In January 2020, the Welsh Government launched a consultation on ‘Talk with me’, its draft delivery plan for developing speech, language and communication (SLC). Although the principal target for the plan is the early years, it also has wider relevance for the age range 0-25, as covered in the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018.
Through the plan, the Government is aiming to ensure that children throughout Wales have access to high quality, universal, targeted and specialist support in the early years, if required, to develop their SLC skills. It is also exploring how to embed more widely the good practice arising from the speech and language therapy services within Flying Start, the targeted programme for families with children under four years of age in the most disadvantaged areas of Wales.
‘Talk with me’ includes four key objectives:
- Raise public awareness by promoting key messages to parents about the importance of talking, engaging and playing with children in the early years to develop language acquisition.
- Improve the assessment of SLC development in children in the early years, to ensure that the most effective screening tools are used and any necessary interventions put in place without delay.
- Upskill the childcare workforce and relevant health professionals, so that SLC support is provided to children at the right time and that interventions are monitored to ensure they are making a positive difference to the child’s development.
- Embed SLC in Welsh Government policies and strategies, by undertaking regular reviews to ensure that they highlight the importance of SLC in the early years and beyond.
The consultation runs until 23 April.
2019
Welsh language strategy action plan 2019-20
See the item in ‘National Reforms in School Education’.
Progress on the new curriculum
See the item in ‘National Reforms in School Education’.
2018
30-hour childcare offer
The Welsh Government’s five-year plan, Taking Wales Forward 2016-2021, set out an offer of 30 hours of free childcare per week for working parents of 3- and 4-year-olds for 48 weeks of the year. This would build on the minimum of 10 hours per week of early years education for 38 weeks per year already provided in the Foundation Phase.
Implementation of the offer began with a pilot in 7 local authorities from September 2017. The following June it was announced that a further 7 of Wales’ 22 local authorities would begin piloting the offer from September 2018. Full implementation across Wales is expected by September 2020.
A report to the Welsh Government, Childcare Capacity in Wales: mapping childcare supply against potential demand, published in October 2017, looked at the childcare market in advance of the expansion of the free childcare offer. In addition, in October 2019, the First Minister announced that the provision of these additional hours of childcare would be facilitated by opening up delivery to a wider range of settings. This will be supported by the introduction of a quality framework setting out the principles and requirements for quality across the sector.
Improving outcomes for Gypsies, Roma and Travellers
On 26 June 2018, the Welsh Government published the Enabling Gypsies, Roma and Travellers plan replacing the 2011 Travelling to a Better Future Framework for Action and Delivery Plan.
As well as measures to be taken in schools (see the item in ‘National Reforms in School Education’), the plan set out the Welsh Government’s intention to raise awareness of the Foundation Phase nursery entitlement among Gypsy, Roma and Traveller families.
To do this, the Welsh Government will:
- consider the communication needs of Gypsy Roma and Traveller parents as part of the Foundation Phase nursery parent campaign
- consider how communication between local authorities, providers and Gypsy, Roma and Traveller parents might be improved, as an ongoing action until 2020.
Foundation Phase Excellence Network
In March 2018, the Minister for Education announced the setting up of a new network, which aims to improve teaching and learning in the Foundation Phase for children aged three to seven across all schools and education settings in Wales.
The Foundation Phase Excellence Network will use a structured approach to develop Foundation Phase practitioner support for those working with children in this age range. It will include representation from local authority education services, schools and childcare settings that deliver the Foundation Phase, regional consortia, higher education and third sector organisations.
An online community learning zone has also been established to facilitate the sharing of information, resources and research between practitioners.
Inquiry into Flying Start outreach
In February 2018, the Children, Young People and Education Committee of the National Assembly for Wales published a report from its inquiry, begun in May 2017, into the outreach aspect of the Flying Start programme, which was introduced in 2014.
The Flying Start programme is part of the Welsh Government’s work to tackle poverty. It has four core elements:
- part-time childcare for two to three-year-olds
- an enhanced health visiting service
- access to parenting support
- access to early language development support.
The programme is delivered by local authorities. It targets areas according to measures of relative disadvantage, including the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation, free school meals, and the proportion of children under the age of four in households receiving income related benefits.
The outreach aspect of the programme allows local authorities to deliver all four core elements of Flying Start to a small percentage of their population who live outside designated Flying Start areas. The Committee’s report found that outreach services were only benefitting children to a very limited extent in many local authorities.
The recommendations of the report include that the Minister should consider whether additional increases to the outreach funding allocation are required, or whether the geographical focus of the Flying Start programme needs to be reconsidered in order to enable those most in need to access support.
The Welsh Government issued its response on 16 May 2018, accepting, or accepting in principle, most of the report’s recommendations.
Article last reviewed March 2021.