ABSTRACT
The inspirational examples of effective work on language and communication which I saw in schools and settings across the country in my time as Communication Champion all seemed to have one thing in common: a multi-level approach. By this I mean that the schools and settings invariably worked at three levels, or ‘waves’: everyday classroom curriculum practice, ‘catch-up’ interventions for groups of children, and more specialist interventions for those with the greatest difficulties. In many cases the schools and settings also built strong partnerships with parents/carers in their vital role supporting their children’s language development.
This multi-levelWave 1/2/3 approach (see box below) will be familiar to most of us now, in relation to literacy, maths and social and emotional learning. The effective settings I saw, however, were unusual in also having a well-articulated map of what would happen for communication and language at each of the three waves.
