Literacy news

Headteacher claims some children don’t know their own name on BBC Radio 4 Today programme

28 Jul 2011

On the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme today (28 July 2011)  Neil Wilson, executive headteacher of a group of schools in South Manchester said that some children entering the education system in the UK do not even know their own name. He continued:  

"A significant majority know their names when they enter the nursery, but some do not."

He insisted that it was important to start prioritising and allocating more resources to speech and language in primary schools.

"This is the Holy Grail of breaking barriers of underachievement and disaffection."

He added that while families used to spend a lot of time talking, the advent of the internet and TV had worsened communication skills because there is a "lack of opportunity" to talk.

Jean Gross, the government's communication champion for children, agreed that anecdotally "we do have a problem" and teachers were increasingly concerned that it was "getting worse".

She said that hidden speech difficulties were sometimes to blame, but other times children were not getting "wide, rich dialogue" from their families, partly because parents "don't know how" to talk to their young ones.

Talking about the problem of media, she insisted that:

"TV isn't going to go away, it's always there and it can be used really productively."

"The key thing about this issue is that it can be tackled... if picked up early".

Jean Gross is currently working in partnership with The Communication Trust, a coalition of 40 leading voluntary sector organisations (including The National Literacy Trust) to run Hello, the National Year of Communication. Hello exists to make children and young people’s communication development a priority during 2011 and beyond.

You can listen to the discussion on the BBC Radio 4 website.

Tags: Adults, Children, Early Years, Early years sector, Families, Schools & teaching, Young People

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