Nursery World - David Hobdey: Closing the gap with Learning for Life

David Hobdey, CEO of 850-year-old Bath-based charity St John’s Foundation explains how a programme to support early language and communication skills is helping to reduce the educational attainment gap in its region.

David Hobdey: 'The strategy is being achieved through a raft of initiatives across targeted schools, childcare settings, and other locations.'

Speech and language skills are fundamental to a child’s ability to learn once they start school.

By identifying children who need help before they begin formal education, support can be put in place immediately. Crucially, where a child needs extra support, if this is picked up early by childcare settings it can form part of the handover from pre-school to Reception so teachers are aware of any difficulties and can put measures in place from the beginning to prevent pupils from falling behind.

This is the crux of what the Language for Life (LfL) programme is about. St John’s Foundation has undertaken a partnership programme supporting pre-schoolers in their communication and language development at 23 settings across the Bath and North East Somerset (BaNES) region.

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