Flying the flag for school-age children

The Bercow Review on children with speech, language and communication needs in school is limbering up to the publication of its interim report on March 25th. BSA is one of five charities invited to serve on the Review's advisory panel.

The needs of children who stammer are one of BSA's priorities and we have been working to hard to ensure that the issues we feel strongly about will be reflected:

1. every child's chance to a lifetime of speaking with ease, through early identification and (where necessary) intervention. Early intervention has a success rate of 90% in terms of completely overcoming stammering
2. more training for teachers and school staff to raise awareness of the needs of the stammering child; supporting a stammering child in class requires only minor adjustments which will create a climate of good communication at school, benefitting all children
3. transparency of funding for support schemes like School Action and School Action Plus which many of our children could benefit from; every school gets extra funding for children on these schemes but at the moment it's not ringfenced and often vanishes in the general 'funding pot'
4. better and more consistent provision for pre-school and primary school children and especially children at secondary school-age, with referral to specialist centres where necessary.
   

The outcome of this review will be an excellent opportunity for BSA to raise the issue of stammering at the highest level - we are currently preparing an Early Day Motion for the House of Commons to alert MPs to the issues.