The Cobbs Infant and Nursery School

Developing speech, language and communication skills is vital for all areas of life and can predict later school achievements and life chances from an early age. Communication is an essential foundation life skill that supports many other areas of development such as; behaviour, emotional wellbeing and lifelong learning.

At The Cobbs we support children’s speech and language development through access to high quality ‘talking environments’ from the earliest years. We use the WellComm screening toolkit to track children’s communication and language development, and provide tailored activities to develop their skills further.

The WellComm screening takes place termly in nursery and reception and as and when required further up the school, as part of our routine observation and tracking. It only takes a few minutes per child, is play based and will be completed by a familiar adult. WellComm operates a simple traffic light system of banding children in one of three categories.

• GREEN means no intervention is currently required​ and your child is working at an age appropriate level.
• AMBER means that there are a few gaps at that level requiring some additional intervention.
• RED means that there are many gaps at that level and extra support and intervention is required. A referral to Speech and Language therapy may be considered if no improvements are seen following intervention.​

If a child scores amber or red, they may receive intervention to support the areas of difficulty identified and/or activities to complete at home. They will then be re-screened three months later. If no progress is seen then your child’s teacher will discuss the possible need for a referral to a Speech and Language therapist. If satisfactory progress is being made the intervention may continue and  if your child is now scoring green, the intervention will cease.

Activities to support your child’s speech and language development at home.