The Department for Education has announced that the government will spend £3.4 million this year to continue its early intervention for speech and language programme.
Early Language Support for Every Child (ELSEC) will reach up to 20,000 more children, the DfE said. The funding will last until March 2026 and is jointly provided by NHS England.
The department added funding for ELSEC is part of the government’s work testing special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) reforms through a “reformulated Change programme”.
AP taskforces also expanded
The Conservative government as part of the Change programme to test some of the key reforms set out in the SEND and alternative provision improvement plan.
The programme deploys specialist teams across primary schools and early years provision to help identify and respond to speech and language needs, particularly for children with SEND.
The current government has also announced that local areas will test how pupils in alternative provision can get the right support to return to mainstream.
Part of this work will include the expansion of Alternative Provision Specialist Taskforces. These are teams that include youth workers, SEND specialists and mental health practitioners that support pupils in AP.
Tes revealed last year that sector leaders were concerned about the loss of funding for the taskforces.
‘More children will benefit’
The DfE said ELSEC “paves the way for a reformed SEND system that embeds earlier intervention and targeted support”.
“This type of approach is exactly what we want to see in a reformed SEND system that delivers the support children need at the earliest stage and restores parents’ trust in a system which has let them down for too long,” said minister for school standards Catherine McKinnell.
Steve Jamieson, chief executive of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, said: “Providing early intervention for children’s speech, language and communication needs can improve their wellbeing, development and educational attainment.
“The extension of the funding means more children will benefit from this important programme.”
Tes has asked the DfE whether ELSEC will be funded at the same level as in previous years.
‘Scale of the problem’ dwarfs funding
The Speech and Language UK charity has welcomed the funding extension for the ELSEC programme.
However its chief executive Jane Harris added that the small funding boost “does not match the scale of the problem”, and warned waiting lists for speech and language therapy are “unacceptably long”.
She called for a national, fully funded strategy embedding support across early years, primary and secondary, and said that without this the government will not be able to hit its target of 75 per cent of children being ready to start school by reaching “a good level of development” at 5 years old.
SEND reforms
The government is expected to announce more details on its plans to reform the SEND system later this year.
Dame Christine Lenehan, who was appointed as a strategic adviser to the DfE on SEND last year, told Tes last week that the department is considering whether education, health and care plans (EHCPs) are the “right vehicle”.
And Tom Rees, chair of the government’s advisory group on inclusion, launched a call for evidence on good examples of inclusive practice in mainstream schools, which concluded on 1 May.
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