News & Events

Abed Ahmed, a Maths teacher and Lead Practitioner at Washwood Heath Academy in Birmingham, who was also awarded  Highly Commend in the Communication Champion of the Year category at the 2019 Shine a Light Awards, shares his commendable work in supporting children with stammers and discusses how he has embraced his own stammer to inspire children in the classroom. 

Christine Burke, Professor Richard Hastings and Paula Lavis produced a report on behalf of the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition, which addresses the mental health needs of children and young people with learning disabilities

Anne Longfield OBE, Children's Commissioner for England describes the current situation of child mental health provision as a "postcode lottery" in the latest report 'Early access to mental health support'. 

The Rt Hon Damian Hinds MP has announced that around 3,500  extra school places are to be created for pupils with special educational needs or those facing additional challenges in mainstream education.

Pearson Clinical Assessment is delighted to announce the launch of the new Training Partnership Program (TPP). The TPP provides valuable support for the training needs of college and university faculty training directors across the United Kingdom. 

Have you considered using digital assessment tools in your practice? This blog on the Private Practice Hub looks at the range of available tests on the Q-interactive digital assessment platform and how they can support your practice. 

The Independent Review of the 1983 Mental Health Act has set out recommendations for government on how the Act and associated practice needs to change. 

This interesting report on the impact of social media and screen-use on the health of young people was published on 31st January 2019. The report considers:

- whether the growing use of social media, and screens, among children is healthy or harmful

- the evidence base for such claims; and

- whether any new measures or controls are required

NHS Digital has released a survey which provides reliable data on current trends in the mental healh of children in England. Rigorous methods of assessment were applied and all cases were reviewed by raters who are clinically trained. 

The Shine a Light Awards is back and bigger than ever! Our search continues to find outstanding schools, teams, young people and individuals in the UK who champion innovative work and excellent practice in supporting children and young people’s communication development. Find out why Sally and Lee are excited to be part of next years awards. 

Disadvantaged families are set to benefit from extra support to nurture their child’s early development at home, thanks to multi-million pound projects launched by the Education Secretary Damian Hinds.

We are extremely proud to have sponsored SecEd and 

Headteacher Update’s 2018 SEN Supplement. Download your copy to learn about best practice advice for ensuring proper inclusion in the classroom, with a special focus on speech language and communication needs and provision in school.

In support of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) Awareness Month. This article helps to raise awareness of AAC and addresses key considerations when dealing with individuals with complex communication needs. Let’s give the people using AAC a chance to spread AAC Awareness by sharing their words! 

Being disabled in graduate school: problems we encounter, how we deal with them, and what you can do that will make things easier for fellow graduate students with disabilities.

More than a third of maintained nursery schools have less funding for SEND pupils than last year, research shows. Funding to support some of the most vulnerable children in the education system is being cut, according to research from an early years charity published today.

A headteacher is training as a SENCO in the evenings because her school can no longer afford to employ a separate member of staff in the role. Others heads are also doubling up as lunchtime supervisors and kitchen staff as school finances are squeezed tighter.

Regional schools commissioners should be allowed to rebroker academies back to councils if they can’t find another trust to sponsor them, according to the man in charge of education at Damian Hinds’s local council.

The pressure is mounting on Damian Hinds, the Education Secretary to act now to solve the crisis in SEND funding. Not only have parents crowdfunded (and easily hit their target) to try to Judicially Review the Government's SEND funding, teaching professionals are making their own stand against the cuts that have left many unable to support their most vulnerable pupils.

View the latest evidence from the Education Commitee's enquiry into the impact of the governments 2014 SEND reform, in meeting the challenges faced by children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.

From September 2018 these devices will no longer be supported for use with Q-interactive. Find out what you need to do to prepare for these changes. 

Pearson Clinical was proud to sponsor the Chief Allied Health Professions Officer Awards for 2018.
On the evening of Tuesday 19th of June, we partnered with NHS England, as the awards sponsor for the 2018 Allied Health Professions Officer Awards.

The DfE announces plans to ring fence a further £50m to help increase the number of school places and facilities for children with special educational needs (SEN).

Recent government data on Special Educational Needs (SEN) and Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans for young people over the last year reveals an 11.3% increase on the previous year. 

Read the latest report from the UCL Faculty of Brain Sciences and the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, EBPU bridges cutting-edge research and innovative practice in children’s mental health. 

Angela Bell, a freelance Study Needs Assessor for Cambridge Access Centre shares her experience on how assistive software could help to develop students’ literacy and study skills.

A wonderful close to this years Shine a Light Awards. Watch the touching winners video's and read their case-studies to learn about the outstanding work each winner and highly commended finalists have been doing, to support the speech and language development of children, young people and communities across the UK. 

Do you know where to access the evidence for speech, language and communication interventions?

The Communication Trust hosts What Works, the biggest moderated library of evidenced speech language and communication interventions.  

What Works helps early years practitioners, SENCOs, teachers and school leaders find the most appropriate interventions for children and young people by providing a free and easily accessible overview of the evidence base for each intervention. 

Stand-up comedian, actor and TV writer, Adam Hess, has been revealed as the host of the 2018 Shine a Light Awards which is set to take place at the Pearson headoffice in London on 22^nd March 2018.

Find out what Adam has to say about the significance of communication to his profession. 

We have united, once again with The Communication Trust, to bring you the 2018 Shine a Light Awards!

The Shine a Light Awards seek to recognise the incredible contributions of teams, settings and individuals across England who support children and young people’s speech, language and communication. If this applies to you or you know someone who deserves the recognition. Submit an entry today!

The DfE has published statistics showing that the number of permanent and fixed period exclusions across all state-funded primary, secondary and special schools in England 2015/16 has increased by 15% compared with 2014/15. These statistics also show that almost half of all permanent exclusions and fixed period exclusions are pupils identified with special educational needs (SEN). 

Take part in this exciting research being conducted by The ESRC International Centre for Language and Communicative Development (LuCiD), and Lancaster university on media use and its effect on language development in children. 

More and more teachers and teaching assistants are being required to use testing in the classroom. This can be a daunting task if they have not had training or previous experience. Bernadette McLean, Principal of Helen Arkell Dyslexia Centre provides useful tips on testing in the classroom. 

The Bercow: Ten Years On review comes ten years after the Government published the Bercow review of services for children and young people with speech, language and communicaion needs (SLCN) making strong recommendations to Government about the steps it should take to transform provision for and the experiences of children and yound people with SLCN and their families. I CAN and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists invite you to share your views.

The winners of the 2017 Shine a Light Awards, a national awards scheme that celebrates innovative work and excellent practice in supporting children and young people’s communication development, have been revealed today (23^rd March 2017) by Pearson, in partnership with The Communication Trust.

The Communication Trust has developed a report presenting findings and offering recommendations on how government and national bodies, local authorities and training providers, the voluntary sector, and the workforce can work together to improve access to quality professional development in speech, language and communication.

The SLCF is a free online professional development tool which sets out the skills and knowledge that everyone working with children and young people need in order to support the speech, language and communication of those they work with.

Gareth Gates, singer-songwriter and musical theatre star, has today (1st February 2017) been revealed as the host of the 2017 Shine a Light Awards that take place in London on 23 March 2017.

Francesca Martinez - international comedian, writer and speaker who has mild cerebral palsy – has joined the judging panel for the fifth annual Shine a Light Awards.

We are pleased to announce that ART-2 has been approved for use in the Assessment of Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD) in Higher Education/DSA applications.