Communication is at the core of what we do at home, in school and in work.

The Communication Commitment is a free resource designed to support schools in developing a whole-school approach to communication, ensuring that all pupils communicate to the best of their ability. By signing up to the commitment you'll receive a personalised Action Plan for your school containing lots of free information, toolkits, resources and support to involve school leadership (if needed). Any member of staff can sign up including headteachers, SENCos, speech and language therapists or teachers.

For children and young people, good communication skills are essential for learning and making friends, with strong language and communication skills linked to better outcomes in school and beyond. Communication skills impact widely across all areas of development, on learning, behaviour, and social and emotional development. Communication is one of the key sets of skills highlighted in Ofsted's School Inspection Handbook, which should be embedded across the curriculum.

By ensuring a focus on communication throughout school, you'll be helping all your pupils to communicate more effectively, including those who may struggle with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN). 

About the Commitment

The Communication Commitment supports schools to make communication a priority, and its wealth of free resources, tools, and guidance will help you to effectively support all your pupils' language and communication development. It will help you think about what you're already doing to support pupils' communication, and what further steps your school can take.

Why are communication skills so important? Spoken language skills, which include understanding, are associated with:

• Academic success and attainment
• Literacy outcomes
• Numeracy outcomes
• Positive social relationships
• Friendships
• Behaviour
• Emotional development
• Employability and later life chances

Please click on the links below to learn more.