A non-accredited awareness course for early years practitioners working with children aged 0-5
Module 1 of 5 - Why Communication Comes First
Four separate strands. A child can be strong in some and struggling in others.
Communication and language is foundational - the specific areas are built on top of it.
Three numbers, and what they mean for your role.
Everything you need to carry forward into the next module.
This is the single most useful habit this course can give you. Fluent talking is not proof of understanding, and near-silence is not proof of its absence. Amira's speaking is strong but her understanding of a two-part instruction and her ability to answer the question asked both look shaky. Ben's speaking is limited but his understanding is working. Neither child needs a label from you - but both need someone who has noticed the right thing, and who describes it to a parent or a therapist as what they saw rather than as 'behind with her talking'.
Long waits are the norm rather than the exception, and pretending otherwise damages a parent's trust in you. But option A gets the consequence wrong: waiting is not doing nothing. The everyday adjustments in Module 4 are evidence-based, they are yours to make, and they work whether or not a therapist is involved. Option C is not true and shifts blame onto families. Option D crosses the line this course will not cross - delivering a therapy programme is not your role, and inventing one is not the same as adjusting your own communication.
Why Communication Comes First
You have completed the knowledge checks.
The next module will now unlock.
Module 2 of 5 - Delay, disorder, and the patterns that get missed
Both fall under SLCN. Which one it is, is not your call.
When these two go wrong they get read as disruptive or defiant, and the need gets hidden.
Three things can go wrong inside speaking. Stammering is not one of them.
Understand these terms. Do not attach one to a child in your room.
Everything you need to carry forward into the next module.
Reuben is doing the last part of a two-part instruction and losing the first - a textbook understanding pattern, not defiance. Option A would punish a child for a difficulty he cannot control, which is the single most damaging outcome this module exists to prevent. Option B is not wrong about his age, and that is exactly why it is tempting; but 'wait and see' with a history of ear infections is a gamble. Option D is worth doing eventually, but it starts from the assumption that this is emotional. Option C is Notice, Adjust and Share in one move - and the ear infections make hearing the first thing to check, not the last.
The student did the warm, natural thing, and it is the wrong thing. Advice from stammering services is consistent: do not ask a child to slow down, start again or take a breath. Taking a deep breath increases physical tension rather than releasing it, and all three phrases tell a four-year-old that her talking needs fixing. Option B removes her turn and, if you guess wrong, sends her back to the beginning. Option D singles her out and makes the stammer the reason she was moved. Option C costs you four seconds of waiting - and then you answer what she was actually telling you about.
What a Difficulty Actually Looks Like
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Module 3 of 5 - A rough map, the moment the system gives you, and how to write it down
The bands overlap. What matters is a pattern, over time.
Required of every provider. Best used alongside the health visitor's review.
Two mistakes, pulling in opposite directions. One question separates them.
Write what a camera would have caught. Precision, not volume.
Everything you need to carry forward into the next module.
Two things here are on the 'any age' panel at once - skills that have gone backwards, and the loss of pointing. Loss of language is the one thing in this module that should not wait. Option A is the trap, because it looks responsible: the check is a deadline, not a permission slip, and nothing stops you acting sooner. Option B is a reasonable thing to say about a child who has always been quiet and the wrong thing to say about a child who has gone backwards. Option D delays by a term. Option C loses nothing - the progress check still happens next month, and it will be better informed.
His mother has already given you the piece of information that matters, and the colleague has missed it. A difficulty present in the home language as well as in English is exactly the pattern that points to a communication need rather than to English being new. Option B reaches the right conclusion by the wrong route - children are not confused by two languages, and the 'one at a time' idea has no evidence behind it. Option D has a point about overreach, but it treats this as a manners problem when it is a factual one. Yusuf needs a conversation about a referral, and the family needs to keep speaking Somali.
Noticing Early, and Describing It Well
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The next module will now unlock.
Module 4 of 5 - Four changes to your own talk. One habit to break. Three things about the room.
The Department for Education's own approach: say less and stress, go slow and show.
A question demands an answer. A comment offers a turn.
Noise. Group size. Books. And the new screen use requirement from September 2026.
One thing for each strand. Every one of them helps the rest of the room too.
Everything you need to carry forward into the next module.
The key person is doing what most of us were trained to do, warmly and with good intentions. But every one of those six is a question the adult can already answer, and for a child who finds language hard that is a test he is failing in public. Leaving the table is a reasonable thing to do. Option A misreads it as a lack of interest in dough, when it is about the conversation. Option B is the belief this slide exists to change. Option D reaches for a diagnosis on ninety seconds of evidence, which is exactly what Module 2 said not to do - and situational mutism means a child who talks freely elsewhere, which we do not know.
The hour is a ceiling, not a permission. The guidance rules out screens used as passive entertainment or to manage behaviour whatever the clock says, and for a child under two the position is to avoid screens other than in exceptional circumstances - tidying up is not one. Option A is the most common misreading and treats the limit as an entitlement. Option D is closer, but it accepts the use and only asks for better content. The practical answer is not a lecture: the tidying is real, and the setting needs a different way to cover the last twenty minutes.
Adjust: What You Change on an Ordinary Day
You have completed the knowledge checks.
The next module will now unlock.
Module 5 of 5 - Ask before you tell. Know the routes. Know when not to wait.
Ask before you tell. Most parents already know, and many are waiting for permission to say so.
Group settings, childminders, and the area SENCO no one seems to know about.
Four routes, running alongside each other rather than in sequence.
The gap is not empty. But some things do not go into the queue.
Everything you need to carry forward into the next module.
His father has just given you something genuinely important, and the meeting was set up so that it sounded like a defence. A child who talks freely at home but not in the setting is a recognised pattern that needs exploring rather than dismissing - it may be a settling difficulty, it may be anxiety about speaking in particular places, and situational mutism is one of the explanations worth holding in mind. What matters here is that it changes what you do next, not which label it turns out to be. Option A writes him off as unready when the problem was the opening. Option B adds authority to a conversation that failed for lack of listening, not lack of weight. Option D is well meant, but explaining a process he has not agreed to is still telling rather than asking.
This is the module's central point for childminders. Option A is what a great many childminders believe, and it is wrong - four of the five things listed in B are available immediately and none of them depends on the referral. The area SENCO in particular exists precisely for this and is under-used. Option C may occasionally be a family's own choice, but a practitioner steering parents toward paying is not neutral advice and assumes money they may not have. Option D confuses a nursery's SENCO, whose role covers their own setting, with the area SENCO, whose role covers yours.
Share and Refer: The Conversation and the Route
You have completed all 5 modules of your online learning.
Your final assessment is now ready.
