The ‘time to talk’ enhanced award is a certificate of achievement and commitment to implement the ‘time to talk’ strategy in a Children’s Centre or EY Setting.Recognition of the Speech and Language Champion and their team for all the learning, implementing and sustaining of the ‘time to talk’ strategy.Enhanced Award centres receive a certificate to display – it is a charter outlining the key elements of the strategy.Champions must fulfill and provide documentary evidence of all areas of the ‘time to talk’ strategy.Most of the portfolio is work that you already do to support children’s communication.The supporting document provides the full details. The Speech and Language Champions must be trained to Tier 3, and other staff with key responsibilities must be trained to Tier 1.Yes you do. You might use the Communication Monitoring Document for this.Attending ‘time to talk’ cluster meetings is a great way to pick up new ideas for sharing information with parents.Here are some examples.Developing and sustaining a communication friendly environment is an ongoing process. ‘time to talk’ can signpost you towards resources that can support this process. It begins with an audit… but it never really ends!!Some examples of how to start developing a communication friendly environment.How long is a piece of string?! There is no set length.How will it help us with Ofsted?A quote from a setting that have implemented the ‘time to talk’ strategy.Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/conducting-early-years-inspectionsKnowledge of ages and stages is covered throughout training and reference materials are provided.The Communication Monitoring Document can be used as a baseline measure.Champions learn how to identify need based on a red, amber, green system.Champions learn how to implement language enrichment in their Children’s Centre or EY Setting.‘time to talk’ support Champions to track children’s speech, language and communication development.
Once Champions have established the ‘time to talk’™ strategy in their EY Settings and Children’s Centres, they are invited to prepare a portfolio of evidence to demonstrate their work. There is a list of criteria that must be fulfilled, and the Champion then submits the evidence to the ‘time to talk’™ team. If all the criteria are met, the certificate can be awarded. There is no pass or fail! If there is something missing, or not quite meeting the criteria, Champions can re-submit their portfolio at a later date.
The document listing all the criteria and evidence is saved in the ‘resources to download and print’ section of the champions tab here. It is called ‘Time to Talk Award supporting document Champion version’.
Alcester Nursery Studio were one of our first settings to achieve their enhanced certificate and they were featured in the local newspaper.
