Speech and language challenges are among the most common forms of special educational needs, and research shows that many children benefit from additional support in this area.

That’s why I was so pleased to see the emphasis on oracy in the recently published curriculum and assessment review. It’s quite right that the development of spoken language skills should be a huge focus for schools, as making this a priority has been long overdue.

The proposed new curriculum will include requirements for speaking and listening, as well as drama. The Department for Education has also committed to developing an oracy framework, along the same lines as the existing reading and writing frameworks.

In addition, as part of the new special educational needs and disabilities framework, schools will need to write an inclusion strategy, describing the universal offer they have in place to support students with SEND.

This should report on the commonly occurring, predictable needs of students and the barriers to learning that pupils with additional needs face, with details of the activities and approaches in place to support these students.

Support for speech and language needs

Although we wait for more detail about the structure of the strategy documentation itself, every school’s offer should be grounded in the government’s “seven principles of inclusion”, including using evidence-based support prioritising early intervention.

And considering the prevalence of speech, language and communication difficulties, I would expect support in this area to figure highly.

All in all, 2026 may be the National Year of Reading - but 2027 is shaping up to be the year of the spoken word.

So, where can schools and school leaders find robust and trustworthy evidence about practices and interventions that support children with speech, language and communication needs?

Speech and language challenges range from speech production challenges (such as mispronouncing speech sounds or stammering) to more subtle and complex challenges in understanding language and how it is used.

More subtle difficulties can become apparent once a child learns to read and comprehension is difficult, or when they find it hard to learn to write or have behaviour difficulties.

Not every speech and language challenge needs therapy delivered by a therapist - there are plenty of effective intervention programmes that can be extremely helpful. Using well designed and robustly tested interventions should become part of a school’s early intervention strategy.

Equally, some students will continue to benefit from support around developing their speech and language skills throughout their school career, as the language used in the classroom becomes more subject-specific and nuanced.

Schools will need to be confident in supporting children with these needs in the classroom, and one tool that can help is the free What Works database. Built to distil the research on interventions for children and young people with speech and language challenges, it is among the most transparent tools available, providing schools with timely and reliable information about what interventions work or do not work, for whom and under what circumstances.

The What Works database grew out of the Better Communication Research Programme, one of the most substantial research efforts ever directed at speech and language challenges. It is maintained and updated by a moderating group that includes representatives from the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and the charity Speech and Language UK, with academic support. It is robust, independent and trustworthy.

What Works was designed primarily for those who work in education: teachers, early years staff, school leaders, Sendcos and speech and language therapists. Rather than presenting research abstracts or summaries, the database is a live tool that shows how the evidence has been weighed, where it is lacking and what questions to ask.

Each intervention submitted to the database is assessed by academics and assigned a level of evidence: indicative, moderate or strong. Interventions with weak evaluations, or evaluations that cannot be scrutinised in the public domain, are not included. It also provides effect sizes, presented visually, so users can see whether an intervention had an impact, how big it was and which outcomes were affected.

All of this is very helpful information for school leaders and Sendcos, who are juggling the needs of students within tighter and tighter budgets and limited resources.

What Works offers trustworthy information, plainly presented, with professional judgement at its centre.

Using a tool such as the What Works database is an obvious thing to do. In fact, just like the focus on inclusion and spoken language - it is long overdue.

Dr Megan Dixon is a member of the What Works moderating group, as well as being a retired researcher and educator