Why a Communication award?

We believe that this accreditation scheme will change the way schools think about communication and challenge them to constantly improve and innovate in this area. This will help to ensure more children experience good communication early in their schooling, and develop the communication skills they need to be successful at school and in life.

Although many schools agree to the need to improve communications skills within the school environment, there has been no agreed benchmark to use as a model of best practice.

The principles of the Communication award include:

• Self-assessment model
• Easily assembled evidence
• Schools can learn from the benchmarking exercise and are encouraged to improve via the process.
• Links to other assessments, e.g. OFSTED’s self-assessment framework, so, no extra paperwork.
• Four core modules that are essential, and a further 8 modules that take the Mark to a higher, more challenging level

We are now recruiting schools for our second phase pilot that will begin in September 2008. If you would like to apply or find out more, contact miya. allen@bt.com.