I rarely meet a teacher these days who isn’t concerned about the growing number of children with speech, language and communication needs. 

It isn’t likely to get better any time soon if we look at what is happening in the cohort of children who will soon be working their way through the school system. In a recent survey 82 per cent of health visitors reported seeing a year-on-year increase in children with speech, language and communication delays in their pre-school caseloads. And last year, Speech and Language UK estimated that at least 1.9 million primary- and secondary-aged children were struggling with talking and understanding words. That equates to one in five school-aged children – the highest number ever recorded.

A False Binary 

Grime is a style of British rap music that emerged from the UK Garage scene during the early 2000s. The genre is defined by complex syncopated raps over fast beats, initially made famous by a generation of East London artists such as Wiley and Dizzie Rascal, and more recently, revived by the likes of Stormzy, who became the first British black solo artist to headline Glastonbury in 2019. On paper, Grime is perhaps not the natural bedfellow of Classical music. Grime Opera strives to challenge this assumption, uniting young people from a diverse range of backgrounds in pursuit of an authentic musical experience.  

Through her work with the Royal Meteorological Society, Sylvia Knight has discovered a hunger for revised climate teaching within the secondary curriculum. She introduces the key issues facing schools and students today, and turns to tech teacher Michael Noonan for his thoughts from the frontline of teaching design and technology (D&T).