A MASSIVE congratulations to Donna & Gemma for winning the Best Business Owners of the Year 2021 for Little Footsteps.

Almost 10 years running and they continue to be the best at what they do. 

Thank you to everyone who voted, this would have not been possible without the support of our community.

To our wonderful families throughout the years, thank you for choosing us.

In 2018 the Department for Education created 12 Opportunity Areas across England to raise educational standards to ensure that every child was supported to reach their full potential in life. The Norwich Opportunity Area (NOA) was created as part of this project to focus on 4 specific areas including improving speech, language, and communication in the Early Years.

Launched in 2018 the Communication Champion Project aim is to create a universal approach to supporting children in the Early Years with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN). Achieved by providing high quality training, resources, and continuing support to Early Years Practitioners to become the settings Communication Champion. The project was first started in Norwich but following its success it was expanded to cover the Breckland area in 2021.    

At Little Footsteps our aim is to ensure that the key principles of supporting speech language and communication development become the foundation for every interaction we have with all children. To provide a communication environment where children are exposed to a wide range of vocabulary through adult-led activities, play, exploration, and adventure.

“As the Communication Champion for Little Footsteps, I am passionate about developing and supporting children’s speech and language; sharing the knowledge gained through the comprehensive training with other practitioners to take a universal approach to support. This includes recognising and supporting the important role parents/carers play in their child’s development and wellbeing - as the saying goes ‘we work best when we all work together’

Being able to identify and provide early help for children with speech, language and communication needs has been shown to have a powerful positive impact both on children’s happiness and wellbeing as well as their future educational progress and employment opportunities. Personally, watching children blossom through effective support at the right time is one of the best rewards of being a Communication Champion.

As well as the training provided by ICAN as part of the Communication Champion project I have also completed level 3 accredited Elklan training and SLCN intervention training in Wellcomm, Early Talk Boost, Blast, Word-Aware and Chatterbugs. I have completed up to level 6 in Makaton, TinyTalk signing for practitioners, sign-along, British Sign Language level 2 and PECS for practitioners and recognise the importance of being able to give all children a way to communicate their wants and needs and to get the most out of their time with us. I have also completed various courses to support children who have SLCN alongside other needs, such as children with Downs Syndrome, ASD and those with hearing difficulties.

For children attending Little Footsteps who are learning English as an additional language (EAL) we have dedicated EAL policy. To monitor progress and development for our pre-school children we also take guidance from the NASSEA framework for Early Years specifically designed to ensure that the children are supported based on their own unique needs.

As the Communication Champion I am dedicated and invested in supporting speech, language and communication needs across the nursery”