Government Announces Extra Support to Tackle Post-Pandemic School Speech Therapy Backlog

The DfE said developmental delays ‘have been a growing issue since the pandemic,’ with 40,000 children waiting over 12 weeks for appropriate therapy.

School children during a Year 5 class at a primary school in Yorkshire, England, on Nov. 27, 2019. Danny Lawson/PA Wire

The government will send more specialists to primary schools to help clear the backlog of children waiting for speech and language support, which has grown since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Announcing the plans on Friday, the Department for Education (DfE) said the measures would support up to 20,000 more children.

The Early Language Support for Every Child (ELSEC) programme deploys specialist teams to help identify and support children with language and communication needs.

Since its launch in 2023, ELSEC has supported some 200 early years settings and primary schools, trained just over 3,000 staff, and provided support to 20,000 children.

The department said that developmental delays “have been a growing issue since the pandemic,” with more than 40,000 children waiting over 12 weeks for speech and language therapy.

SEND Children

The DfE said these delays are particularly prevalent for children with special education needs and disability (SEND).

The number of children with SEND has increased from 1.3 million in 2020 to 1.67 million in 2024; one in four of these require additional support to help them with speaking, listening, and comprehension.

Those requiring specialist support and on Educational Heath Care Plans have also increased, from 250,000 in 2015 to 575,000 in 2024.

Minister for school standards Catherine McKinnell said that unless speech and language delays are spotted early, they can have an impact on children’s attainment, socialisation abilities, attendance, and future life chances.

She said: “ELSEC is turning this around for so many pupils—and particularly those with SEND—helping them find their voice and thrive at school and with their friends and family.

“This type of approach is exactly what we want to see in a reformed SEND system that delivers the support children need at the earliest stage and restores parents’ trust in a system which has let them down for too long.”

Impact of Lockdowns

The government’s acknowledgment that developmental delays have become a growing issue since 2020 echoes other reports that have highlighted similar concerns in the aftermath of the pandemic.

In March 2024, the Office for National Statistics said the number of years of good health that newborn babies in England and Wales can expect to enjoy has fallen over the past decade, with the lingering impact of “the pandemic” having contributed to the decline.

However, critics said at the time that it was “disingenuous” of a public body not to identify lockdowns and other restrictions as the culprits, rather than the COVID-19 virus.

Molly Kingsley of children’s rights group Us For Them, had told The Epoch Times: “The virus itself was minimal risk to this age cohort, and we know that taking away [parent and baby] support structures had a huge impact, and this led to a gradual erosion and underinvestment in children’s services as a result of huge pandemic borrowing—which is likely to be directly relevant to the trend we are now seeing.

“We know there have been multiple studies done into the effects on speech and language development of babies and young children and we know that had nothing to do with the virus and everything to do with the restrictions—the masks and so on.”

Children Not Ready for School

Another report published in October by the former Children’s Commissioner found that pupils were arriving at primary school in prams, unable to communicate properly, and were even still in nappies.

The report placed some blame on the pandemic for exacerbating early years developmental problems.

Undated photo of a child playing with plastic building blocks PA

It said that nurseries and primary schools were highly concerned around speech and language, with a significant number of children below age-related targets by the end of reception year, when children are typically 4 to 5 years old.

Authors had warned that a “widened” language gap between children from more and less advantaged communities had developed since the COVID-19 era, which could lead to an even greater attainment gap over time.

Suspensions

The pandemic has also been cited as a contributing factor to the decline in pupil behaviour in schools.

Government data published in April found that school suspensions had increased 12 percent in one year, with there being 295,559 in the spring term of academic year 2023/2024, compared to 263,904 in the spring of 2022/2023.

This is 93 percent higher than in the spring of 2019—the last school year before lockdowns—when there were 153,465 suspensions.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders’ union NAHT, said at the time that poor behaviour leading to suspensions and exclusions “often has causes outside the classroom, with big challenges facing children and families, including poverty, the cost-of-living crisis, accessing wider services for Send support, and some lingering impact of the pandemic.”

Rachel Roberts contributed to this report.