Most adults working in primary schools will come into direct contact with children who have communication difficulties every day

No Pens Day Wednesday

No_Pens_Day

From Wednesday 28th September and over the coming months, up to 250,000 pupils from hundreds of schools will take part in No Pens Day by putting their pens down and picking up their language.

This unique educational event for the Hello campaign - organised by The Communication Trust and Jean Gross, the Government's Communication Champion - focuses on developing children and young people's speaking and listening skills.

With research revealing the average length of a pupil's contribution to a teacher's question to be just four words, an increased emphasis is being given to speaking and listening. For one day no pens are allowed in lessons.

Classroom activities instead will include podcasting, maths games, debating, vocabulary games and 'talk' homework. Teachers and school staff will be using No Pens Day lesson plans and activity templates developed by specialist teachers and speech and language therapists.

To find out how to register your school to take part, please click here. You can also read our No Pens Day press release here.

You don't have to be at school to get involved with the fun. If you're a 'facebook fanatic' or a 'tenacious tweeter', please help us spread the word. You can replace your usual profile picture on facebook and Twitter with a photo of yourself when you were at school. Or even a picture of your favourite 'school based' character such as someone from Grange Hill or Harry Potter with a message that you are backing No Pens Day. Please click here to get more information.

TES
No Pens Day Wednesday is the milestone initiative for Hello's September theme 'Back to School'.  At the start of the month, the Times Educational Supplement (TES) ran a special 8 page Hello supplement with support from BT and the Communication Champion. Please click here to view this supplement.

Resources for schools
We also have available the primary (5-11) and secondary (11-18) versions of the Universally Speaking booklets. Produced with the support of Pearson Assessment, these booklets are for anyone who works with children and young people and show where children should be with their communication skills at any given age. For more information, click here.