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CITYʼS BID TO ACHIEVE WORLD RECORD
SCHOOL children are being urged to join in the city’s bid to get in the Guinness Book of Records with the longest ever held conversation. Hundreds of pupils from schools and nurseries across Sheffield are planning to take part in the national Chatterbox Challenge next month. The aim is to hold the largest talking event across the country at the same time. The plan is to get crowds of children singing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes – complete with all the actions - all at the same time for at least five minutes. The record-breaking attempt is part of I CAN – the national children’s communications charity – 10th Annual Chatterbox Challenge for the largest conversation held in multiple venues across the UK. The Sheffield event
will happen in the Peace Gardens on Tuesday, March 1 at 11am. There are already confirmations from nurseries and primary schools, with at least 350 children expected to turn up on the day. I CAN is urging as many children, families, nursery staff and early years workers to register and get involved. Sheffield City Council bosses are also urging the city to get involved. Cllr Colin Ross, Sheffield City Council’s Cabinet Member for Children and Young People’s Services said: “This is a great way of getting children interacting and holding a conversation together. “We want to raise the standards of literacy and language in our younger children across the city and what better way of kick-starting this than by holding this incredible challenge.
“If you have small children and you want to take part please, please come along and support this. Getting into the Guinness Book of Records would be a great achievement for the city.” The challenge launches a city-wide campaign aimed at getting children across Sheffield talking. It also coincides with the National Year of Communication. Sheffield has achieved a great deal of success over the last year through its city-wide strategy “Every Child Articulate and Literate” (ESCAL). Tackling speech and language development is a key part of ESCAL. Whilst the number of children with persistent speech problems is similar to the rest of the country, 40 to 50 per cent of children in some parts of the city have delayed language. Many of these children start school with very limited vocabulary, not able to
speak in sentences. To tackle this, Council leaders have launched “Sheffield’s Talking“. As well as providing training for staff, this is designed to help encourage parents, carers and teachers to talk more to children – even from the moment they are born - as this is seen as crucial to improving language development. Cllr Ross added: “These are frightening figures but sadly this is not a problem exclusive to Sheffield. Nationwide there is a problem with children not reaching key milestones by the age of five in terms of their speech or language development. “We want to address this here in Sheffield which is why we are launching this campaign. We are determined to make sure every child in the city is articulate and literate by the age of 11. After that it is too late for some.
Problems that have gone unchecked in the early stages can have profound effects on people’s whole lives and we must do something about this.” He added the Council has been driving up achievements across the city as part of its strategy to raise aspirations and attainment levels. Already GCSE results are steadily climbing as Sheffield moves up the national results league tables, but Cllr Ross is keen to do more. He added: “The key to making sure we are still achieving well in future years is to tackle problems in early years. By investing this time in our children at this crucial early stage we could really help future generations’ prospects let alone saving the city a fortune in years to come.” The Chatterbox Challenge, which is being sponsored nationally by Openreach,
a BT Group Business, is a key event in the Hello campaign during the 2011 National Year of Communication. I CAN chief executive Virginia Beardshaw said: “The Chatterbox Challenge is a brilliant opportunity to encourage children to learn songs and nursery rhymes with their families and carers in a fun way. In this 10th Anniversary year and as part of the Hello campaign, I hope as many people as possible register and help children who struggle to communicate.” As well as the Chatterbox Challenge, a number of events are planned for the Year of Communication, including Talk Picnics and a sound sculpture of in the Winter Gardens of thousands of children’s voices, talking about what they like about Sheffield.
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