ON August 28 a research document was published by the Department for Children, Schools and Families into the provision of workforce of childcare and early years providers. I was most interested in the statistics provided on staff training.

I was disappointed to learn that speech and language make up only one per cent of the training provided to staff in children's centres. This was in comparison with 60 per cent for first aid training and 46 per cent for food hygiene.

While I understand the need for first aid and food hygiene training, we must put more focus on basic communication skills for young people - and that means training people to teach it.

Too often, children start school without the necessary speaking and listening skills. With the massive changes we are seeing with Early Years it is a great opportunity to put more focus on what we believe at BT to be the number one life skill - communication.

We have developed a free DVD resource with I CAN, the communication charity for children, to address this concern. The self-study resource, Learning to Talk Talking to Learn, aims to provide information to early years practitioners on stages of communication development and basic training on how to support speech, language and communication in early year childcare settings.

In today's world, young people depend on communication skills to make friends, pass exams, get a job and achieve their goals in life. I urge you to log onto www.bt.com/betterworld to get a copy of the resource and learn more about BT's Better World Campaign and about the positive difference adults can make by helping to develop children's communication skills.

DAVE HANCOCK, head of education and volunteering, BT.