Nursery World - Service going for a song

By Susan Stranks, the director of abracaDABra! and leader of the national campaign for children's radio Listen. Here's a sound idea! Songs, nursery rhymes and stories for children should replace birdsong on the national radio network licensed to Digital One.

Listen. Here's a sound idea! Songs, nursery rhymes and stories for children should replace birdsong on the national radio network licensed to Digital One.

This vacant Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) capacity has streamed birdsong for over a year, since the US company Bloomberg pulled its rolling news option from its bouquet of proposed formats. Pretty though birdsong may be, this scarce radio space could be more usefully employed.

Let's bring some common sense to this valuable public resource and deploy it intelligently, even if only in the short term. The charity I CAN has found that many early years staff are worried about language and communication problems in young children. And Basic Skills Agency research has found some teachers saying that up to half their pupils are starting school without the necessary language and communication skills for learning and social integration.

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