Is this really the best answer to poor language development at 4 yrs old?

After all the previous posts we have had On here about shoes ,dare I suggest training the staff at the likes of Shoezone?

My opinion on that 'ranking' urmstongran is because
a)we dropped the experts and had a civil servant and a politician design a curriculum and approaches to teaching
b) we don' bother to look at the wider context to see why kids do not embrace education we just bame schools.

How is a 3 minute chat with a shop assistant, a few weeks before going to school, going to help anything! It is a complete load of bollocks!

ps my post was in reply to PECS.

And how many struggling parents with poor skills themselves will buy shoes from Clarkes?

One thing that stands out here for me is that parents who are fortunate enough to be able to pay £30/40 for a pair of shoes don't know how to speak to their children and encourage conversation.
I just don't believe it.

I agree. And with most children you don't need to 'teach' them to talk in sentences. You just keep engaging them in conversation and they pick it up naturally.
Maybe some parents can't speak in sentences either?
I blame phones, screens etc.

Why is there a need for centres for children to learn to speak ? Isn’t this what mothers have always done ?

Better than nothing but it’s wrong that it’s necessary and so sad. What are we becoming as a nation? Apparently for reading and maths our children are around the 27th on a league table of the world. Shocking.

"Training will take place over the summer so that Clarks staff are able to talk to children who are bought to the shop by their parents to buy school shoes ahead of the new academic year." This is because Damian Hinds says it is a " persistent scandal" yhat parents have not taught their pre schoolers to talk in sentences. I am really angry. 5 local Children Centres are to clise due to Government funding cuts.

The link didn't work but I copied and pasted it. That article is riddled with mistakes! Don't they know the difference between "bought" and "brought"?

I'll take me pedant's hat off now.

I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. It may be more important to learn to simply understand a bit more child psychology generally rather than just be taught how to speak to toddlers.

The link didn't work for me PECS but I read something about this yesterday.
I feel it's another of those things that make me feel we're all doomed if this is the best we can do.
Of course shop staff talk to children, especially if they're measuring their feet. That's what happened when my grannie took me to Clarks 68 years ago to have my feet measured for shoes, Romping Robins I think they were called.
I recently took our two toddlers to Clarks, following on the family tradition of grannie buying the shoes, getting them properly fitted and so on. The young woman who served us was lovely with the children, chatted to them and was patient when they wriggled about. That's how it should be, not part of some cheapskate government initiative.