Speaking & Listening
Intent:
“It’s easy to think that children’s speech, language and communication develops no matter what. But this isn’t true.
Speech, language and communication underpins everything we do, yet children don’t learn to talk by accident. Adults play a really important role in nurturing and supporting these skills. Listening to what children say, giving them ideas and creating opportunities for talk and interaction can make a big difference to children’s ability to live life to the full.” (The Communication Trust).
Our intention is for children to:
- Express their opinions, articulate feelings and listen to and respond appropriately in a range of situations;
- Participate with different groups of children to present ideas with confidence, valuing the views of others;
- Speak audibly and confidently before an audience (for example when leading class and whole-school worship; when performing in school plays).
Implementation:
All staff have had extensive training from Carolyn Gelenter who is an Advisory Teacher for Speech & Language Development in Westminster & a Consultant at MindUP – The Goldie Hawn Foundation.
We place a strong emphasis upon the teaching of vocabulary & this is an important focus from EYFS. This forms an important part of all curriculum areas across all key stages. We feel that this will enable children to expressive themselves and their knowledge and understanding of a subject.
We are exploring the use of Mrs Wordsmith in some year groups to assess the impact upon children’s vocabulary.
We ensure that our classrooms are communication friendly environments and teachers are asked to refer to checklists at the start of the year in order to create environments that promote attention for learning.
Drama is used across the curriculum to explore and engage children in their learning. This gives children the chance to embed vocabulary in shared activities. Each class shares their learning with the school community once every term and children are selected across the school to take active roles in whole school worship – readings from the bible, prayers and drama pieces relating to important events in the church calendar.
The whole school take part in a scripted Christmas performance and Year 6 spend time in the summer term rehearsing and performing a Shakespeare play and all members of the class have a key role to play.
Impact:
In a safe and encouraging environment, children develop into confident communicators who illuminate the goodness in each other by listening, speaking with kindness and empathy and explaining with clarity and confidence. Children recognise that speaking and listening can lie at the heart of conveying character, and that through speaking and listening effectively, misunderstandings cab be addressed and relationships enhanced.