Speaking and Listening

As a school, all adults give children opportunities to engage in speaking and listening activities throughout their primary years. We have adopted the principles of the ‘Talk Matters’ programme which promotes the development of speaking and listening and the correct use of the English language through a whole school approach of modelling good language skills and encouraging the use of full sentence responses and conversation whenever possible. Children begin their journey into acquiring good speaking and listening skills through exploratory play, learning and vocabulary groups in Early Years. They are given opportunities to discuss what they are doing and share nursery rhymes, stories, songs to encourage development of speaking and listening skills. 

From Year One upwards, speaking and listening activities are built into lessons, using talk partners; oral feedback; role-play activities and presentations both within class and to the whole school. The exploration of vocabulary is embedded within lessons through discussion, word study, pre-learning as well as broadening vocabulary through themes and spelling patterns. If children are new to English or need to broaden their language development and require additional support they receive vocabulary interventions.

We also have a Speech and Language Therapist who works on site one day each week to work with targeted children and offer support, advice and training to school staff to ensure they have the necessary skills and knowledge to deliver programmes as advised by the speech therapist to those children who may need additional support. Our Speech Therapist also works closely with the English Team to incorporate the use of colour coding as a whole school approach to embed comprehension skills for all aspects of language-based skills.