At Lawn Primary School, we want our children to express their opinions, articulate their true feelings and listen and respond respectfully, in a range of situations. We aim to give all children opportunities to participate, with different groups of children, to present ideas with confidence, being respectful of the views of others.
We encourage, and work towards, every child being able to communicate audibly and confidently before an audience, for example during assemblies or school productions.
The curriculum provides a play-based and experiential learning environment, combined with direct focused teaching and basic skills, to ensure children make rapid progress before moving on to Year 1. The children in Reception are provided with opportunities in both indoor and outdoor provision. They engage in planned, well sequenced, discrete teaching, such as phonics and mathematics, as well as self-initiated and free flow activities.
At Lawn Primary School, adults enable children to develop their competence in spoken language and listening, to enhance the effectiveness of their communication across a range of contexts and to a range of audiences. This is done by focusing on the following aspects of spoken language::
• Listening skills
• Following instructions
• Asking and answering questions
• Drama, performance and confidence
• Vocabulary building and standard English
• Speaking for a range of purposes
• Participating in discussion
Children are given opportunities to work in groups of different sizes - in pairs, small groups, large groups and as a whole class. Children are taught how to take turns and when and how to participate constructively in conversations and debates.
Teachers increase, improve and develop children's vocabulary, across all areas of the curriculum and within all interactions in an incidental way. They also plan subject specific vocabulary, which is embedded across the curriculum. We enhance children's curiosity and knowledge about language as a whole.
Speaking and listening opportunities are both incidental and planned; they are planned within lessons, across the curriculum, and in discrete lessons focused on developing skills. Teachers use our speaking and listening progression map to ensure that skills taught are progressive throughout the school.
Children in Reception, Year 1, Year 3 and Year 5 perform a Christmas production. Year 4 perform an Easter production and Year 2 perform an assembly production based on curriculum content and Year 6 put on a leavers' production in the Summer term.
Children leave Lawn Primary School equipped, not only with the skills to speak and listen effectively using an appropriate level of formality, but to be able to apply these in their everyday lives and in their next stages of education - for research, information and to explore the world.
