Communication and Language
The Nature of Speech, Language and Communication
The National Curriculum for English reflects the importance of spoken language in children’s development. Spoken language underpins the development of reading and writing. The quality and variety of language that pupils hear and speak are vital for developing vocabulary and grammar and their understanding for reading and writing.
Our curriculum has a strong emphasis on spoken language to develop children cognitively, socially and linguistically. We believe positive communication helps children to build social relationships which provide opportunities for friendship, empathy and sharing emotions. Speaking and Listening are also modes through which learning occurs. We know that teaching speaking skills can make a huge difference to a child’s confidence and capability.
We believe that good interactions between adults and children make a big difference to how well communication and language skills develop. We know that children benefit from being with responsive and enthusiastic adults who show an interest in talking with them. The number and quality of the conversation’s children have with adults and other children throughout the day in a language rich environment is crucial to their development. They need to understand spoken language and have good spoken language (see appendix 1).
We believe good interactions use:
- words
- body language
- facial expressions
- actions
- songs
We know that good language development is progressive, and children need to:
- Understand spoken language
- Understand and use vocabulary
- Understand and use sentences
- Understand stories and narrative
- Use clear speech and understand grammar
- Develop positive social interactions with adults and their peers
To ensure all our children achieve well we recognise the importance of:
- An engaging and enriching curriculum
- Quality first teaching and learning.
- The effective use of formative assessment.
Curriculum
Our ambitious curriculum immerses children in progressive knowledge and skills and equips them with personal characteristics required to succeed in life.
Our curriculum considers that each child is unique and supports language development by ensuring they:
- are involved in playful, language rich environments full of stories, songs, rhymes, signs, talk and imaginative play with opportunities to learn new words.
- engage in hands-on experiences to encourage learning and provide contexts for new words to be explored.
- hear stories, read out loud so children hear how sentences are structured, how questions are formed and how language can be used to express a wide range of emotions and actions.
- are immerged in the flow of language to help them to develop their listening and comprehension skills, to lay the building blocks for effective communication.
Please click the links below to access the following documents for Communication and Language: