North Walney Primary and Nursery School
Speaking and Listening
Philosophy
At North Walney Primary School we believe that the development of
Speaking and Listening skills is fundamental to a pupil’s language
development, learning in school and social development. It is vital that all
children are given the opportunity to learn how to communicate effectively
in a variety of contexts. We believe that richness and variety of talk is
important and it is essential that they have the opportunity to develop their
skills and knowledge at school.
Aims
Speaking and Listening are skills to be used in all learning areas. The
ultimate aim in the teaching and development of Speaking and Listening
skills, must be:

To develop an age appropriate vocabulary with suitable levels of
expression and comprehension.

To provide children with the opportunities to learn how to speak for
different audiences: for example, retelling stories, explanations,
persuasion.

To ensure children develop their listening skills and are then able to
respond to what has been heard.

To teach children how to take part in discussion and to interact
effectively within a group.

To take part in drama lessons.
This will include role play,
improvisation, performance and responding to drama.
Learning and Teaching
The teaching of Speaking and Listening will begin as soon as a child enters
Nursery. Children will be introduced to circle time this requires the explicit
teaching of good sitting, cueing into the adult, making eye contact, taking
turns. When this is established speaking and listening will be promoted using
Phase 1 of Letters and Sounds, ‘Developing baseline communication skills’,
developing a core of songs and rhymes the children can join in with and recall
and PSHE. Good practice throughout FS 1 and FS2 includes developing
speech as an adult plays alongside children and promotes the routines of the
setting and helps children to solve conflicts. Planning will promote speaking
and listening in adult led activities and will clearly show new vocabulary.
Observations and notes of adult led activities will inform planning. Children
will be taught correct pronunciation of words and letters. Correct
grammatical structures will be modelled by adults when a child has used
immature language.
To ensure that Speaking and Listening is taught effectively we provide a
wide range of activities in order to cover all objectives. It is also very
important that there is a focus on the explicit teaching of the required skills
and to build in progression. In order to do this we use ‘Speaking and
Listening Teacher Objectives and Classroom Activities’ as well as the QCA
framework for planning and additional speaking and listening resource books.
This ensures that the teaching objectives are supported by activities to
show how they can be explicitly taught as well as providing opportunities to
extend and reinforce the skills in context with other curricular areas. Many
of our foundation subjects involve Speaking and Listening and discussion
activities. For example circle time, role play in RE, group work in PHSE etc.
Also correct pronunciation and grammatically correct speech is modelled and
promoted by adults at all times
Planning
In the foundation stage planning for speaking and listening is at the centre
of the planning in all areas of the curriculum. Alongside good practice and
general routines adult led activities will promote speaking and listening.
Planning is based on the Early learning goals for the foundation stage and is
supported by ‘Developing baseline communication skills’
Planning is based on the QCA document for Speaking and Listening at Key
Stages 1 and 2.
The teaching of Speaking and Listening is planned alongside the overall
planning for English (refer to separate policy) in order to link with the
National Literacy Strategy but is also developed in all other curricular areas.
Teachers are required to include a Speaking and Listening section in their
medium term planning. Talk homework is set to give children the opportunity
to talk to family members about topic areas and to report back in class.
Assessment
Assessment in the Foundation stage will be against developmental norms and
will result in focused work 1-1 or in small groups to develop listening,
following instructions, auditory memory, sequencing sounds, vocabulary
development, age appropriate grammar (e.g I intead of ‘me’), using question
words, prepositions, clarity of speech.
Assessment of pupil progress is ongoing by the class teacher as part of
formative assessment. At the end of each year the class teacher will record
the National Curriculum level which ‘best fits’ a child’s achievement.
Teachers are encouraged to make Assessment for Learning notes about
children’s Speaking and Listening development and to use this information to
inform future learning and teaching.
Equal Opportunities
We aim to ensure that all pupils have equal access to the teaching of
Speaking and Listening at a level appropriate to their age and needs.
Children enter our nursery and school with levels of attainments significantly
below national expectations so we rigorously plan to develop the social skills
and speaking and listening skills that they to express themselves. We
systematically teach new vocabulary linked to the children’s needs and the
topic. We identify children with significant needs and liaise with speech
therapists and early years advisory teachers.
Within our aims we understand how richness and variety is important
especially for children who enter our school to learn English as an additional
language.
Special Needs
Children with special needs in this area, such as hearing loss, speech
difficulty etc will have a programme of study to follow which reflects their
own specific needs.
Resources
 Digi-blue and digital video cameras are stored centrally for class
teachers to use for recording drama work.
 Speaking and Listening QCA documents
 Developing baseline communication skills
 SEAL materials
 Barrier games – see HD
 Listen and do – CDs
 Story CDs
 Listening skills – computer software
This policy was agreed and adopted by the staff and Governors in February
2012.
It will be reviewed in February 2013.