Communication and language

Children are given over 3 hours of play (5 hours in F1) to ensure that they have lots of opportunities to talk. Practitioners are available to listen to children, model speaking in full sentences and extend their vocabulary. During whole class teaching, we use turn to your partner when asking questions. This gives every child the chance to think, talk and listen to each other to process their answers. Practitioners are then able to use this time to listen, paraphrase and extend children’s ideas.

Every child has a speech and language assessment to see if they need any speech and language interventions. Interventions are carried out 1-1, in small groups and during in the moment play.

We use visuals, object of reference, and Makaton for all children alongside the spoken word. Visuals and signing can help to provide structure and routine, improve understanding, avoid frustration and offer opportunities to interact with others.

We read to children every day following our 4 read story plan (more information in the reading section.) we spend lots of time turning children’s play into stories and providing them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts.

Home learning

Every week we send home a song, story, rhyme or poem for the children to share with their family. The children choose a reading for pleasure book and in F2 they have decodable reading resources linked to their current RWI (read write inc) group.