Speaking & Listening

At Fonthill we use talk to create continuity and coherence in our children’s learning, across the whole school. We believe that our learning environment authentically values and promotes our children’s talk. This includes children learning from one another and practicing new language and communication skills together; this is also a great opportunity for assessment led teaching.

We want our children to understand that talk is a tool for them to help process their learning. It also gives them the opportunity to express themselves and communicate how they’re feeling about a subject.

We understand why talk is so important in the classroom and that it is the true foundation to teaching and learning.

In line with the Fonthill READS curriculum, speaking and listening is taught through:

Remember- At Fonthill, we focus upon the hierarchy of Bloom’s Taxonomy to help develop our speaking and listening skills. ‘Knowledge/remembering’ is the lowest level of questions from the hierarchy; it requires our children to recall information. We support our children to recall facts and basic concepts by providing them time in lessons to talk about subjects. This time to talk helps our children to process their learning.

Explain- We plan times within our lessons to enable our children to explain their thinking and learning. Providing our children with opportunities in class to explain and reflect on their work, enables them to build confidence in their speaking and listening skills.

Apply- Our end of year ‘Talk Outcomes’ help guide class teachers to support each child’s speaking and listening skills.  Our children can practice applying their talking skills in a supportive environment will help build confidence in their expressions, feelings and opinions ready for their next step in their learning journey.

Develop- Each classroom has a ‘Time to Talk’ poster aid which is specifically targeted towards our children’s typical speaking and listening developmental milestones. It is used to support lessons and build a community of talking children with end of year outcomes in mind. These posters are revisited each long term to help the children develop their speaking and listening skills and help build confidence in their learning. As well as providing our children with an enriched talk-focused environment, we implement many different types of activities and interventions to help develop any communication and language concerns we may have.

Share- We believe it is extremely important for children to share their learning with others. This is being practised in many ways throughout our school; including ‘talk partners’, ‘think, pair, share’, working groups and public speaking.  These opportunities enable our children to learn from each other and practice their new language and communication skills. The Fonthill 101 has lots of opportunities for children to practise their speaking and listening skills.