Speaking and Listening

Speaking and Listening at Ranskill Primary School

At Ranskill, our aim is that all pupils develop confidence in speaking and listening so that they are able to engage effectively with people throughout their community. We encourage them to share their thoughts, feelings, opinions and ideas about their learning, and we encourage good listening skills. In lessons, there are numerous opportunities for pupils to speak and listen with each other, but also with the adults in the room. When appropriate, adults will remodel what has been said to demonstrate how it could be made clearer or more appropriate. Talk buddies are commonly used across the curriculum to enable children to share ideas and contribute successfully to lessons.

All adults across the school model good manners in speaking and listening and encourage and support pupils in waiting patiently and taking turns, but we also strongly believe that children need to be assertive at times, and this too is modelled and encouraged. For example, in an emergency or safeguarding situation, children need to be able to speak up with confidence that they will be listened to. This is a fine balance but is encouraged from an early age and throughout pupils’ time in school as we strongly value the importance of children being able to ‘Take Care’ of themselves and others.

We provide many opportunities for children to further their confidence in communicating with their community, through talent shows, coffee mornings, fairs and open evenings. In these situations, children often take on the role of ‘host’ and this gives them a chance to communicate in a more formal way.

We value the development of confident performers too, and so each class performs a musical production once a year where children can further develop their voice and performance poetry is practised and performed at intervals throughout the year.