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Highwood Primary School

School No: 679

Speaking & Listening Pilot Evaluation

Highwood Primary is a two form entry school which has approximately 450 pupils on role.  It caters for children from the age of 3 – 11 of which all come from a mixture of backgrounds.  We initially entered in to the project to promote ‘Speaking and Listening’ within the school, as it had been identified as a weakness by the Literacy Subject Leader.  The enticement of £900 was also an added incentive, as the Literacy Subject Leader believed this would help make the purchase of new resources create less of a dent to the existing budget.

During our involvement time the budget of £900 was spent wisely on resources and outside agencies.  Mrs June Peters provided a story telling day for Years 5, 4, 2 and 1.  This day was deemed as a great success by pupils and teachers as it provided them with lesson/drama ideas for the future.  Mr Michael Catchpole (Primary English Advisor) also came to school and provided a Drama INSET for staff.  This presented teachers with some very inventive and creative ideas to promote speaking and listening.

After staff training, the idea of adapting our planning was introduced to teachers.  It was decided that Literacy plans would include at least one strand of speaking and listening for each term and we would also try to incorporate this in to our foundation subject plans.  After some discussion, the Friday Literacy lesson was also decided to become a creative Literacy lesson, which would specifically focus on speaking and listening through such things as role play and art.

Teachers were very complimentary of this project and the training that was provided because of it.  Having the speaking and listening ideas (provided in the lunchbox) already in existence, teachers felt was a great help although, we felt collectively as a school that it takes more than one session to complete a stated activity.

The pupils within the school also enjoyed the work that they were being exposed to, especially taking part in the story telling day and now having a creative Friday literacy lesson.  Many of the children commented on their enjoyment of Friday literacy lessons during pupil interviews with the Literacy Subject leader.

Overall, the project was a success within our school and enjoyed by both staff and pupils.  However, the next stage for our school will be to ensure new staff are introduced to the way Literacy is now planned within the school, making sure they incorporate a creative Friday lesson.  The Literacy Subject Leader is due to follow up the project by monitoring plans to look for highlighted ‘speaking and listening’ links and continue with the areas identified on the subjects action plan.

Due to taking part within this project, it has also aired the issue of speaking and listening within all subjects.  As a school, we now encourage the use of talk buddies within all lessons and because of this the Head Teacher has seen an increase in enthusiasm levels from children, concerning their learning.