English

Communication

Communication throughout the day is a focus across the school with the aim of embedding communication across the school day (in whatever way is suitable for that child – PECS, Makaton, verbal language etc.) and ensuring consistency amongst staff in terms of use of symbols and visual aids. It is expected that communication should be a focus in all areas of the curriculum. A variety of strategies and teaching activities are used to further developing pupil’s communication skills – these can include discrete PECS sessions, SALT sessions, Colourful Semantics, Play sessions, etc. All classes use visual cues to ensure that children know what is happening throughout the day.

At Marshlands we provide opportunities for our pupils to develop a meaningful and functional system of Total Communication using verbal and/or nonverbal communication. Furthermore, this guarantees that all pupils feel included with their preferred method of communication which facilitates the opportunity to be understood, responded to and to make decisions. All members of staff integrate fully our approach to communication within all aspects of the curriculum using a variety of strategies and personalised teaching activities including discrete SALT and play sessions dependent upon the pupils’ needs and communicative abilities. 

Gross/fine motor skills and early writing skills

At Marshlands we break down children’s learning into small steps using practical and play based activities.

In order for children to develop their writing skills we first focus on their gross and fine motor skills, then move on to writing using a pen or pencil.

Children practise their gross motor skills at Marshlands through play, which helps with physical development and provides children with the abilities they need to explore and interact with the world around them. Through gross motor skills we enable children to perform everyday functions, such as standing, walking, running, and sitting upright. This also includes hand-eye coordination skills such as ball skills.

Alongside the gross motor skills we look at functional approaches to using fine motor skills to further develop hand-eye coordination. This enables a child to complete important tasks such as writing, feeding or doing up buttons and zips. We develop these skills alongside early writing skills so that children can learn to develop a good tripod grasp when holding a pen or pencil.

Reading and phonics

Sensory Stories: Many teachers use sensory stories to engage their class in books and make them more relevant to their needs. These sessions are carried out with the whole class or in smaller groups depending on the needs of the children. A range of props are used to bring the story to life (these can include sounds, smells and visual aids as well as tactile and physical props). The children respond well to these sessions and it is great to see them engaging with the story through the use of props.

The phonics scheme used throughout the school is the DfE validated Twinkl Phonics. This provides a 6-level teaching programme to teach children how the alphabet works for reading and spelling.  This is complemented with other schemes where necessary and adapted for the needs of individual or groups of pupils, including by adding multi-sensory experiences, adapting the pace of the programme and giving opportunities to revisit phonemes and graphemes when identified. 

At Marshlands we encourage children to develop an enjoyment for books and to understand that print has meaning. We aim to make the teaching of reading as individualised as possible. Our children have access to a wide variety of books; we use Book Bands to ensure that pupils have books matched to their reading ability.  Children take part in shared reading, individual reading and also enjoy listening to stories being read to them at the end of most school days.

Writing

Children are encouraged to make marks and write in order to communicate messages. Early writing skills focus on attributing meaning to writing and mark making. Progressive skills including composition, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and handwriting are based on National Curriculum requirements and are used purposefully in response to first hand experiences, texts or learning content from other curriculum areas. Pupils are encouraged to use their own creativity and imagination. Where children are writing letter shapes and beginning to blend and segment words they are encouraged to consider the sounds in words and write them. All writing that they produce is celebrated and where it is not yet at a stage where it can be read, the pupil will be asked about what they have written and the meaning of their text is scribed below their writing.