Communication
What is Communication?
Communication is a vital element of social interaction between each other, involving sharing and receiving information through appropriate means, enabling individuals to grow in ability, confidence and emotional empathy. Reading and listening skills are practised through the understanding and development of communication skills.
Why do we teach Communication at Sunnydown?
As a COIN school it is important we teach our students how to communicate effectively in a diverse society, allowing them to grow into citizens who can show tolerance and respect, understand different cultures, articulate their own freedom of speech, and be confident in what makes them unique.
How do we teach Communication at Sunnydown?
In Years 7 and 8, students have 6 x 1.5hr workshops as part of our Friday curriculum. In Y7 students focus on establishing ‘This is Me’ - looking at who they are as a person and how they would like to develop in their time at Sunnydown. In Y8, our students are encouraged to extend their reading ability through a shared class reader, developing key strategies to infer and deduce meaning. Texts are chosen /replaced regularly to reflect world events and enrich Cultural Capital, enabling our students to formulate their own opinions and views, be confident to share these, and respect the views of others.
In Y9, communications lessons are taught during the main part of the week and explore relevant and thought provoking topics through a class reader. Not only does this extend their reading ability and enhance their vocabulary knowledge but it also allows them to engage in class discussions, expressing their views whilst also openly listening to the views of others.
Through these distinct communication lessons, essential literacy skills are extended, identifying key ideas and details, sequencing a piece of text, recalling facts, enhancing inference skills and the developing vocabulary, all of which support life skills as well as encouraging our students to be more confident in achieving the Spoken Language section of their Functional Skills and KS4 GCSE English Language curriculum .