Lauren Williams, Lead Communication Practitioner at Carr Mill Primary School, St Helens, has just finished supporting her setting through the Elklan Communication Friendly Setting award.
Her reflections on the process and the impact on the Early Years Department in the school are staggering, and she reports that the staff at Carr Mill Primary School have loved taking part in the programme!
She also has told us that:
The best part about mentoring my team has been the opportunity to share my passion for improving communication in the setting with my colleagues. Seeing the changes that have had such a huge impact on the children's communication skills has been wonderful. Listening to the children's vocabulary broaden and feeling that we are positively supporting every child's communication skills has been a huge highlight.
And she has written this blog to tell the rest of the world about it:
We completed Elklan Communication Friendly Setting – Early Years in 2021, taking only 10 months to finish.
From our staff team, 66% of them felt that the course was effective in giving them new ideas in supporting children's communication skills and 34% said it was very effective in doing this.
They all said the course was effective or very effective in changing the way they now talk to the children. They said that they have noticed good progress in the children's communication skills and this is evident from the observations I have made and from just talking to the children in the class. The progress the children have made is directly linked to the staff's further knowledge from our training sessions. Staff are more confident when talking to the children and know what level every child is at and how best to support them on their next steps.
We all felt that it was fantastic to do it all together as part of a team and that it had a huge impact on us all working together each week by supporting each other and developing very reflective working practices.
The two biggest changes have been our relationships with parents when sharing information with them regarding their child's communication next steps and how we now communicate with the children. Staff now understand the importance to give children more thinking time and also how we can develop a child's communication skills without constant questioning. They now know that we can repeat, explain and expand instead.
Feedback from the parents has been wonderful and they have really praised and thanked us for all of the support over the last year.
We feel that our communication-friendly setting journey has been amazing and everyone is now benefiting from our new found knowledge.
We are enjoying embedding all of these practices in our daily teaching with the children.
Find out how your setting can become Communication Friendly
