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London Grid for Learning now has available an important new teaching resource, i-learn: speaking and listening, to tackle the problem that more children are entering primary school with poor language skills, often because they don’t have much experience in talking and listening to each other.

Freely available to all London primary schools, i-learn: speaking and listening from Cambridge-Hitachi helps children develop and practice these all-important skills. It addresses a recently prioritised aspect of primary literacy. In fact, in a major review of the UK primary school curriculum published this year, educationalist Sir Jim Rose recommended a new focus on speaking and listening in the classroom

“Speaking and listening is the foundation upon which all other learning takes place,” commented Louise Glasspoole, Series Editor for this teaching tool, “so it should be at the heart of all learning, in all subject areas.” With this in mind, this digital learning resource has been specifically designed to be highly flexible and open-ended to allow easy integration into all areas of the curriculum.

Commenting on the selection of i-learn: speaking and listening, Bob Usher, Content Manager at London Grid for Learning said: “Our editorial board gave i-learn: speaking and listening a unanimous thumbs up, describing it as easy-to-use with first-rate teacher guidance resources. Every primary school in London will benefit from using this and boosting the language skills of their pupils.”

i-learn: speaking and listening is designed specifically for use on interactive white boards and uses model audio and visual presentations to demonstrate the most effective styles of talking. Each of the 26 units across both Key stage 1 and Key stage 2 feature simple top tips for speaking and listening with short, snappy whole-class activities which allow children to practise their techniques. There are plenty of opportunities to talk about talk and reflect upon its usage.

More inforamtion can be found at www.cambridge-hitachi.com/i-learn

ENDS

Note for Editors:

Teaching children to express themselves intelligibly through well formed speech and to listen attentively so as to understand what is said to them is crucial to their educational success. Last year’s renewed Primary Framework brought speaking and listening back into the fold, and emphasised how important it is by making the first four ‘strands’ of literacy relate to these skills:

• Speaking
• Listening and responding
• Group discussion and interaction
• Drama

This teaching resource supports the explicit and systematic teaching of the first four strands of the new Primary Framework. Schools need to teach, develop and rehearse these skills across the whole curriculum, in subjects other than English.

Ofsted will now be looking at speaking and listening in schools.

About Cambridge-Hitachi

Cambridge-Hitachi, a joint venture between Cambridge University Press and Hitachi Software Engineering, combines educational expertise and innovative technology to provide creative, compelling curriculum focussed software for primary schools, designed to enrich teaching and inspire pupils.

For more information visit www.cambridge-hitachi.com

About London Grid for Learning

The London Grid for Learning (LGfL) is a consortium of all 33 London Local Authorities. It provides fibre based broadband access of 5-100 Mbps to all of London’s 2600 schools. Connectivity is supplemented by providing managed services to schools, by the creation of a collaborative learning platforms that give over one million schoolchildren and teachers personal web space, and by creating and enabling access to a wide range of educational content for ages 3-18.

For more information visit www.lgfl.net

Contact for Cambridge-Hitachi: Sarah Keefe, Marketing Services Manager, Tel: +44 (0)1223 325048, Email: skeefe@cambridge.