Communication and language development involves giving children opportunities to experience a rich language environment; to develop their confidence and skills in expressing themselves; and to speak and listen in a range of situations. We use our Voice 21 and Drawing Club sessions to support this.   

By the end of the EYFS, children should:  

• Interact with others, negotiating plans and activities and taking turns in conversation. 

• Enjoy listening to and using spoken and written language and readily turn to it in their play and learning.  

• Sustain attentive listening, responding to what they have heard with relevant comments, questions or actions.  

• Listen with enjoyment, and respond to stories, songs and other music, rhymes and poems and make up their own stories, songs, rhymes and poems.  

• Extend their vocabulary, exploring the meanings and sounds of new words.  

• Speak clearly and audibly with confidence and control and show awareness of the listener. Use language to imagine and recreate roles and experiences.  

• Use talk to organise, sequence and clarify thinking, ideas, feelings and events. Hear and say sounds in words in the order in which they occur.