Such an exploration can help fulfil some of the main aims of the Foundation Stage curriculum:
* It can provide children with meaningful situations in which to develop their language and literacy skills and so foster a confident and enthusiastic approach to verbal and written language.
* It helps develop their interpersonal skills and fosters a desire to share and record what they know, think and feel.
* It helps children to make sense of the world around them.
* It builds their confidence and develops a positive disposition to learning, so preparing them to cope with future (technological) change.
Planning
When planning a Communications project, practitioners need to consider various strands, principally meaningful contexts for children's play and the inter-relation of speaking, reading and writing.
Contexts
Only through exposure to and involvement in meaningful acts of language and literacy can children develop an understanding of the purposes and features of language, reading and writing.
When considering meaningful contexts for a Communications project, practitioners need only note the activities of an average day to find a wealth of ideas for play and learning, for example, reading letters and bills, telephoning the dentist to make an appointment, reading the newspaper on the bus, sending memos to colleagues, e-mailing a friend, writing and sending a birthday card, filling in a catalogue order form - the possibilities are endless.
Practitioners can deepen children's experience and understanding by reflecting this range of information systems in the setting.
Pace of change
As ICT progresses rapidly, new channels of communication filter into everyday life. Mobile phones, e-mail and the internet have become seemingly indispensable means of communications for many of us. How, we ask, would we cope without them? Just as we coped less than a decade ago - by relying on the postal service, public telephones and a myriad of other sources of information from travel brochures to encyclopaedias!
The speed of the introduction of these new forms of communication and their now global use demonstrates the extent to which practitioners need to not only acquaint children with current technology but also make them confident learners, capable of dealing with future, and rapid, change.
To achieve this, practitioners have to demonstrate a positive attitude to technology - and overcome any squeamishness they may have about switching on the computer!
Definition
Not all communications systems are dependent on our verbal and writing skills, and it is worth considering these during the course of the topic.
Take for example sign language and Braille. Consider also the extent to which we rely on non-verbal 'systems' of communication such as eye-contact and facial expressions, gestures and sounds, such as laughter and crying.
Parents
Such a project perhaps offers no better time to reassess how effectively you communicate with parents. See page 20 for ideas.
Nursery Topics - Communications is written by Jane Drake, a nursery teacher at Cottingley Primary School, Leeds, and the author of Planning Children's Play and Learning in the Foundation Stage (David Fulton, 15).
