Developing sound social skills from an early age means that children are equipped for a lifetime of healthier interactions, both with peers and adults. Presenting good listening skills, being able to communicate effectively with others and showing consideration of others feelings and are all core components of social skills.
At Westacre, we develop children’s social skills using a variety of different resources - the most common being ‘101 Ways to Teach Children Social Skills'. This book covers the following topics:
• Verbal communication
• Non-verbal communication
• Being part of a group
• Expressing feelings
• Caring about yourself and about others
• Problem solving
• Listening
• Standing up for yourself
• Managing conflict
Each topic provides a plan, lesson objective and activity worksheets that children can work through to display their understanding.
We also like to use games to guide children into developing more effective social skills. Games enable the adult to highlight skills to the children such as turn-taking, not talking over others, interrupting and eye contact.
Friendship intervention
•Primary objective: to support the child to identify and develop social skills to enable healthy friendships
•Entry criteria: pupils have been identified (e.g. through CNN report) as needing social skills support, or identified by staff
•Exit criteria: improvements observed in a pupil's ability to develop and maintain healthy friendships
•4-6 weeks, out of class intervention, run by pastoral team
•Discuss what a healthy friendship looks like; identify particular aspects that need to be focused on: listening, empathy, conversation builders, shared interests, when things go wrong; explore positive language that can be used when things aren't working well; discuss the attributes of a good friend
Structured play
•Primary objective: to support the child to develop healthy aspects of play and socialising with other children
•Entry criteria: pupils have been identified (e.g. through CNN report) as needing social skills support, ot identified by staff
•Exit criteria: improvements observed in a pupils ability to develop healthy aspects of play and socialising with other children
•Weekly (Wednesday and Friday lunchtimes), run by pastoral team
•Model what 'good play' looks like and what social skills we should be using with one another
Lunchtime support
•Primary objective: to support the child in a safe and nurturing environment to enjoy a social experience at lunchtime
•Entry criteria: pupils who have identified need (e.g. through CN report) as requiring social skills support or identified by staff
•Exit criteria: Improvements in social skills observed within in school and shows success against pupil IPM targets, pupils starting to independently apply skills learnt in the classroom/playground
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•Daily in the lunch hall with their designated pastoral team TA
•Objectives- to follow routines in a structured environment, to teach the children good manners and social skills for engaging with their peers.
