On Tuesday 20th February, we had a No Pen Day at St. Christopher’s. Across the school, we put down our pens and pencils and had a day focussing on developing the children’s oral language skills. These are fundamental for learning to read and write, managing emotions, maintaining friendships and preparing them for successful employment later in life.
It is perceived that spoken language is underrepresented in the national curriculum in comparison to reading and writing, so this day brought the importance of spoken language to the forefront. Teachers had fun trying out different teaching approaches, engaging the children in exciting pen-free activities. Activities included dancing, acting out different sections of English texts and orally responding with background sound effects, using puppets to tell stories, learning sign language, digital work to create poetry, picture fraction matching, outdoor learning, playing their own designed Maths games and trialling them out and finally, writing on the whiteboard using fingers only and no board pen. It was a very successful day.
