St Stephen's Catholic Primary School and Nursery

Makaton @ St. Stephen's

Makaton is a unique language programme that uses symbols, signs and speech to enable people to communicate. It supports the development of essential communication skills such as attention and listening, comprehension, memory, recall and organisation of language and expression.

Being able to communicate is one of the most important skills we need in life. Almost everything we do involves communication; everyday tasks such as learning at school, asking for food and drink, sorting out problems, making friends and having fun. These all rely on our ability to communicate with each other.

With Makaton, signs are used, with speech, in spoken word order. This helps provide extra clues about what someone is saying. Using signs can help people who have no speech or whose speech is unclear. Using symbols can help people who have limited speech and those who cannot, or prefer not to sign.

For those who have experienced the frustration of being unable to communicate meaningfully or effectively, Makaton really can help. Makaton takes away that frustration and enables individuals to connect with other people and the world around them. This opens up all kinds of possibilities.

Each term we are going to be learning Makaton together. Miss Middleton will be teaching us different words and we will be looking out for pupils who are using these signs in their day-to-day lives around school. As part of this we will be giving out our Makaton Master awards to pupils who are doing particularly well at using the signs in school. 

Why not watch the video together and learn the signs together at home!