You may have noticed our "Makaton Friendly Status" certificate and window sticker has changed to this. We have been recognised as a "Makaton Friendly" setting for nearly a year now and it something that we are always working on to make the provision and setting as a whole is accessible for the children, students, parents and carers. You can see other settings, restaurants, facilities and more that are Makaton friendly by using their "Makaton Friendly Map";
https://www.makaton.org/aboutMakaton/makatonFriendly/makatonFriendlyMap
Makaton is a language programme using signs and symbols to help people to communicate. It is designed to support spoken language and the signs and symbols are used with speech, in spoken word order.
With Makaton, children and adults can communicate straight away using signs and symbols. Many people then drop the signs or symbols naturally at their own pace, as they develop speech.
We have a 8 staff who have attended the Makaton Foundation Workshop and we hold regular in house staff training to refresh all staffs signing and knowledge. Throughout the day we use Makaton signing with the children, particularly with nursery rhymes and throughout the daily routine. The children respond really well to the signing and pick it up very quickly, even those children whose language has developed well they enjoy learning new signs and the ones they have learnt.
If your child watches TV, "Something Special" is a great programme to learn new songs and Mr Tumble uses signing throughout the show and can teach you and your child new signs.
The Makaton website is full of very useful information of how and why we use Makaton, it also provides free resources of signs and games you can print and use to play with your child at home. They keep the website updated regularly and are always very current, for example at the minute there are some school related.
Click here to see the free resources;
If you would like to know more about Makaton or would like to know a particular sign please ask a member of staff and we will try and find out for you.