Developing students' group work skills

last updated:01 Sep 2007

Colin Hill, a KS1 teacher at Birkdale Primary School in Southport, wanted to help his pupils develop positive attitudes towards learning and towards each other.

Drawing on a variety of research resources Colin planned a series of six speaking and listening sessions designed to help pupils develop their skills for group work.

He wanted to help them to:

• develop their turn taking skills
• practice their listening skills
• become more aware of their own thinking.

Colin used the first session to evaluate his pupils’ current skills. He gave them a stick sorting task and explained that they needed to talk about their reasons for placing each stick in a particular location.

In the next session he supported his pupils to develop their speaking and listening skills.  Colin used the third, fourth and fifth sessions to develop his pupils’ skills further by getting them to complete collaborative activities.

Conclusions
He found that his pupils:

• developed their self confidence
• listened to each other more and interrupted each other less
• gave more explanations for their thoughts and ideas
• began to work collaboratively to complete tasks.

Colin trialled the same six sessions with a group of lower ability pupils and found that they needed a lot more support to secure their learning, including the repetition of some sessions.