This year, the children of 3S have been busy writing letters to penpals in another school, and recently have been learning how to send emails to them. This is why they decided to present an assembly about....

All over the world, people greet each other with a smile and a wave. In England, you would hear 'Hello!'. In which countries do you think you might hear these greetings?

Roll your mouse over each box to reveal the answer.

In Britain, there are around nine million people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Often, people who have hearing difficulties use hand signs and gestures to communicate with others. 3S have learned how to sign their names using British Sign Language and made a short film, which they showed on the school's big screen. They also sang 'I Can Sing A Rainbow' with accompanying hand signs.

Email is a really useful way of communicating with people anywhere in the world. Whether they are in the next classroom, or on the other side of the world, emails arrive at their computers instantly. But there are dozens of other ways for us to communicate with people who are far away.

3S made their own versions of a telephone using two paper cups and a piece of string. They tested out different designs, using strings that were different lengths and thicknesses and tried attaching the string in different ways. To test the designs, one person put a cup to their ear while the other person spoke into the cup at the other end of the string.  They found that, if the string is tight enough, then the message is passed along the string as sound vibrations, and can be heard through the cup at the other end.

Many years ago, when not many people could read or write, a town crier would stand in the town square and call out the important news to anyone who was near. 

Today newspapers are one of the most important ways of communicating.  Thousands of people read a newspaper every day, so newspaper articles are the perfect way of sending a message to a huge number of people at once.

There are lots of ways of communicating with sound.  If you are driving along and you hear a siren, you know that an ambulance, police car or fire engine is near to you, and you should move out of the way.

We can send messages using lights as well. traffic lights tell cars when to go and stop. They also help us to know when it is safe to cross the road and when we should wait. Can you think of any other ways that lights help us to communicate?

Our work on different types of communication has made us realise how important it is in everyday life. 

Communication is essential for people to get along and understand each other, and we should celebrate the opportunities we have to communicate with people all over the world.