What is Oracy?

Oracy refers to the ability to express yourself fluently and communicate effectively with other people. More than being grammatically correct, oracy is concerned about how you speak and how you express yourself.

Having strong oracy skills means that our children have the ability to structure their thoughts in a way that makes sense to others, and the vocabulary to say precisely what they want to say. For our children, it is about being strong and effective communicators.

Voice 21 is a national charity that exists to help schools to provide a high quality oracy. Its research describes the importance of physical, social and emotional, linguistic and cognitive aspects of learning. This covers a range of speaking and listening skills, behaviours, and language necessary for communicating and working.  

Intent

At St John’s, oracy and vocabulary are woven into every part of school life.  By building a culture of oracy, we provide children tools to access the curriculum as well as building capacity for adult life. Through a range of tasks, in a range of subject areas, children learn to talk confidently and clearly, heard and understood by all.  

Our aim is to enable children to improve their levels of oracy, so that they can express themselves clearly and are able to communicate effectively and confidently in front of any type of audience. They will think carefully about the language they are using, and tailor it to their subject, purpose and audience.

So many aspects of life depend on effective communication, so it is vital that children learn the importance of oracy from a young age. Children who start school with more limited communication skills are less likely than their peers to reach the expected standards in English at the end of Year 6.  At St John’s, this awareness of children’s different starting points is key to developing oracy for all children.

Children who communicate well are more likely to form good relationships with other children and adults, therefore it is important that our children are able to listen to others, and respond appropriately. Purposeful talk is used to drive forward learning. Talk in the classroom, which has been planned, designed, modelled, scaffolded and structured to enable all learners to develop the skills needed to talk effectively. 

Implementation

At St John’s, we have adopted a framework for oracy which breaks down the teaching of speaking and listening into four strands:

Physical

Cognitive

Linguistic

Social and Emotional

Classrooms and learning environments (including our EYFS and Y1 provison) are rich in language. Questions are planned, peer conversations are modelled and scaffolded and staff use talk skilfully to develop thinking. From EYFS to Year 6, children are given opportunities to develop oracy skills and build confidence in talk for formal and informal situations, both in and outside the classroom.

Children should have opportunities for the following:

• interactive/negotiation
• exploratory talk
• debate and persuasion
• building understanding
• to inform/teach  
• entertainment and expression

The deliberate, explicit and systematic teaching of oracy across the school and throughout the curriculum will support the children to make progress in the four strands of oracy.  A range of purposeful opportunities are used to encourage learning through talk and learning to talk, including:

• Explicit teaching and revisiting of tier 2 and 3 vocabulary for English and other foundation subjects at the heart of the curriculum.
• Behaviours for speaking and listening in class, such as thinking before speaking, waiting to be chosen, and not interrupting others. This also includes listening and speaking behaviours and use of gestures.
• High quality cooperative learning structures (within our work on EEF’s 5 a Day Recommendations).
• Presentations on a specified subject, or a subject of their own choosing. These could be individual presentations or in pairs or small groups, in front of their class or the whole school (for example within high quality cooperative learning structures such as Numbered Heads Together).
• Discussions as a pair, small group or whole class, for example about religious beliefs, story plots, or predicting the outcomes of experiments.
• Exploring a text through performance – not just re-enacting what actually happens in the book, but also acting out what characters might do or say in a particular situation.
• Debates, with one group of pupils for and another against a certain topic or question, such as, ‘Is it right to bully a bully?’
• Year Group Assemblies Every year group performs a production on an area of learning, attended by the rest of the school and parents. This involves speaking, singing, acting and appearing before a large audience.
• School council meetings, where council members collect questions and concerns from other pupils and present them to their fellow councillors and teachers.
• Group work, where communication and listening to each other are essential.
• Role play, where children pretend to be someone else or pretend to be in a specific situation that they are not actually in at the time.

Impact

Oracy skills are assessed using our oracy framework and progression document. Teachers and Senior Leaders use the progression statements to monitor progress and attainment.

Through the teaching of oracy, children will be able to:

• Speak fluently, with confidence and clarity in front of an audience including talking in full sentences
• Explore ideas through talk
• Deliberately select gestures that support the delivery of ideas e.g. gesturing towards someone if referencing their idea
• Recognise the value of listening to what others say
• Use conjunctions to organise and sequence their ideas
• Adapt how they speak in different situations according to the audience, including using Standard English
• Value their own opinions and be able to express them to others
• Begin to reflect on their oracy skills and identify areas of strength and areas to improve
• Ask questions to find out more about a subject
• Respond appropriately to what others say, challenge each other’s opinions and develop their own reasoned arguments.
• Consider the impact of their words on others when giving feedback
• Share their learning in an engaging, informative way through formal presentations