This year we joined the Voice 21 programme to develop oracy skills within our school.
Why does Oracy matter?
Oracy improves children’s outcomes in all areas of learning. It also fosters wellbeing and confidence, enabling all children to have a voice and to be heard.
Oracy equips children with the skills they need in their lives beyond school and to be active members of the community.
What is Oracy?
Oracy is a combination of learning to talk and learning through talk. This means that children will be taught specific speaking and listening skills and that talk will be used as a central part of their learning across the curriculum. Learning through talk will be visible in all subjects in school from PSHE to maths and PE to writing.
Who does Oracy help?
Oracy is for everyone. We know that children’s confidence and skills in Oracy vary and our teaching will enable all children to make progress. Children will be supported and challenged to become confident and skilled speakers and listeners. What does Oracy look like in the classroom?
The Oracy framework helps define the skills that are needed to communicate effectively. They are broken down into physical, linguistic, cognitive and social and emotional skills.
We will develop two main types of talk. Exploratory talk which involves participating in high quality discussions and Presentational talk where children share formed ideas with a range of audiences.
All classes will develop their own discussion guidelines and are learning about different talk tactics (see image) and how to actively participate in group and class discussions. Presentational talk will be used both in the classroom and when children share their learning with a wider audience.
What can we do to support Oracy at home?
You can help your child by actively engaging in conversation with your child. Ask your child to explain their reasons and teach them that it is good to disagree and to change your mind.
Initiate some discussions and debates – dinner time is a great time to do this as a family. Discuss new words and support them to broaden their vocabulary. As a school, we will share weekly ‘Let’s Talk’ prompts to stimulate conversation at home.
