Oracy

At our school, we believe that every child deserves to find and develop their voice. As a Voice 21 school, we recognise that spoken language is fundamental to learning, wellbeing, future success, and social mobility. Many of our children join us with lower starting points in spoken language, so we place oracy at the heart of our curriculum and school culture.

Using the Voice 21 Oracy Framework, we develop pupils’ skills across the four strands of Physical, Linguistic, Cognitive, and Social & Emotional Oracy. We provide planned and purposeful opportunities for talk throughout the curriculum, ensuring that children learn how to speak clearly, listen actively, think critically, and communicate with confidence.

In the Early Years, high-quality interactions are modelled and developed through the ShREC approach (Share Attention, Respond, Expand, Conversation), helping children develop language and communication from the very beginning of their school journey. As pupils progress through the school, teachers carefully plan opportunities for discussion, collaborative learning, presentation, debate, and reflection, ensuring that talk is used as a powerful tool for learning.

We place a particular emphasis on presentational talk, enabling children to speak confidently to a range of audiences and for authentic purposes. Through real-life contexts and meaningful opportunities to share their ideas, pupils develop the confidence and skills needed to communicate effectively beyond the classroom.

To support this work, we have developed a shared bank of oracy strategies that teachers use when planning and that pupils can draw upon to strengthen their speaking and listening skills. We also explicitly model metacognition and “thinking out loud”, helping children use talk to organise their thinking, deepen their understanding, and become more independent learners.

Oracy is a key priority within our school and an integral part of our professional development programme. Through dedicated training, workshops, and ongoing CPD, staff continually develop their understanding of effective oracy practice to ensure high-quality opportunities for every child.

We also recognise the significant role that communication skills play in future success. As a result, oracy is woven throughout our Careers Curriculum, where it is identified as a key employability skill and planned progressively across all year groups. By developing confident, articulate communicators, we equip our pupils with the skills they need to thrive in education, employment, and life.

We want every child to leave our school with the confidence, vocabulary, and skills to express themselves, engage with others, and make their voice heard.