What is Oracy?
Oracy is the ability to articulate ideas, develop understanding and engage with others through spoken language.
Oracy develops students’ confidence, articulacy and capacity to learn.
– Voice 21.
Oracy helps children to:
- Speak confidently in different situations
- Listen carefully to understand and respond appropriately
- Explain their thinking and change people’s mind
- Build vocabulary
- Tell stories
- Work well with others in group discussions
- Develop social and emotional skills
- Speak up for what they believe in and have their voice heard (Article 12)
At Airy Hill, we want every child to find their voice. Our aim is to remove communication barriers and enable students to be confident and effective communicators at the end of primary school. We value speaking and listening as equally and reading and writing,
Teaching children oracy skills will not only enable them to increase confidence in talk within school but equip them for their future.
Oracy across the Curriculum
Oracy is woven throughout our broad and balanced curriculum to enhance understanding and encourage higher-level thinking. Children are provided with numerous opportunities to practice their speaking and listening skills, helping them to grow their oracy abilities. Our school’s curriculum offers a wealth of opportunities for oracy development:
Writing – In writing lessons, our children engage in thoughtful discussion during shared writing. Children enage in discussion in a range of contexts and genre’s including vocabulary, poetry, debates, questioning and feedback.
Reading – In reading, children experience rich book-talk where they explain and provide evidence for their answers to a range of questions. Children are exposed to
‘Old and Bold’ and ‘New and Gold’ texts. The emphasis in these lessons is on deep discussion, not simply a bank of written answers.
Maths – In maths lessons, children are encouraged to talk through how they solved a problem, helping them develop mathematical vocabulary and clarify their thinking. STEM sentences support children in speaking clearly and mathematically. Open ended questions require pupils to justify their answers verbally.
Rights Respecting School – Rights ambassadors lead class discussions, presenting key topics, school values or specific rights, They help pupils clarify ideas and express thoughts confidently. They meet regularly to discuss ideas, collaborate on initiatives and articulate the views of others.
We Love to Read – Story time in Nursery to Y1 follows a Talk Through Stories approach that brings stories to life through talk. This is designed to enhance children’s vocabulary and comprehension through interactive storytelling creating a language rich environment. It specifically and systematically builds their ‘tier two’ vocabulary so they understand – and love – the books they will go on to read themselves.
Feedback – Oracy is at the heart of feedback and assessment for learning enabling children to discuss their work and any misconceptions. Teachers challenge children through probing questions and encourage deep thinking.
EYFS – EYFS is the start of our pupils’ oracy journey through school. Staff encourage oracy from an early age through talking stories, retelling stories, scaffolding conversations during free flow time and circle time class discussions. Any barriers to oracy are spotted and acted upon here and interventions to assist with speech are put in place. Communication in Early years is a prime learning area and enables children to meet other milestones at the end of the foundation stage.
Wider Curriculum – All classes use language STEMs for a range of contexts including language for argument and opinion, comparing and contrasting, explanation and description, and prediction. These provide pupils with a scaffold that can be used throughout the curriculum and social situations.