Oracy is the deliberate teaching of speaking and listening skills. It is a foundational life skill, a gateway into literacy and the central focus in modern education. At Blakehill, we teach pupils ‘to talk’ while also teaching the pupils ‘through talk’. Oracy is central to our whole curriculum and benefits the pupils in many ways.
Cognitive Growth and Literacy Development: Spoken language forms the bedrock for reading and comprehension - a life skill pupils continue to develop throughout their life. When children talk about concepts first, they are much more able to apply this to writing. Oral discussions also deepen meaning and critical thinking which every good learning experience needs.
Emotional Regulation and Social Skills: Verbal fluency reduces behavioural frustration in children if they have the ability to express their feelings. Often this extends into the playground, where pupils are enabled to solve playground disputes peacefully and without adult support. This also feeds into our ‘Behaviour Policy’. Structured listening experiences help children understand peer perspectives – a vital skill for later life also.
Inclusion: Early Oracy and teaching spoken language objectives, as soon as pupils arrive at school, levels out the playing field for disadvantaged pupils. Building confidence, through oral opportunities, gives every child a voice and reduces social anxiety. Oral activities throughout the day, support SEND pupils with retrieving key vocabulary and information as well the extra support to express their views and ideas on paper.
Learning engagement: Pupils who are able to explain their thinking, helps the pupil understand how they learn (metacognition). Collaborative, reciprocal and collective talk discussions, as well as quick ongoing oral recall activities, result in high engagement in lessons. This practice supports the pupil’s retention of key concepts and ideas, as they have been explored out loud.
Spoken Language in Early Years
At Blakehill, oracy begins in Reception. Speaking and listening skills are explicitly taught and modelled by practitioners throughout the school day. Practitioners in the early years practise, ‘Sustained Shared Thinking’ whilst supporting children in their independent learning. All early years practitioners have a secure understanding of the ShREC approach and use this to further support and develop children's understanding and their spoken language skills. ‘The development of children's spoken language underpins all seven areas of learning and development. Children's back and forth interactions from an early age form the foundations for language and cognitive development’ - Development Matters.
Spoken Language Years 1 - Year 6
As pupils progress through school, we teach the National Curriculum Spoken Language objectives using the Voice 21 Oracy framework. This framework has split the NC objectives into four key strands of Oracy: Physical, Linguistic, Cognitive and Social and Emotional. These strands help us scaffold the learning for the pupils, focusing on a key objective linked to each of the strands, each half term. We have used this framework to develop our own Oracy curriculum, using child speak objectives and 3 key milestones for the pupils. This means that pupils, over a two year period, have opportunities to revisit each objective; this then helps embed these skills, before moving on. Oracy opportunities and time to explore these objectives are planned for and included in our Blakehill four-part lesson structure. These objectives are a key focus in all our learning and are visually prioritised in our classroom environment, for all to see.
