Oracy

Our aim is for all children at Crown Wood to be able to use their voice in a variety of ways, to enhance their life chances and open up a world of learning and choices. Children have regular opportunities to learn through talk, supporting them to become good communicators across a wide range of contexts.

Developing oracy is a significant focus of our school. Oracy is defined as, “the ability to articulate ideas, develop understanding and engage with others through spoken language.”

We work with with Voice21, a charity which promotes oracy. They say, “By teaching students to become more effective speakers and listeners we empower them to better understand themselves, each other and the world around them. It is also a route to social mobility, empowering all students, not just some, to find their voice to succeed in school and life.”

There are 4 strands of Oracy: Physical, Linguistic, Cognitive and Social & Emotional. These strands have all of the key skills which the children will use and they have been adapted to suit the age of the children. They will use their voice to: explain, present, question, persuade, debate, entertain, express emotion and share ideas. The children learn through talk and also learn how to talk. We believe that if children can articulate themselves verbally then they can also write coherently and expressively. Oracy has a positive impact on academic standards, employability, well-being & emotional health and social mobility.

Oracy is embedded into all areas of the curriculum and is taught both implicitly and explicitly. Children use both presentational and exploratory talk. Sentence stems are used to scaffold spoken sentences, which make sense and are also well thought out, using a range of Tier 1 – 3 vocabulary. Oracy activities are planned to allow the children to have discussions using a range of groupings. The children are taught the roles of debate through clearly defined roles. Exit Points in the Wider Curriculum allow the children to develop their presentational skills. Talk Tuesday allows children to take ownership of talk across the school.

An Oracy Curriculum Map shows the progression of skills from Reception to Year 6. It also makes the link between the Wider Curriculum and Oracy with Teaching Ideas and Success criteria for each IPC theme.   The teaching of vocabulary is a key part of Oracy. This is achieved through: Talk for Writing and Class novels. This vocabulary is then used in both future talk and written work.  All assemblies have a talk focus where children are encouraged to share their ideas.   Our curriculum is enhanced by visitors (World Book Day, Sports for Schools) and some special focus Oracy Days – No Pen Day.