“Learning floats on a sea of talk.”
At St Botolph’s, we are fully committed to raising literacy standards for all our pupils, providing every child with the opportunity to become a confident and articulate communicator. Proficiency in oracy is essential for our pupils’ success, as it helps them develop vital communication skills necessary for their academic journey. Here at St Botolph’s, we define oracy as the ability to articulate ideas, develop understanding and engage with others through spoken language. We believe that in school, oracy is a powerful tool for learning.
Mrs Skelding, early reading leader, is also our oracy leader in school, supported by Mrs Fisher, English leader.
The Oracy Framework – Our commitment
To enhance our teaching practice and CPD, we work in collaboration with the Jerry Clay English Hub, and our dedicated early reading lead has undertaken Early Language training with the Hub. This training has then been delivered to staff across school, from Nursery to Year 6. Click on the Oracy Framework to download in higher resolution, or use the link below.
We adopt three lenses of oracy – Form, Content, and Use – a model for language.
- Form: A system for saying and understanding language
- Content: Something to say/ understand
- Use: Applying spoken language in context
“Every child talking, in every lesson.”
By embedding oracy in all aspects of the school’s culture and weaving it through the curriculum with our verbal feedback policy, children are able to respond to high expectations and explicit teaching and modelling of speaking and listening. Classrooms buzz with the sounds of purposeful talk, from confident speeches in KS2 to children learning how to turn take in EYFS.
While research has found that strong oracy skills leads to higher order thinking and deeper understanding, on average a child in a deprived area has limited opportunities to take part in vocabulary rich discussions. We, at St Botolph’s, recognise how vital spoken language skills are for children and we want to equip them with the tools they need to be heard, not just in school, but in their future career and life.