Oracy
Why is Oracy important?
Oracy supports children’s learning. It is vital for social mobility. It is good for social and emotional learning, helping children who may struggle to play or work well with others. It is empowering and opens doors to opportunities.
Oracy at Ampney Crucis School
We want to build a whole school culture of talk across the curriculum and beyond the classroom. In order to teach effective oracy skills across the curriculum, we will be using key themes from the oracy framework, Voice 21, to understand the physical, linguistic, cognitive, and social and emotional skills that enable successful discussion, inspiring speech and effective communication. Key oracy skills are taught throughout the whole curriculum. Objectives are progressive and sequential; teaching the children the skills to confidently and effectively use the spoken language for educational progress, and for life in general.
The school uses a variety of teaching and learning approaches to teach oracy skills across the curriculum, including:
- Providing opportunities for drama and role-play.
- Providing opportunities for children to develop their listening skills through conversation.
- Promoting small group and class discussions on specific topics/areas of the curriculum.
- Providing opportunities to speak in front of a larger audience, for example during an assembly.
- Giving the children the opportunity to speak to unfamiliar people with a real purpose.
- Allowing the children to participate in ‘show and tell’ sessions.
- Playing a range of games with the children to encourage effective use of oracy skills.
- Providing opportunities for the children to become a storyteller for an authentic audience.
- Providing opportunities for the children to present to an audience, chair a discussion and hold class meetings.
- Encouraging the children to talk for a specific purpose, e.g. to persuade or to entertain.
- Encouraging children to work in groups to collaboratively solve a problem.
- Encouraging class and group debates and providing opportunities for children to make speeches in front of an audience.
Oracy Progression across the school
Skill- Physical
Reception
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Year 1
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Year 2
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- Speak clearly with appropriate volume
- Look at who is talking and who you are talking to
- Begin to use gestures to support delivery meaning e.g. pointing at parts of a plant they are discussing
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- Speak clearly and confidently in a range of contexts
- Use appropriate tone of voice in the right context e.g. To project their voice to a large audience.
- Continue to use gesture to support delivery e.g. pointing at parts of a plant they are discussing
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- Speak clearly and confidently with appropriate volume and pace in a range of contexts
- Gestures start to become increasingly natural to support speech e.g. gesturing towards someone if referencing their idea
- Use body language to show active listening and support meaning when speaking e.g. nodding along, facial expressions
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Year 3
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Year 4
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Year 5
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Year 6
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- Deliberately selects gestures that support the delivery of ideas e.g. gesturing towards someone if referencing their ideas
- Deliberately varies tone of voice in order to convey meaning e.g. speaking authoritatively during an expert talk
- Consider position and posture when addressing an audience
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- Deliberately select movement and gesture when addressing an audience
- To use pauses for effect in presentational talk e.g. when telling an anecdote or joke
- Use the appropriate tone of voice in the right context e.g. speaking calmly when resolving an issue in the playground
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- Deliberately varies tone of voice in order to convey meaning e.g. speaking authoritatively during an expert talk, or speaking with pathos when telling a sad part of a story
- Project their voice to a large audience
- Gestures become increasingly natural
- Consciously adapt tone, pace and volume of voice within a single context.
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- Speak fluently in front of an audience.
- Have a stage presence
- Consciously adapt, tone, pace and volume of voice
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Skill- Linguistic
Reception
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Year 1
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Year 2
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- Use talk in play to practice new vocabulary e.g. lighter, heavier
- Begin to speak in sentences joining phrases with words such as ‘if, because, so, could, but’
- Join in with repetitive words and phrases during story telling
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- Speak in sentences using joining phrases to link ideas
- Using vocabulary appropriately specific to the topic in hand e.g. lighter/heavier rather than bigger and smaller
- Take opportunities to try out new language, even if it is not always correctly used
- Use sentence stems to link to other’s ideas in group discussion e.g. ‘I agree with… because...’ ‘linking to…’
- Use conjunctions to organise and sequence ideas e.g. firstly, secondly, finally
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- Speaking in sentences using joining phrases to create longer sentences
- Adapt how to speak in different situations according to the audience e.g. asking questions of a museum curator or having a conversation with a visitor to the classroom
- Use sentence stems to signal when they are building or challenging others’ ideas in group’
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Year 3
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Year 4
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Year 5
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Year 6
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- Be able to use specialist language to describe their own and others’ talk
- Use specialist vocabulary e.g. speak like an archaeologist
- Make precise language choices e.g. instead of describing a cake as ‘ice’ using ‘delectable
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- Carefully consider the words and phrasing they use to express their ideas and how this supports the purpose of the talk e.g. to persuade or to entertain
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- Use an increasingly sophisticated range of sentence stems with fluency and accuracy to cite evidence and ask probing questions
- Consider the words and phrases used to express their ideas and how this supports the purpose of talk
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- Use and innovate an increasingly sophisticated range of sentence stems with fluency and accuracy
- Vary sentence structures and length for effect when speaking
- Be comfortable using idioms and expressions
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Skill- Cognitive
Reception
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Year 1
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Year 2
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- Use ‘because’ to develop their ideas
- Make relevant contributions that match what has been asked
- Ask simple questions
- Describe events that have happened to them in detail
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- Offer reasons for their opinions
- Recognise when they haven’t understood something and ask a question
- Disagree with someone else’s opinion politely
- Explain ideas and events in chronological order
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- Ask questions to find out more about a subject
- Build on others’ ideas in discussions
- Make connections between what has been said and their own and others’ experiences
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Year 3
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Year 4
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Year 5
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Year 6
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- Offer opinions that aren’t their own e.g. taking on the role of …
- Begin to reflect on discussions and their own oracy skills and identify areas of strength and areas to improve through the introduction of Talk Detectives
- Reach shared agreement in discussions
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- Give supporting evidence e.g. citing a text (using sentence stems) a previous example or a historical event
- Ask probing questions
- Reflect on their own oracy skills and identify areas of strength and areas to improve and begin to set own targets
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- Draw upon knowledge of the world to support their own point of view and explore different perspectives
- To be able to give supporting evidence e.g. citing a text, a previous example or a historical event
- Identify when a discussion is going off topic and be able to bring it back on track with support and use of sentence stems e.g. That might be true, however what do you think about …?
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- Construct a detailed argument or complex narrative
- Spontaneously respond to and offer increasingly complex questions, citing evidence where appropriate
- Reflect on their own and others’ oracy skills and identify how to improve.
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Skill- Social and Emotional
Reception
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Year 1
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Year 2
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- Look at someone who is speaking to them
- Wait for a turn. Taking turns to speak, when working in a group
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- Listen and respond appropriately to others
- Be willing to change their mind based on what they have heard
- Begin to organise group discussions independently of an adult
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- Start to develop an awareness of audience e.g. what might interest a certain group
- Start to show awareness of others who have not spoken and invite them into the discussion e.g. saying their name, asking them a question, turning to them
- Recite/deliver short pre- prepared material to an audience
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Year 3
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Year 4
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Year 5
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Year 6
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- Speak with confidence in front of an audience
- Begin to recognise different roles within group talk e.g. chairperson
- Adapt the content of their speech for a specific audience
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- Use more natural and subtle prompts for turn taking
- Start to develop empathy with an audience
- Consider the impact of their words on others when giving feedback
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- Listen for extended periods of time including notetaking, drawing visual
- Adapt the content of their speech for a specific audience e.g. use of humour
- Speak with flair and passion
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- Use humour effectively
- Begin to be able to read a room or a group and take action accordingly e.g. if everyone looks disengaged, moving on or changing topic, or if people look confused stopping to take questions
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