Chloe Bateman is a Teacher of History at Maiden Erlegh School, a NACE Challenge Award-accredited school. Chloe has recently led the development of a whole-school oracy strategy. In this blog post, she shares some of the ways in which Maiden Erlegh has established and embedded a culture of oracy across the school to benefit all students, including the more able.

Oracy is ‘both everywhere and nowhere in a school’.  At Maiden Erlegh, we realised that although plenty of classroom talk was taking place, opportunities for this could be ad hoc and students did not always recognise these as opportunities to develop oracy skills. At the same time, a significant number of students lacked the confidence to speak in front of larger groups and in more formal contexts, hindering their ability to engage with oracy-related elements of the taught curriculum and extracurricular activities. The national picture indicates that many schools experience similar challenges to developing student oracy and an oracy culture within the school. 

Drawing on our experience, here are seven steps to establish a whole-school oracy culture:

1. Investigate your context to determine your priorities 

Every school is different. Whilst the national trend shows a decline in oracy as a result of the Covid-19 lockdowns, every school will have different areas of strength and development in terms of the current oracy level of their students and their staff confidence in teaching to enhance oracy.  Oracy too is itself a complex skill, made up not just of the verbal ability, but multiple components such as the physical and cognitive elements. To design a strategy which really works for your context, it is beneficial to gather student and staff voice to inform the precise nature of this. At Maiden Erlegh, we conducted quantitative and qualitative staff and student surveys, asking students to rate their level of confidence when communicating and why they may feel less confident in some areas than others. Staff were asked to share feedback on levels of student oracy and what support they would need to feel confident in developing an oracy culture in their own classrooms. From this data, we could easily identify clear priorities to be addressed through our strategy. 

2. Secure buy-in from staff to secure buy-in from students 

A strategy is only as effective as those who make it a reality on a day-to-day basis: the teaching staff. Our oracy work was launched via a training session to staff which centred on communicating the rationale for our new oracy focus. Here the student and staff voice surveys came into their own, enabling us to explain why we needed to develop oracy using the words of students and staff themselves and showing the overwhelming statistics. We also took time to share the wide-ranging holistic benefits of enhanced oracy for students, including for mental health, academic progress, and career opportunities. For maximum exposure, include students in the launch too and keep them as informed as you would do staff. We delivered assembles to all students sharing very similar messages to those shared during the staff launch, ensuring students were aware and engaged with our upcoming work.  

3. Get staff and students on board with ‘quick wins’ 

It can be tempting to try to launch all strands of a strategy at once. However, this is unlikely to succeed in the long run as it risks overwhelming the very people you are attempting to get on board. Instead, generate enthusiasm and interest in oracy by sharing ‘quick wins’: low-preparation, high-impact activities to integrate more oracy opportunities into lessons. Staff and students loved our ‘no filler’ game in which students were challenged to answer questions or speak about a relevant topic without using filler words such as ‘erm’, ‘like’, and ‘basically’. As staff become more confident in creating their own oracy-based activities, encourage colleagues to share their own ‘quick wins’ via staff briefings and bulletins to build a culture of enthusiasm.  

4. Give oracy an identity

Too often strategies and initiatives can be become lost in the organisational noise of a school and the day-to-day challenges and immediate priorities. Borrow from the world of marketing and promotions to create a clear identity for oracy by designing a logo and branding for your strategy using a simple graphic design website such as Canva. A catchy slogan can also help to build a ‘brand’ around the strategy and increase staff and student familiarity with the overall vision. At Maiden Erlegh School (MES), we use the slogan ‘MES Speaks Up!’ – a motto that has become synonymous with our vision for a culture of oracy across the school. 

5. Establish and reinforce consistent high expectations for oracy 

Most schools have shared and consistent high expectations for students’ literacy and numeracy, but how many have the same for oracy? Whilst many teachers will have high standards for communication in their classrooms, these will not have the same impact on students as if they are school-wide. At Maiden Erlegh, we established a set of ‘Guidelines for Great Oracy’, a clear list of five expectations including the use of formal vocabulary and projecting loudly and clearly. These expectations were launched to both staff and students and all classrooms now display a poster to promote them. The key to their success has been clearly communicating how easily these can be embedded into lessons, for example as success criteria for self- and peer-assessment during oracy-based activities such as paired or group discussions. 

6. Create a shared understanding that oracy will enhance the existing curriculum  

With so many competing demands on a classroom teacher’s time, it is easy to see why strategies and initiatives which feel like ‘add-ons’ can miss the mark and fail to become embedded in a school’s culture. Central to the success of our oracy strategy has been raising staff, student, and parent awareness that a focus on oracy will enhance our existing curriculum, rather than distract from it. From the very beginning, staff have been encouraged to return to existing lesson activities which cover existing content and adapt these with oracy in mind. In History, for example, an essay was preceded by a parliamentary debate to help students to construct convincing arguments, whilst in Maths students developed complex verbal explanations for the processes they were performing rather than simply completing calculations. Not only do such activities support oracy skills, but they demonstrate the inherent importance of oracy across the curriculum and allow departments to better meet their own curricular aims. 

7. Keep the momentum going with high-profile events 

As with any new strategy or initiative, we realised that after the initial enthusiasm there was a potential for staff and students to lose interest as the year wore on. To combat this, we developed high-profile events to return oracy to centre stage and engage students and staff alike. In May, we held MES Speaks Up! Oracy Month – a month of activities focused on celebrating oracy and its importance across all aspects of school life. In form time, students were challenged to discuss a topical ‘Question of the Day’ from our ‘Discussion Calendar’ to get them communicating from the moment they arrived in school. Every subject dedicated at least one lesson during the month to an activity designed to develop and celebrate oracy skills, including public speaking, debating, and presenting. Outside of lessons, students from each year group participated in a range of extracurricular parliamentary debates on issues relevant to their age group. All of these activities were widely promoted via our school social media to generate a buzz around oracy with our parents and guardians. 

References

• A. Stott, Introduction to the Oracy Benchmarks, 2019
• W. Millard, L. Menzies, G. Stewart Oracy after the pandemic: what Ofsted, teachers and young people think about oracy, 2021 
• Voice 21, Understanding Oracy, 2022
  

Interested in developing oracy within your own school?

• Join our free member meetup on this theme (18 October 2022)
• Join this year’s NACE R&D Hub with a focus on oracy for high achievement (first meeting 20 October 2022)
• Explore more content about oracy

Tom Stewart, Head of History at Maiden Erlegh School, sets out tangible strategies that he and his department take when challenging more able students in history lessons.

History at secondary school level is a subject that, from my experience, is usually taught in mixed ability classes. Due to this, and to rightfully ensure the progress of those who struggle with literacy and require further support, lessons can tend to be pitched towards the middle with scaffolding and structure in place to help those struggling. The potential problem with this approach is that it risks neglecting the more able students and those who need to be challenged or stretched (or whichever phrase is used in your setting), to reach their potential. I hope this blog post will give you some ideas to take away to challenge the more able learners in your history lessons.

#1. Short-term: Questioning

A simple and easy way to challenge those more able students is through effective use of the questioning they face in a lesson. I imagine most teachers know about open and closed questions and how the latter can limit students to a one-word answer, whilst the former can require students to elaborate in more depth. Therefore, the answer the students give can often depend on how much thought has gone into the question asked. 

It is important to consider why a teacher is asking a question and this can then be applied to challenging the more able students by asking a variety of questions for different reasons. In a recent CPD session at my school, delivered by two excellent Assistant Headteachers, Rob Buck and Ben Garner, this principle, with some examples, was shared with staff (Figure 1). It reminded myself and my department to think carefully about the questioning we carried out and to target those more able students, whether they be in Year 7, Year 10 or Year 13.

 
Figure 1

#2. Medium-term: Widen their perspectives

More able students are often characterised by a curious and inquisitive nature. To support this, it is important to not be overly selective with the history shared with students, but find opportunities to reveal more of the story. Students of all abilities enjoy learning knowledge that isn’t necessarily vital to the topic – knowledge that Bailey-Watson calls ‘hinterland’ knowledge – and we should be willing to share with students more of the big picture in order to widen their perspectives and improve their historical thinking. 

Homework can be an outlet for this; the previously mentioned Bailey-Watson and Kennet launched their ‘meanwhile, elsewhere…’ project (Figure 2) with the explicit intention of ‘expanding historical horizons’. Used effectively, this is a strategy that challenges the more able students to make those links between what they know and what they are yet to know.

Figure 2

#3. Long-term: Enquiry-based topics

History lends itself to a wealth of interesting topics. This selection narrows at GCSE and A-Level as specifications force middle leaders to select one topic and not another. However, at Key Stage 3, there is normally more choice and also an opportunity to challenge more able students. We have found evolving already-established topics – or creating new ones where time allowed and necessity demanded – into enquiry-based ones supports more able students by forcing them to ‘think hard’. 

Our topic on the Norman Conquest, an event described by Peter Rex as ‘the single most important event in English history’ avoids a simpler narrative of events and instead forces students, especially the more able, to consider how King William managed not only to gain control but maintain it after the Battle of Hastings (Figure 3). This topic was designed by my fantastic colleague, Chloe Bateman, and this approach provides all students with an overview of where the lesson and topic fits in and also encourages deep thinking about the answer to the enquiry question before it has even been covered. 

Combined with sharing demanding texts with students in lessons and homework that relates directly to the enquiry question, whilst extending their knowledge and understanding even further, enquiry-based topics can prove very effective at challenging more able students in secondary history.

 
Figure 3

There are plenty of strategies out there and there are more that I use and could have shared with you, but here are three that you could look to introduce to your setting. The important point is to be mindful about the experience more able students get in our classrooms. Do they feel challenged? Would you in their shoes? If not, then be active in doing something about it.

References

• Bailey-Watson, W. and Kennett, R. (2019). '"Meanwhile, elsewhere…": Harnessing the power of community to expand students’ historical horizons’, Teaching History, 176.
• https://meanwhileelsewhereinhistory.wordpress.com/ 
• Paramore, J. (2017). Questioning to Stimulate Dialogue, in Paige R., Lambert, S. and Geeson, R. (eds), Building Skills for Effective Primary Teaching, London: Learning Matters.
• Rex, P. (2011). 1066: A New History of the Norman Conquest, Amberley Publishing.
  

Read more:

• How can we identify and challenge more able learners in history?
• Diversifying the history curriculum: how to embed challenge and confront misconceptions
• Top 3 ways your school library can support the teaching of history
  

Hodder Education’s Review magazines provide subject-specific expertise aimed at GCSE and A-level students, featuring the latest research, thought-provoking articles, exam-style questions and discussion points to deepen learners’ subject knowledge and develop independent learning skills. 

Earlier this academic year, we partnered with Hodder on a live webinar for NACE members, followed by an opportunity to undertake a free trial subscription to the Review magazines, and then reconvening for an online focus group to share experiences, ideas and feedback.

Below are 15 ways NACE members suggested this resource could be used:

1. Wider reading – encouraging learners to read more widely in their subjects, developing deeper and broader subject knowledge
2. Flipped learning – tasking students with reading an article (or articles) on a topic ahead of a lesson, so they are prepared to discuss during class time (members noted that this approach benefits from practising reading comprehension during lesson time first)
3. Developing cultural capital – exposure to content, contexts, vocabulary, and text formats which learners might not otherwise encounter
4. Independent research and project work – to support independent research and projects such as EPQs, for example by using the digital archives to search on a particular theme
5. Developing literacy and vocabulary – exposure to subject-specific and advanced vocabulary; this was highlighted by some schools as a particular concern post-pandemic
6. Shared text during lessons – used to support lessons on a particular topic, and/or to develop comprehension skills
7. Developing exam skills – using the magazines’ links to specific exam skills/modules, and practice exam questions at the end of articles
8. Examples of academic/exam skills in practice – providing examples of how a text or topic could be approached and analysed, and ways of structuring an essay/response
9. Library resource – signposted to students and teachers by school librarian to ensure a diverse, challenging reading menu is available to all 
10. Linking learning to real-world contexts – providing examples of how curriculum content is being applied in current contexts around the world, helping to bring learning to life
11. Broadening career horizons – examples of different careers in each subject area, giving learners exposure to a range of potential future pathways
12. Extracurricular provision – used as a resource to support subject-specific clubs, or general research/debate clubs 
13. Developing critical thinking and oracy skills – to support strategies such as the Harkness method, as part of a wider focus on developing critical thinking and oracy skills
14. Exposure to academic research – preparing students for further education and career opportunities
15. Fresh perspectives on curriculum content – new angles and insights on well-established modules and topics – for teachers, as well as students!

Find out more:

• Sample issues of the Review magazines
• Impact study: Politics Review
• Impact study: Hindsight (GCSE History)
• Posters and revision PDFs from the magazines
• NACE webinar: Enrichment and extension in secondary subjects

Discount offer for NACE members

NACE members can benefit from a 25% discount on Hodder's digital and print resources, including the Review magazines (excluding student £15 subscriptions). To access this, and our full range of member offers, log in and visit our member offers page.

Does your school use the Review magazines or a similar resource? To share your experience and ideas, contact communications@nace.co.uk

Using Teams for academic, pastoral and peer support

Five core principles for effective remote learning

1. Concrete: it should have a clear purpose and learning intent that fits with the wider curriculum. There should also be clear timings for tasks so that students do not spend excessive amounts of time on projects.
2. Inclusive: consider how you stretch your most able students by providing links to wider reading, podcasts, challenge tasks or breadth of choice such as presentation methods.
3. Considerate: taking into consideration students’ learning environments and access to materials they could need. Also planning tactically so that students do not become overwhelmed with the sheer amount of work expected of them.
4. Reflective: students should have feedback at key points and self-assessment opportunities through sharing clearly defined success criteria.
5. Engaging: staff should incorporate a range of learning activities and software to avoid students becoming demotivated. Also focusing on mechanisms for praise so that students know their hard work is being recognised.

• LEARNING technologies: developing a technology-enabled profession
• Achieving “desirable difficulty” in remote learning
• Lessons from lockdown: metacognition, remote learning and support for parents

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2. Does truth exist?

3. Can money buy happiness?

4. Do you make your own luck?