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Posted By Elly Hayward,
15 November 2022
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Elly Hayward, Head of English at Pangbourne College, shares her reflections on achievable next steps to start making changes following an inspiring CPD session.
Like many of those working in schools, I’ve found getting back to face-to-face CPD with professionals and colleagues is brilliant. After recently attending NACE’s member meetup on the theme “Speaking up: developing oracy for high achievement”, I came away buzzing with ideas, keen to feedback and also plot and plan as to how to drive forwards this key skill at Pangbourne College.
But what’s the reality of actually doing that? How easy is it in our busy school lives to act upon and embed our newfound knowledge into our school culture? When’s a good time to broach a whole-school initiative and is that necessarily the first step?
Here are my musings on the matter and perhaps, even in the process of writing how I might go about this, I may find myself one step closer to realisation in my own school context.
1) Feedback to someone… anyone!
I used a department meeting to consolidate my thoughts from the day and to pass on some of the excitement that I felt about what I’d seen and shared. I also reflected on a lot of the good things that we are already doing in our department (always good to big up your department with what they are already doing well!). As an English Department, we usually find ourselves at the forefront of anything to do with presentations, debates, talking in public. And we do it pretty well. But what I also realised whilst feeding the information back was that I was sure that good things were happening elsewhere in the school – and that’s, perhaps, where to start.
2) Find some time.
I can hear your teacherly guffawing from here. Time is something we have precious little of and as not only a Head of Department but a working mum and wearer of many hats, I needed to be seriously realistic about where my priorities lie and what might actually be achievable.
Without taking the lead on a whole-school development strategy in one fell swoop, I thought smaller. Microscopic in fact. I can hear my line manager’s words ringing in my ears already: “Don’t take on too much… We all need to strike that balance between trying to do everything and doing less, well.” I would do well to heed the latter.
It’s not a question of whether improving students’ oracy skills will raise the attainment of all students; it was clear from the evidence presented at the NACE meetup that it will. Instead, the questions need to be: Does this align with whole-school strategies and development plans? What are the school’s priorities this academic year and next? What impact will this have in my context? And coming back to my first point, what are we already doing well?
3) Find out what’s already going on that’s good.
This is my next step and the point where I find myself now. My plan – as Chloe Bateman suggested in her presentation at the meetup (summarised in this blog post) – is to find out what’s already good in my school. I have an awareness (you’d hope so!) of what is happening oracy-wise in the English Department but I’m acutely aware that it is not just the job of the English staff to develop and promote good oracy skills. My intention is to send a survey out to teachers asking them to firstly outline what oracy is, as I’m not sure many label it as such, and give concrete examples of where they develop this skill in their subject.
4) Start with small wins.
This is something that is key to our department philosophy and my approach to many things. Sharing what is already being done to promote good oracy by finding those nuggets and celebrating them with colleagues before introducing more ideas for staff to possibly adapt into their lessons. This may take the form of delivering a session of CPD or a presentation at one of our academic meetings or INSET, or it may be as simple as sending out a short video of “Have you tried…?” ideas. Chloe shared some great advice about “enhancing our existing curriculum, rather than distracting from it.” I will certainly also be following up with some of the other ideas shared at the meetup – but one step at a time!
Even in writing down my thought process, I feel fired up again. My eye-line has risen just above the mire of lessons, marking, administration and school events to look at that bigger picture about making a long-term, significant change to the way oracy is perceived in our school and, ultimately, raising our students’ confidence and skills in communication.
Elly Hayward is Head of English at Pangbourne College. You can follow her on Twitter @PangCollEnglish
Feeling inspired? Explore NACE CPD opportunities.
Tags:
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Posted By Jonathan Doherty,
15 November 2022
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NACE Associate Dr Jonathan Doherty shares key takeaways from our recent NACE member meetup on this theme.
The recent NACE meetup in Didcot brought together member schools to explore the theme of oracy for high achievement. This ties in with NACE’s current research into the role of oracy within cognitively challenging learning.
The context
Oracy is at the centre of good classroom practice, since it is through quality communication and the use of talk and language that thinking, knowledge and understanding are developed. There is increased awareness of the importance of high-quality oracy education and its significance across academic, professional, cognitive, social and emotional spheres. While the case for oracy is strong, schools are still coping with the impact of Covid-19 and lockdown. Many young people experience isolation, and the past few years of limited exposure to conversations, everyday interactions and in-person classroom exchanges, have deprived many of opportunities for rich talk and spoken language development. Vulnerable students and those from economically deprived backgrounds have been most affected and this has brought fresh urgency to the issue, as schools move on from the pandemic and seek to address current challenges of closing achievement gaps and taking oracy education to the next level.
Summary of the day
Ahead of the member meetup, colleagues were invited to submit oracy-based questions that would be explored during the course of the day. Examples of these were:
- How can teachers implement effective strategies for oracy without dramatically increasing workload?
- How can we best develop oracy for the most able in mixed ability classrooms?
- What are interesting activities to help pupils improve their confidence when public speaking, among their peers and people they don't know?
- What approaches are most effective in promoting oracy in group work so that it is productive and benefits all learners?
I opened the day with an overview of the research context for oracy. Oracy is certainly not a new issue (with its beginnings going back to 1965), but despite its recognition since then, the status of oracy in the architecture of our education system does not fully reflect its value and importance to young people’s outcomes in school and life. We looked at the case for oracy with reference to research literature in language, education and neuroscience, before explaining how the needs of more able learners can be met through inclusive oracy education and cognitive challenge.
Haili Hughes, Head of Education at IRIS Connect and Principal Lecturer at the University of Sunderland, took up the theme of oracy and confidence-building in her presentation. She developed this with reference to oracy and metacognition and mental schema and showed, as one example, how the approach of dialogic teaching promotes oracy and academic self-concept. Her explanation of knowledge and cultural capital was very interesting and relevant.
Rebecca Earnshaw, CEO of leading oracy education charity Voice 21, shared her organisation’s commitment to providing a high-quality oracy education for every child and the vision to empower young people to use their voice for success. She made links to mental health, oracy being a process and a product of learning, and drew upon a range of research – including the Education Endowment Foundation findings that showed that students taking part in language interventions make five months additional progress over a year and this rises to six months for disadvantaged students – to further substantiate the importance of quality oracy education in schools. The audience was treated to several practical activities on ways to embed oracy in the curriculum.
An important part of member meetups are the school case studies. The final speaker of the morning was Chloe Bateman, ECF Lead Facilitator and History, Religion and Philosophy Teacher at Maiden Erlegh School, who shared the story of how the school has established a whole-school culture of oracy. You can read Chloe’s summary here.
Following a networking lunch, where colleagues certainly put their speaking and listening skills to good use, the afternoon was given over to speed-sharing, the part of the day which provides an opportunity for colleagues to share their experiences and ideas with peers. These important discussions provided a knowledge exchange forum for classroom strategies to develop oracy that have been effective. Some examples of the brilliant ideas shared in the speed-sharing were:
- Focus on language in discussions and how to build it up (Tina Stinson at Thornton College)
- Explicit teaching of oracy benchmarks and ways to achieve them (Michelle Ginty and Viviana Young at Salusbury Primary School)
- Frayer Model of teaching Tier 2 and 3 vocabulary (Olivia Cornwell at Central Foundation Girls’ School)
- Displaying key terms for the lesson on the board, teaching their meaning explicitly using call-and-response to aid pronunciation, and directing students to use them during ‘turn and talk’ activities (Amy Lloyd at Haybridge High School)
- Vocabulary Bullseye (Beckie New at BrookField School)
You can read more about the ideas shared on the day here.
Key takeaways from the day
- Addressing the needs of more able learners can raise achievement for a much wider group of learners in a school by increasing challenge for all. Considering the needs of more able disadvantaged learners is crucial to ensuring an inclusive and fair curriculum. (See NACE core principles.)
- There is strong research evidence for the importance of high-quality oracy education. This is supported by education, psychology, language studies and neuroscience research. The significant impact of oracy is across academic, personal and life outcomes.
- Self-confidence through purposeful practice of discussions about current affairs and wider issues builds cultural capital and confidence. A focus on oracy helps students express their thoughts and feelings in a more structured and approachable manner that will also build academic self-concept.
- Embedding oracy into school culture with deliberate and explicit teaching of speaking and listening supports student progress and achievement. Every school is different and it is essential to identify your school’s oracy needs. Providing for more able learners is about creating a curriculum which gives opportunities for all children to flourish. (See NACE core principles.)
Share your experience
We are seeking NACE member schools to share their experiences of effective oracy practices, including new initiatives and well-established practices.
You may feel that some of the examples in this blog are similar to practices in your own school, or you may have well-developed models of oracy teaching and learning that would be of interest to others. To share your experience, simply contact us, considering the following questions:
- How can we implement effective oracy strategies without dramatically increasing teacher workload?
- How can we best develop oracy for the most able in mixed ability classrooms?
- What are interesting activities to help students improve their confidence when public speaking, among their peers and people they don't know?
- What approaches are most effective in promoting oracy in group work so that it is productive and benefits all learners?
- How can we implicitly teach pupils to justify and expand their ideas and make clear opportunities to develop their understanding through talk and deepen their understanding?
- How do we evidence challenge for oracy within lessons?
View the slides from the day:
Read more:
Tags:
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lockdown
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oracy
pedagogy
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Posted By Rob Lightfoot,
12 July 2022
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NACE CEO Rob Lightfoot outlines NACE’s core research themes for 2022-23, and opportunities to get involved next term.
It’s been a difficult time for everyone as we moved out of Covid restrictions this academic year. The spring term was one of the most challenging for schools since the start of the pandemic, and we can only hope that – after a well-deserved summer break! – we can now really begin to refocus our energies on planning to meet the needs of learners going forward.
NACE research themes for 2022-23
It is early days as we begin to unpick the impact of the last two years for learners and school staff alike, but we have chosen to focus our research next year on two areas:
1. Oracy for high achievement: this strand will explore whole-school oracy strategies in the context of cognitive challenge, in addition to effective oracy practices for high-achieving classrooms.
2. Rethinking assessment: this strand continues our investigation of effective assessment practices in the classroom, across all phases of teaching, including assessment through questioning, dialogic discourse and improved oracy.
Get involved…
If the themes above sound of interest, you can sign up to participate in the 2022-23 NACE R&D Hubs programme. This will comprise a Hub on the two themes above, along with a third Hub focusing on cognitive challenge within the new curriculum for Wales. To learn more, register for the online launch event, taking place on Tuesday 27 September. Sign up here.
Registrations are also open for our first member meetup of the new academic year, “Speaking Up – Developing Oracy for High Achievement”, which will take place in Didcot on Tuesday 18 October. Sign up here.
And finally, next term will also see the launch of our new Challenge Award Ambassador Schools programme, which will be open to all schools who have been accredited with the NACE Challenge Award on two or more occasions. Further details coming soon!
I wish you all a relaxing and enjoyable summer break and I hope you get the chance to recharge your batteries ready for the new academic year.
Tags:
assessment
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collaboration
CPD
enquiry
language
leadership
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Posted By Rob Lightfoot,
15 February 2022
Updated: 14 February 2022
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NACE CEO Rob Lightfoot outlines our research themes for this year, including opportunities for member schools to get involved.
As the first half of the spring term draws to a close, we know many schools are still struggling with staff absence – but things are starting to improve for many, and we are all looking forward to planning ahead over the coming months. Here at NACE, we are particularly excited to be developing our two key research themes for the year: assessment and language.
Rethinking assessment
The focus of our next member meetup, at New College, Oxford on 23 March, will be “rethinking assessment”. Spaces are limited, so register now if you would like to join us.
Ahead of this event, NACE Research and Development Director Dr Ann McCarthy’s latest article explores the question: “How does a focus on metacognition impact on assessment practices in the classroom?” Many people still view assessment as an activity which is separate from the art of teaching – simply a list of checks and balances required by the education system to set targets, track learning, report to stakeholders and finally to issue qualifications. However, those who are using assessment routinely, and at all points within the act of teaching and learning, understand the true power of assessment.
Read more:
Language in learning for high achievement
Our second research theme for this year is around the use of language in learning for high achievement. We are seeking to examine best practice in advanced comprehension, literacy and oracy, allied to high achievement, within our NACE member schools. We want to develop an understanding of the current backdrop to the development of comprehension, literacy and oracy skills in schools, including the effects of the pandemic on teachers and learners.
As part of this theme, we are keen to explore the key role of language across all subject areas – and this month we are focusing on the importance of language in mathematics. Having spent nearly 30 years teaching the secondary mathematics curriculum, I know the importance of language in this subject is too often overlooked. If we want to take our students on a pathway to being mathematical and thinking like mathematicians, we should build in language acquisition and precision reading at every stage of their learning.
Read more:
Get involved: share your school’s experience
The contributions of NACE member schools have been central to the first phase of our Making Space for Able Learners research initiative and will remain so as we develop the second phase of this project.
If you are interested in learning more about or contributing to any aspect of our research work this year, please contact communications@nace.co.uk.
Tags:
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metacognition
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Posted By Rob Lightfoot,
14 January 2022
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NACE CEO Rob Lightfoot shares an update on current NACE initiatives and opportunities in the year ahead.
I hope you all had an enjoyable winter break. I expect it already feels a long time ago, as many of us are continuing to face daily challenges due to the ongoing issues with Covid. We can only hope that the situation will improve quickly, and that we are within sight of an end to the pandemic. As we progress towards the spring, and hopefully a period of less disruption in our schools, I hope that we can begin to refocus all our efforts on improving learning and outcomes for all our students.
Challenge Award successes: celebrating challenge for all
At NACE, we continue to witness outstanding provision for all learners within our growing network of Challenge Award-accredited schools. As stated in the core principles which underlie NACE’s work, we strongly believe that addressing the needs of more able learners will raise achievement for a much wider group of learners in a school. This is one reason we are so pleased to see schools attaining and maintaining the Challenge Award, as a mark of commitment to high-quality provision for the most able, within a whole-school context of challenge for all.
In 2021, despite the pandemic, 17 schools and colleges were accredited with the NACE Challenge Award for the first time, while 20 achieved accreditation for the second, third or fourth time. At these successful schools, there is a consistent ethos of high expectations and aspirations, and the education of more able learners is a whole-school endeavour which is embraced by school leaders at all levels.
Understanding and sharing what works: opportunities to get involved
The contributions of Challenge Award schools have been central to the first phase of our Making Space for Able Learners research initiative, and will remain so as we develop the second phase of this project. We are focusing on two areas over the coming year: the role of language in learning for high achievement, and the effective use of assessment. Within the assessment strand, we are studying new and effective practices which enable teachers to understand how their learners are progressing on a lesson-by-lesson basis and communicate this to the learners, enabling them to develop their learning more rapidly in the future.
If you are interested in learning more about or contributing to any aspect of our research work this year, please contact communications@nace.co.uk.
We are also pleased to be reintroducing our face-to-face meetups, free for our members, which will focus on our research themes. There will be the usual opportunities to share effective approaches with colleagues through the “speed-sharing” segment: an agenda item that is always valued highly by our members. Our first meetup of the year, on the theme “rethinking assessment”, will take place on 23 March at New College, Oxford. Limited places are available; if you would like to attend, please register here. Creating cognitively challenging classrooms: new modular courses
Returning to our core principles, we know that teachers are central to providing a challenging and enriching education for their learners, and their professional development is paramount. Following on from our conference in November ( recordings available now if you missed the live event), we are developing a new set of on-demand courses exploring key aspects in creating cognitively challenging classrooms. You can learn more and register your interest here.
Some of our operations team are currently working from home, so please contact us via email if you need an urgent response. Please do not hesitate to get in touch if we can be of help in any way, and we look forward to supporting you and your school during the coming year.
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