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:

• Dr Jonathan Doherty
• Haili Hughes
• Chloe Bateman
• Membership updates

Read more:

• 6 ideas to develop oracy in your school
• 7 steps to establishing a whole-school oracy culture