Liza Timpson-Hughes, Assistant Headteacher at Samuel Ryder Academy, explains how the school and its Trust have embedded oracy education across the curriculum – empowering learners with skills to help them thrive both within and beyond the classroom.
Samuel Ryder Academy is an all-through school and has connected oracy to the development of activating “hard thinking” since 2021. The school is in its third year of working with both NACE and Voice 21, is using the NACE Challenge Framework and was accredited as a Voice 21 Oracy Centre of Excellence in January 2024. Oracy leads and champions are strategically developing talk across all key stages, many of which are now contributing to the implementation of oracy education across the Scholars Educational Trust – a diverse family of 11 schools covering all phases from nursery through to sixth-form.
The focus on developing oracy expertise has strengthened school culture, student experience and staff understanding of challenge in learning. Upon agreeing to focus on oracy, a strong curriculum intent was formed by a group of committed and experienced teachers:
Our oracy curriculum further enables children to speak with confidence, clarity and fluency. This provides them the opportunity to adapt their use of language for a range of different purposes and audiences. It emphasises the value of listening and the ability to interpret and respond appropriately to a range of listening activities. This will be supported by the four key strands of the oracy framework (physical, linguistic, cognitive and social and emotional).
For high-ability students, this focus on oracy matters, because it equips students with the tools they need to succeed academically while also fostering well-rounded individuals who can contribute positively to society. High-ability students often benefit from opportunities to articulate their thoughts and ideas clearly. Engaging in structured discussions and debates allows them to refine their communication skills. We do not only use language to interact, but we also use it to ‘interthink’ (Littleton & Mercer, 2013). Contrary to popular beliefs about ‘lone geniuses’, it is increasingly accepted that effective learning is through collaboration and communication in small groups.
Embedding oracy skills across the curriculum
A great oracy school not only prioritises the development of speaking and listening skills, but also creates a culture where these skills are essential to the learning process. We recognised as a Trust that skills of spoken language and communication do not need to be taught as part of a discrete “oracy lesson” and can be developed effectively as part of well-designed subject curricula. We strongly believed in connecting oracy to our academy development plan and in the value of departments having the autonomy to decide the most effective balance for their own context, ensuring a comprehensive approach to oracy without compartmentalising it into ad hoc basis.
All teachers were asked to plan for oracy episodes in their subject areas at a sequence point they felt worked. There are numerous ways oracy can be integrated into the curriculum. Millard and Menzies (2016) highlight the importance of demonstrating the connection between high-quality talk and academic rigour. Whole-school oracy scaffolds can be used across the curriculum, thus reducing workload for classroom teachers. Additionally, our trained teacher oracy champions offered wider pedagogical support on these oracy scaffolds. They modelled best practice in fortnightly teaching and learning briefings.
Oracy scaffolds to develop classroom talk
Using the Voice 21 Oracy Framework as a springboard, we agreed to focus on scaffolding oracy skills across every subject, building a learning environment in which students could clearly express their thoughts and effectively communicate ideas, whilst understanding what features constituted oracy.
In each subject, teachers prioritised the development of social and emotional skills; central to this was an emphasis on active listening, contributing to a deeper comprehension and retention of information. By actively engaging with peers and teachers, students can enhance their understanding of complex concepts and improve their critical thinking skills.
We first experimented with games and lesson starters using oracy formats and debating ideas from Voice 21. The following approaches have been valuable in every classroom and at every key stage in supporting the development of oracy skills as part of cognitively challenging learning experiences.
- Voice 21 classroom listening ladders: high-ability students can take on leadership roles in group discussions, facilitating peer learning and mentoring others, which not only reinforces their understanding but enhances their social and emotional skills.
- Student age-related oracy frameworks from Voice 21: to encourage high-ability students to articulate their learning processes, reflect on their contributions, and assess their growth.
- Sentence stems and talking roles: high-ability students thrive in environments that challenge their thinking. Oracy practices with sentence stems support argumentation, encourage deep analysis and critical reasoning.
- Voice 21 good discussion guidelines: exposure to diverse perspectives can challenge high-ability students’ thinking and expand intellectual horizons.
- Proof of listening guidelines from Voice 21: listening helps high-ability students build better relationships with their peers and teachers. When students feel heard, they are more likely to engage and participate in the learning process, creating a positive and inclusive classroom atmosphere.
- Student talk tactics and sentence stems from Voice 21 for every discussion and debate: high-ability students thrive in environments that challenge their thinking, and these tactics stimulate intellectual curiosity and critical analysis. These improved whole-class discussions and have greatly impacted group work as the children are more focused, listen carefully to others, build on their ideas, embed learning and address misconceptions. Overall, it has helped students to become confident, eloquent individuals and created a more effective learning environment.
Public speaking practice
Student anxiety around speaking in front of others can deter teachers from incorporating oracy-based activities into lessons. Oracy education has given us a consistent language and a structure to help students as they approach presentational work.
Students were supported to deliver presentations or take part in debates by using bespoke/ age-related versions of the Voice 21 framework. Oracy champions asked students to suggest topics they felt most confident and comfortable with to start their practice. We have ‘Talk Tuesdays’ where all form time and lessons start with a talk-based task.
By establishing clear expectations for classroom talk, students felt more confident to present. These ‘ground rules’ were co-constructed with the students and regularly reviewed. The creation of safe and supportive classrooms was greatly valued by students and necessary before presentational talk. Gradual low-stakes oracy allowed confidence to evolve. Students were then invited to co-present assemblies, address different stakeholders, facilitate student cabinets and student leadership panels, and by sixth form they mastered the skills to deliver TEDx talks.
In geography, for example, students understand that there are different elements to a successfully delivered presentation, whether this was a news report on wildfires filmed on their iPad or a formal presentation to the class on a sustainable city they have designed. Students focused not just on the content (cognitive), but also on their physical and linguistic abilities. Students are delivering much higher-quality work, with much greater confidence, because they understand and consider all the different features. They are also engaging much more with peer feedback, as again we have given them a consistent language to help them evaluate each other’s work.
Teachers discussed the different types of talk that are engaged in group discussions and started to consider ways in which we could encourage more exploratory talk. We wanted to build the students’ skills in employing exploratory talk, and to ‘give permission’ for teachers and students to employ it.
Dialogic learning communities
Increased confidence in exploratory and presentational talk has allowed teachers to consider dialogic learning. Dialogue means being able to articulate ideas seen from someone else’s perspective; it is characterised by chains of (primarily open) questions and answers; it may be sustained over the course of a single lesson or across lessons; and it builds on the idea of ‘exploratory talk’, where learners construct shared knowledge and are willing to change their minds and critique their own ideas (Prof. Neil Mercer, 2000). Our teachers are being encouraged to consider where this fits in their pedagogy, classrooms and curriculum.
Noticeably in maths and RS lessons, the resources provided by Voice 21 have been crucial to create and develop a dialogic culture. We have shared with all students discussion guidelines, talk like a mathematician/philosopher sentence starters, as well as student talking tactics. These resources are displayed in classrooms and have been uploaded digitally onto students’ devices. There is deliberativeness of the dialogue between teachers and students. Seeing rich mathematical or philosophical talk in action surfaced several practices that we believe deepen thinking and strengthen subject content. Linking language to the creativity of mathematical thinking and practices encourages students to use talk as a tool for generating new ways of approaching problems, rather than simply to internalise existing methods and just being compliant passengers.
A stronger voice within and beyond the classroom
Senior leaders play a key role in supporting teachers to develop this oracy knowledge. We provided oracy-specific training for all teaching and support staff. Space was identified for colleagues to share and evaluate the best tools over time. We were particularly interested in understanding how oracy skills promoted greater depth of subject knowledge. The development of oracy skills is most effective when it is integrated into a whole-school approach, endorsed and prioritised by the senior leadership team. But identification of early shifters and adopters was crucial in forming a strong of teacher oracy champions.
For teachers, the shift is noticeable in the modelling of talk they expect from students, scaffolding their responses and interactions and providing timely and specific feedback. It was vital to consider how to approach the teaching of ‘active listening’ in classrooms. We recognised that an oracy-centred approach can be of great value in all subjects but may need adapting to suit the subject area and age of learners.
Since prioritising oracy there is nothing forced or artificial about the classroom conversation; students engage positively with explicit strategies for talk. Students talk about how oracy education has given them increased confidence, a voice for learning and beyond the classroom, and supports their wellbeing. They know this will help them throughout educational transitions and ultimately in the wider world. It is empowering. The impact is evident, not only on high-achieving students but across the entire school culture.
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