Red Oak Primary School, Lowestoft

Oracy at Red Oak Primary School.

We recognise the extreme importance of being able to talk well and learn through talk. Oracy is a vital part of the Curriculum at Red Oak and we are working in partnership with Oracy Cambridge, from Cambridge University.  Since 2018 we have focussed on the development and range of high quality vocabulary and exposure to it across the children’s daily lives. In 2020 we embarked on a project to develop and refine these crucial skills through joined up hub work with support from Cambridge Oracy. In 2020 we also started work through the support of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation to develop Oracy skills during Geography lessons, with the help of drama artists. From 2020 through to today we have focussed on developing skills of questioning, debating, discussing and presenting across the curriculum subjects.

What is Oracy?

‘Oracy is the ability to articulate ideas, develop understanding and engage with others through spoken language.’ (Voice21).  At Red Oak, we are teaching our children to be confident, articulate speakers and effective listeners; these two skills are fundamental to all we do now and for the children’s lives when they leave Red Oak.

Why do we have a focus on Oracy?

Leaders analysed a range of information, including internal assessment, gaps in subject knowledge and end of key stage data.  It highlighted that children needed additional opportunities to learn to talk and learn through talk. In addition, research (Millard and Menzies, State of Speaking) shows almost half of British employers reported that young people enter the work place with inadequate communication, presentation and interpersonal skills that are needed to thrive in the work place.   

Our key Actions for 2018 – 2019

• To enhance the frequency, and the quality of the teaching of vocabulary across the school through:

• To ensure quality training is given to all staff.
• To introduce Knowledge Organisers for subjects beginning with History and Geography.
• Implementing vocabulary teaching across the curriculum, ensuring subject specific language is taught.
• Identifying next steps to support early year’s children and their vocabulary development.
• Implementation of weekly power words.
• To purchase up to date dictionaries, thesauruses and books and to use effectively within teaching.

Our key Actions for 2019 – 2020

• To develop explicit Oracy skills to enable the pupils to present confidently both verbally and in a written context across the whole curriculum through:

• Extending vocabulary opportunities through the Arts (PHF)
• Generate a love and passion for reading.
• Develop debating and discussing skills from EYFS through to Year 6
• To use the Oracy project to support children when they make decisions about their behaviour and attitudes.
• Termly targets for each key stage relating to Oracy development.
• Weekly focussed cpd training for support staff (20 minutes) and every three weeks for teaching staff. (1 hour) with focussed research shared by all staff relating to Oracy.
• Performance Management targets to directly link with Oracy development.
• To extend the use of Knowledge Organisers across the curriculum subjects.
• To develop the ICT resources at Red Oak to ensure pupils are exposed to age appropriate equipment that builds on previous skills and knowledge and to help enhance presentational skills and methods.
• To introduce key issues and questions for families to debate and discuss as a homework activity.

Our key actions for 2020-2022

• To introduce current affairs to all classes to link research with relevant areas for discussion and debate.
• To review the vocabulary within Knowledge Organisers within all subjects.
• Continue to develop vocabulary opportunities through the Arts (PHF) with other subjects.
• To develop a reading hub for the community, to enrich the vocabulary of our parents.

Our key actions for 2022-2024

• To use the wider community, post pandemic, to further children’s presenting and performing skills through theatre workshops, theatre performances, church performances, community events and curriculum specialist days and weeks such as History off the Page, Shakespeare Performance Week, World Poetry Day, Medical Mavericks etc.
• To improve Knowledge Organisers to include information about prior learning and future learning, so that children can articulate their prior knowledge and ask questions about future learning, as well as being able to talk coherently about current learning. Knowledge Organisers were also redesigned in order for them to be more accessible to the children, and easy for them to use and talk through.
• Talk Through Stories initiated to enhance the EYFS children’s vocabulary and spoken word, linked to high quality stories. This approach also fosters a reading for pleasure culture, and helps close gaps for those children who are not read to at home.
• Story telling week enabled children to orally rehearse and retell familiar stories, this was done in conjunction with the Literacy Trust.
• Subject ambassadors were introduced to enable pupil voice about their subjects and for those children to be able to talk to guests, speak to governors and promote their love of the subject they were ambassador for.
• Mastery in number programme launched which supports children to be able to articulate their decisions around solving Maths problems, and to use clarity when talking about Maths.
• Welcomm introduced to support moving children’s language skills on in incremental staged steps according to their need and ability
• Neli introduced to develop children’s expressive vocabulary, general vocabulary, sentence formation and to extend their verbal communication skills.
• Introduction of QR code recording of children’s verbal work in Year 1, in order to capture their speech and develop their presentational skills.

Our key actions for 2024-2025

• To continue to develop subject specific vocabulary so that it goes above and beyond the National Curriculum expectations
• To offer a truly enriched curriculum that builds on the children’s cultural capital so that they have real and meaningful life experiences to draw on to discuss and reminisce with adults and their peers, and then to use these experiences to raise their aspirations.
• To continue to use the local community for performances and in-house events involving speaking, singing, poetry readings, e.g. poetry reading at the Holocaust Memorial Service, carols at the care home for the elderly, performances at the Marina Theatre etc.
• To expose the children to as many diverse visitors as possible so that they can use their questioning skills to learn about different cultures, professions, communities and people in order to be truly inclusive and to use language every day that reflects those values.

Impact so far.

We have noticed that children are more confident and effective communicators. This is evident during lessons and throughout the school day.  More children take part during discussions, they use vocabulary that includes specific phrases for example: I value your viewpoint however I disagree because…

Previously our children struggled with reading of age appropriate books and books that contained language that they were not familiar with. We have seen that now they are able to access a wider range, seek support materials to find out the meaning of more challenging vocabulary (Tier 3) and choose books that challenge their thinking.

Our pupils have demonstrated a high increase in contributions to the community, more children have attended presentations and singing events at the local churches and homes for the elderly. Previously children lacked the confidence to sing publicly and talk publicly, now through the Key Stage targets all children have been given opportunities and presented through a range of audiences. Visitors regularly comment on how articulate and respectful our Red Oak children are.

During 2019-2020 we had a high priority on developing debating, discussing and presentation skills. This was approached by setting termly targets for each year group. The impact was phenomenal. 100% of pupils in Year 1 participated in the Christmas performance with a speaking part! Similarly, all other year groups met their targets including Year 3 and 4 pupils writing and performing their own poems to the class. Confidence has increased and even children that were apprehensive have developed their passion for performing to an audience.

During 2020-2022 our Oracy focus continued to be in regard to finishing areas that were difficult to meet during the Summer term due to Covid-19 lockdown. We also focussed on identifying further opportunities to develop Oracy skills within all subjects of the curriculum. This has seen a big impact in the use of the vocabulary used by pupils that is subject specific and their ability to link their understanding of subject specific language to help decipher new words. Teachers share the vocabulary that is subject specific with both pupils and parents and staff have worked together to link the subject for helping with progression over time. The impact of this is evidenced when talking with pupils who are able to use this knowledge and the schemea they have developed to verbalise their learning and share their knowledge and skills with others both written and verbal.

Current affairs are taught across the school using age appropriate material and topics with links to News and both local and world affairs. The impact of this has enabled pupils to verbalise their views and opinions in relation to events beyond the locality and school and consider how they can have a positive impact on change both now and for their future. Excellent preparation for adulthood and lifelong learning.

The PHF (Paul Hamelyn Foundation) project helped staff to develop the skills of scaffolding learning to be adaptive to the needs of all learners through considering different approaches to express themselves. This was through the medium of drama and dance, supported by professional dance artists. Pupils developed performances and short plays and performed to peers confidently and with improved confidence. A range of strategies were demonstrated using speeches, presentations supported by posters, PowerPoints or expressive move and music. The pupils showed increased awareness of the audience, subject content, appropriate subject related vocabulary, emotive language and rhetorical techniques including humour, irony etc.

As a school we have created a Reading Hub. We have successfully received sponsorship from local councillors to help fund this and we have applied for several bids successfully to purchase a wealth of reading material to loan to parents and families. This is open 3 days a week and the material includes books appropriate from birth to adulthood. The impact of this includes children have more access to reading materials, adults are able to access high quality and modern material, as well as classics and subject specific books to improve their own reading for pleasure or knowledge and to develop and extend their own range of vocabulary when talking to their children.

How are we teaching Oracy at Red Oak?

We have a multi-layered approach to developing Oracy and we are using the 4 domains set out by Voice 21; physical, linguistic, cognitive and social and emotional.  In the Early Years, a high focus is given to the physical development of speech and positive talk.  It is essential that all domains are developed effectively as children progress through our school. During the first year of our project, we focussed on the physical and linguistic domains. In our second year, we focussed on the cognitive and the social and emotional domains.  Through our Key Stage plans, we plan purposeful opportunities which enable children to take part in exploratory talk and listen carefully to one another. Teachers and adults in school model effective talk and listening skills. Higher order (tier 3) vocabulary is shared and taught throughout the school. 

Voice 21, Oracy Strands.

Examples of some of the support materials / research used to guide our work:

• Transform Teaching And Learning Through Talk: Amy Gaunt and Alice Stott.
• Greenfields Education: Closing The Vocabulary Gap
• Voice 21 Oracy School Self Evaluation Tool
• Speaking in Public Is Worse Than Death for Most – The Times
• Low Income and Early Cognitive Development in the UK