Oracy at Selborne

What is oracy?

Oracy is the ability to articulate ideas, develop understanding and engage with others through spoken language. At Selborne, oracy is a powerful tool for learning as it teaches pupils to become effective speakers and listeners as they discuss each subject curriculum. It also empowers them to better understand themselves, each other and the world around them. Through a high quality oracy education pupils learn through talk and to talk. This is when they develop and deepen their subject knowledge and understanding through talk in the classroom, which has been planned, designed, modelled, scaffolded and structured to enable them to learn the skills needed to talk effectively.

Joining Voice 21

Selborne Primary School has teamed up with a charity called Voice 21. It has provided our staff with research-based training to better all pupils' oracy skills.

They have formed an oracy framework which focuses on four separate strands:

Physical - making yourself heard, using your voice and body as an instrument
Linguistic - knowing which words and phrases to use and using them
Cognitive - the deliberate application of thought to what you are saying
Social and emotional - engaging with the people around you; knowing you have the right to speak

Our Oracy Vision

At Selborne, pupils thrive in oracy by being able to articulate ideas, develop understanding and engage with all members of our community effectively through spoken language. We aspire for all pupils to learn to talk and to learn through talk with the ultimate goal of ensuring all pupils feel confident and valued.

How you can support your child with oracy

Be a role model - show good listening skills and turn-taking
Discuss the word of the week with your child. Link it to words they already know
Ask your child about their day in school and encourage them to share what they have learnt
Listen to your child read and ask them questions about the text and their opinion
Encourage your child to talk in sentences rather than singular words or phrases. Correct their spoken grammar, e.g. goed (go) or wented (went), has/have, falled (fell), eated (ate)
Discuss and summarise a T.V. programme and ask for their opinion
Reduce screen time and encourage them to play with you or siblings (board games are excellent for this)
Make time for each other! Oracy can be done at any time and anywhere. Sit with your child and talk to them about anything they are interested in.

Click here for the document Helping Your Child Develop Speaking and Listening Skills at Home. It is packed with practical ideas.

Oracy news

Oracy questions at lunchtime

Mr. Matharu, our oracy champion, reminded pupils about our lunchtime question in an assembly in Autumn 2024. Which would you rather visit and why? Our pupils are encouraged to use the sentence stem to discuss this with their teachers and peers at lunchtime whilst eating dinner. Questions are changed on a regular basis.

Reception

This half-term, Reception children have progressed from working in pairs to collaborating in trios, further enhancing their oracy skills. This new dynamic encourages them to take turns speaking and listening actively, fostering deeper conversations, stronger teamwork and greater confidence in their communication.

Year 1

As part of their geography learning, Year 1 pupils worked in trios to piece together a jigsaw of the continents and oceans of the world. They then had to discuss where to place animals, like penguins and polar bears, on the map.

Year 2

As part of their English learning on Shakespeare, Year 2 thought about how Romeo and Juliet would have been feeling when they first met. They then went into a traverse to share and build on their ideas. Following this, they worked in pairs to produce thought bubbles for the two characters.

Year 3

In this Year 3 oracy lesson, children used conscience alley to weigh up the pros and cons for Macbeth and his decision to kill King Duncan.

Year 4

In English, Year 4 have been reading Winter's Child, and one of the lessons focused on the importance of characterisation. Through speaking and listening activities, pupils explored the importance of understanding a character's perspective, which allowed them to gain a better insight into their thoughts and feelings.

The children particularly enjoyed role-playing as the different main characters from the story, working on their expression and intonation.

Year 5

In this history unit, Year 5 pupils researched the major landmarks on Ancient Greece (the Acropolis, temple of Zeus etc) and then used their learning to create adverts in small groups to persuade people to visit Greece.

Year 6

During Year 6’s Shakespeare Week unit, pupils studied the play, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. Throughout their learning, they were given multiple opportunities to practise their oracy skills through the use of drama and ‘hot seating’. Children worked in small groups to re-enact a part of the play and deepen their understanding. They also stepped into the ‘hot seat’ and were asked questions by their peers, who had to work out which character from the play they were.

Oracy in our ARP

The pupils were learning to greet the shopkeeper and request items in a real life situation.

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