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

In EYFS, pupils have been working incredibly hard to practice good oracy. We began the year by watching videos of both good and bad examples of oracy in action, after which the children had a discussion about what they saw and each class then created their own set of ‘oracy guidelines’. This entailed children using the ‘speaking bears’ to ensure that everyone contributes and takes turns fairly, as well as facing your partner and making good eye contact to show active listening.

Year 1

As part of their Geography learning, Year 1 pupils explored different maps of our local area. They took turns explaining what was similar about the maps and what was different. The pupils then summarised what they discussed with their class.

Year 2 

As part of their English learning, Year 2 used the oracy strategy 'conscience alley' to discuss a dilemma. The pupils had read the book Little Red in which they came face to face with the 'last wolf in the land'. This photo shows the pupils deciding whether they would help the wolf or not. 

Year 3

In our Geography lesson this term, we learnt about census and why it is important to have them in our country. Using our oracy talk tactics, we discussed and explained what important information a census collects as well as what it tells us about a particular settlement. We looked at a range of different questions that may be asked in order to focus on what information would be retrieved in a census. In addition to this, we looked at migration and how it means moving from one country to another. We discussed in detail that there are a wide range of reasons to why people migrate to different countries. Once again, we used our oracy talk tactics to discuss both the negative and positive effects of increasing migration in London as a city and expanded on why we thought these were so important.

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 Year 5, pupils completed a case study based on the earthquake in Nepal in 2015. Pupils looked at a range of sources including eye witness accounts, newspaper articles, photographs and websites to learn about what happened in Nepal. During the following lesson, they were told that a school was to be rebuilt in the same location as the devastating earthquake. Pupils were put into 6 groups (parents of the school pupils, the children, the education board, the environmental agency and the construction company) and had to remain in character whilst debating whether or not the school should be opened on a plate boundary.

Year 6 

Oracy in our ARP

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