What is Oracy?

Oracy is the ability to articulate ideas, develop understanding and engage with others through spoken language. Oracy is about learning to talk, and learning through talk. It is the ability to influence through talking, listening to others and having the confidence to express your views. These are all fundamental skills that support success in both learning and life beyond school. Oracy isn’t just any talk that is happening - it is purposeful classroom talk which develops children’s speaking and listening skills, and enhances their learning through the effective use of spoken language. Oracy is to speech what literacy is to writing and numeracy is to maths.

Oracy is…

• Engaging with others ideas
• Reasoning together
• Listening to understand
• Changing people’s minds
• Telling compelling stories
• Developing arguments
• Expressing yourself
• Speaking up for what you believe in

Why is Oracy important?

Oracy is a powerful tool for learning; by teaching students to become more effective speakers and listeners, we empower them to better understand themselves, each other and the world around them. It is also a route to social mobility, empowering all students to find their voice to succeed in school and life. Good oracy skills support wider literacy skills; improvement in oracy is also linked to improvements in reading, writing, and overall attainment. The ability to communicate through spoken language is one of the strongest predictors of future life chances when children are at school. Teaching oracy not only benefits children’s spoken language skills, but also their confidence, capacity to learn and success beyond school.

Please watch the following Voice 21 video to find out more:

Oracy at Woodbridge Junior School 

At Woodbridge Junior School, we know that spoken language is essential in the development and achievement of our children across the curriculum.  Children are taught how to be effective communicators through oracy projects that feature skills such as storytelling, debating and spoken challenges, such as our Soapbox Challenge week. 

We aim to build and embed a culture of oracy because we know that purposeful and meaningful talk is used to drive forward learning, through talk in the classroom and through outdoor learning, such as in Forest School sessions. We are committed to delivering an oracy rich curriculum to ensure our pupils learn through talk and learn to talk. Oracy opportunities are planned, designed, modelled, scaffolded and structured to enable pupils to learn the skills needed to talk effectively and confidently.

Voice 21

Voice 21 is a national charity that exists to enable teachers and schools to provide a high quality oracy education. Voice 21 aims to transform the learning and life chances of young people through talk so that all children can use their voice for success in school and in life.

We aim to teach and develop the four key Oracy skills as described by Voice 21. They include:

Physical Oracy

Cognitive Oracy

Linguistic Oracy

Social and Emotional Oracy

To develop these skills in our pupils, we use the Oracy Framework.

To find out more about Voice 21 and for further resources, please click on the following link:

https://voice21.org/