Embedding OracyIn September, I decided to do an action research project looking at embedding oracy in the classroom. I’ve been running ‘Youth Speaks’ - a public speaking club - for 3 years now and it never ceases to amaze me the confidence and skill with which our students manage to articulate themselves. Our students relish the chance to speak on a range of topics that they have chosen, and have ably represented us at a range of competitions across the county. I wanted a chance to give all our students the opportunity to develop these skills and gain confidence.

So, inspired by the Youth Speakers, I set about looking at how oracy has been embedded in to the curriculum at other schools - and swiftly discovered that something that seemed really simple (surely they all already do some level of discussion in most lessons?) was actually incredibly complex and multi-layered.

I decided to focus on two particular sources - research by Oracy 21 (which has now set up School 21 - a school that has designed its entire curriculum around oracy) and a discussion with the Head of Oracy at Didcot Girls’ School, who are two years in to their embedded oracy programme.

Using the sources from Oracy 21, I ascertained that oracy can be roughly split in two 4 areas: physical, linguistic, cognitive and social and emotional. This gave me more of a headache as I could see the benefits of tackling them all!

Thankfully, my visit to Didcot Girls’ School (and my contact Stella Vassiliou) was much more enlightening. They were incredibly welcoming and their approach gave me a lot to think about. They’ve utilised existing systems in order to make the workload on staff as minimal as possible; they have a ‘leadership ladder’ that students already complete tasks

towards - the tasks that need to be completed in order to earn bronze, silver or gold status now explicitly require them to use their oracy skills. Staff were also instructed to focus on three key skills/non negotiables: no ‘I don’t knows’ or refusals to answer questions, no one-word answers, and a specific target to reduce ‘fillers’ (e.g. ‘basically’, ‘umm’, ‘like’, ‘yeah’, ‘you know’). These were on posters in every class, printed in planners and were consistently demanded across the school. There was also a separate adapted approach for those with additional needs that saw students with communication issues ‘graduate’ by delivering small group presentations. This has produce fantastic results not only in oracy, but in confidence.

Suitably inspired, but with limited time, I decided to focus initially on only one class and ‘strand’: I was going to try and give my Year 9 students the vocabulary and language they needed in order to develop their discussions and avoid one word or ‘I don’t know’ answers. I’d already identified that it was the lack of depth in my Year 9s’ analysis that was a whole class target and, as we were to study the novella Of Mice and Men, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to build in oracy opportunities every lesson.

As well as asking Eluned (our Assistant Head of Teaching and Learning) to observe before and after the intervention, I also asked students to complete a questionnaire to gauge their attitude and opinions of speaking in class. Whilst these questionnaires showed only a minor increase in confidence, Eluned observed a huge improvement in the quality, length and depth of their discussions. This was (thankfully!) reflected in the analysis essay they completed for the assessment.

There’s still a lot to do to embed oracy effectively across every scheme, in every year, in every subject but from this study I think it’s clear the impact a strategic approach to oracy can have on pupil progress.

Jemma Thompson