Oracy at Kingsacre
The Oxford English Dictionary Online (2020) defines Oracy as the ability to express oneself fluently and grammatically in speech. At Kingsacre, we belive that this is vital so that children can communicate effectively for a range of purposes and audiences. Our ambition is for every child to leave Kingsacre with excellent oracy skills:
● Children will understand the four key components of oracy: physical; linguistic; cognitive and social & emotional and be able to discuss some ways in which they develop each aspect
● Children will learn through talk as well as learn to talk
● Children can speak with confidence using the appropriate voice, register and tone for the intended purpose and audience
● Children can recognise and use active listening skills in conjunction with talk
● Children will be able to talk with confidence, expressing their own opinions with justification whilst maintaining respect and tolerance for the opinions of others
● Children will adapt their use of language depending on the audience and purpose
● Children will sustain a logical argument, question, reason and respond to others eloquently
● Children can share their learning in an engaging, informative way through presentations, recitals, poetry and debate.
At Kingsacre Primary School, we ensure that our school environments foster the opportunities for children to develop their oracy skills in a variety of ways:
● Dialogic classrooms ensure that there is a balanced proportion of child and adult led talk.
● Explicit teaching of vocabulary and grammar provide children with the linguistic oracy skills necessary to be effective communicators
● Use of sentence starters which progress in difficulty across the school aid children to talk for a range of purposes and audiences
● Oracy skills embedded within the curriculum e..g reasoning in maths and clarifying and summarising in reading lesson (VIPERS) provide children with regular opportunities to consolidate and refine their oracy skills
● A focus on active listening for understanding is embedded in the school ethos with children being able to discuss and demonstrate the effective characteristics of good listening
● Use of VOICE21 oracy assessment framework and SIMS assessments for speaking and listening provides a clear and progressive framework for children and teachers to effectively evaluate oracy skills
Our Oracy progression information can be found here:
