Oracy at Sacred Heart

“Communication is a skill that you can learn. It’s like riding a bicycle or typing. If you’re willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of every part of your life.”

Brian Tracy

Intent

At Sacred Heart, we believe the ability to speak eloquently, articulate ideas and thoughts, collaborate with peers and have the confidence to express your views are all vital life skills that support success in learning and life in general. This is why we have identified being a ‘Confident Communicator’ as being one of the key drivers for our curriculum.

While research has found that strong oracy skills leads to higher order thinking and deeper understanding, some children have limited opportunities to take part in vocabulary rich discussions. We at Sacred Heart Primary recognise how vital spoken language skills are for all children, and we want to equip them with the tools they need to be heard, not just in school, but in their future career and life. 

At Sacred Heart, our aim in spoken language is to provide a sound foundation for the development of oracy skills from debate to poetry and verbal feedback, to talking for presentational purposes. Our classrooms are rich in talk, from effective questioning to constructive peer discussions, and teachers use talk skillfully to develop and encourage critical thinking. 

Inclusion is at the heart of our oracy intention and all children are given the support and opportunities they need to thrive in this subject. 

By embedding oracy in all aspects of the school’s culture and weaving it through the curriculum through our curriculum drivers, children are able to respond to high expectations and explicit teaching and modelling of speaking and listening.  We aim to create an environment where classrooms buzz with the sounds of purposeful talk, from children learning how to play purposefully and turn take in EYFS, to confident speeches in KS2.

Our oracy curriculum will enable children to:

• speak with confidence, clarity and eloquence;
• recognise the importance of listening in conjunction with speaking,
• be confident in the value of their own opinions and to be able to express and justify them to others;
• adapt their use of language for a range of different purposes and audiences,
• sustain a logical argument, question, reason and respond to others appropriately;
• concentrate, interpret and respond appropriately to a wide range of immersive experiences;
• be open-minded, to respect the contribution of others and to take account of their views;
• celebrate the diversity of languages, dialects and accents in the school and appreciate the experience and value the contributions of children with a wide variety of linguistic abilities;
• share their learning in an engaging, informative way through presentations, recitals, drama, poetry and debate.

Implementation

Key vocabulary is displayed and discussed for each subject area. Our school curriculum is rich in oracy opportunities:

Maths– In all maths lessons, children are encouraged children to answer and explain in full sentences and use mathematical vocabulary confidently. Sentence stems are displayed and used in each classroom to support reasoning. Flashback 4 and retrieval tasks provide opportunities for the children to explain their methods of working.

Writing– Oral feedback allows children to discuss their writing openly with their teacher and peers. They can then act immediately on advice given and this cultivates a sense of collaboration and shared purpose. Talk for Writing encourages children to practise saying sentences before they write them and inspires confidence to perform in front of an audience. 

Reading– Whole class reading sessions enable all children regardless of background or ability to participate in the lesson. Texts are carefully planned to ensure all can be included, and partner talk is integral to ensure peer scaffolding and that all children have ideas to contribute. We have multiple strategies for improving reading fluency, which always includes children reading aloud to the class. Children learn to recite Nursery Rhymes in EYFS, then progress to reciting other forms of poetry as they move through the school. Children use text marking techniques to perform poetry with confidence and prosody. 

Humanities- When children have a solid background knowledge of a history or geography topic, they should be given the opportunity to debate important issues such as was Henry VIII right to want a son? Is Fair trade a good idea? How can we stop Global Warming? Is it right to destroy rainforests? All lessons begin with an enquiry question, which children respond to in either written or verbal form. Some lessons lend themselves to being primarily an oracy lesson, which allows children to focus more on the content and knowledge than written presentational skills. 

Computing- Across the school, children are given opportunities in ICT to present what they have learned in computing. Key vocabulary is introduced and reinforced throughout lessons.

Music- Children actively feedback to each other on group performances. They are taught musical vocabulary as part of every lesson. 

PE- Children actively engage with peer feedback and are encouraged to discuss teamwork and lead activities. Instructional talk is used by children, and children are given opportunities to lead aspects of the lesson such as warm ups. 

Science- Concept cartoons are used to stimulate discussion and children are continually encouraged to question their own predictions and results of experiments. Staff have access to ‘Science debates’ on PiXL where they can argue for and against based on their scientific knowledge.

RE- RE topics begin with big questions which immediately spark discussion in classrooms. Key vocabulary is used and re-visited throughout topics. 

EYFS – In EYFS, Communication and Language is a key area in the statutory framework Early years foundation stage.  Areas of provision in both EYFS and KS1 are carefully planned to ensure that talk is an integral part of each area, and that high quality interactions are prioritised.

Pupil voice- We have a range of groups in school, where children are given the opportunity to discuss and present ideas, before putting their plans into action. Children know that their voices are important, and often offer suggestions about what can be improved in school. It was through these suggestions that the Pupil Chaplaincy Group, and Mother Tongue Day became embedded in school. All children in school were involved in writing the Sacred Heart Discussion guidelines. Click the links below to find out what these are: