Oracy

Oracy vision 

“At Combe Down, we strive to create an oracy-rich community of pupils, staff and parents, where every member develops the skills to communicate effectively and with kindness. We believe that every voice matters, and all feel valued and listened to in school and the world beyond.”  Combe Down teachers, 2024. 

Intent 

Oracy is at the very heart of our teaching at Combe Down.  We recognise the importance of children developing skilled use of language to explore and explain their learning.  Being able to articulate thinking, actively listen to others and develop understanding of the world around us through discussion are key to our pupils’ development and success.  Having begun our Oracy journey with Voice 21 in early 2024, we intend to ensure every child at our school has plenty of opportunity to use and benefit from Oracy woven throughout our curriculum. 

Implementation 

Oracy is taught and applied in every curriculum subject.  The Oracy Framework, developed by Oracy Cambridge and Voice 21, guides our teaching and learning.  The four strands focus on different aspects of Oracy: physical, linguistic, cognitive and social & emotional. 

Teachers use a wide range of resources in the classroom and around the school environment to support the use of Oracy.  These include: sentence stems, concept cartoons, talk tactics and actions, differing groupings and discussion questions, always/sometimes/never, true/false and many more.  All these strategies encourage children to share their ideas and listen carefully to others.  We welcome disagreement and challenge, and support the children in how to do so politely and without fear of reprimand.   

Impact 

We see the impact of our Oracy teaching through many facets of our school life.  The children speak with confidence and clarity to adults, known and visitors, their peers and their friends.  Oracy is used in conflict resolution at playtimes and through roles such as our house captains and collective worship ambassadors.  We are currently developing our whole-school progression and assessment system for Oracy as it is a key part of our school development plan for this academic year.