English Lead: Mrs L. McCarthy

‘Oracy is the ability to articulate ideas, develop understanding and engage with others through spoken language.’
Voice 21

At Our Lady Immaculate, we believe that by teaching students to become more effective speakers and listeners, we are empowering them to better understand themselves, each other and the world around them. It is also a route to social mobility, empowering all students, not just some, to find their voice to succeed in school and life.

Through a high quality oracy education pupils learn through talk and to talk. This is when they develop and deepen their subject knowledge and understanding through talk in the classroom, which has been planned, designed, modelled, scaffolded and structured to enable pupils to learn the skills needed to talk effectively.  At Our Lady Immaculate, we maximise opportunities for oracy for all pupils to use their voices in meaningful contexts in and beyond the classroom.

Across the school community, oracy is nutured by everyday interactions and is visible, showcased and celebrated throughout school life by:

Setting high expectations for oracy – establishing and modelling ambitious and challenging norms for talk, ensuring that students understand the expectations for talk in their classroom and beyond.

Valuing every voice – supporting all students to participate in, and benefit from, oracy in the classroom, meaningfully listening to students, encouraging them to develop their ideas further, and creating a culture in which students do the same.

Teaching oracy explicitly – supported by the Mighty Oaks Public Speaking programme, teachers have a strong understanding of what constitutes good oracy in different contexts and are deliberate and strategic in their planning for oracy teaching, tactically exploiting opportunities to ensure pupils’ skills develop over time.

Harnessing oracy to elevate learning – classroom talk is used skillfully to develop pupils’ thinking and understanding, engaging them in dialogue, both with the teacher and their peers, which encourages pupils to articulate, justify and expand their ideas and have opportunities to share, develop and consolidate their understanding through talk.

Appraising progress in oracy – evaluating pupils’ progress in oracy and using this to inform teaching. Creating opportunities for pupils to reflect on and receive meaningful feedback on their oracy, from both the teacher and their peers.

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