Oracy

ORACY

Communicating Confidently & Competently
 

What is oracy?
Oracy is the ability to express oneself fluently and grammatically in speech. At Oakhill Primary School, we understand how this is crucially important in all aspects of the curriculum.

The Importance of Speaking and Listening
The abilities of speaking and listening are crucial to pupils’ language acquisition and social development. It is an essential method that can be implemented in all areas of the curriculum as speaking and listening are strong building blocks for learning and thinking, and also, effective communication is a key skill that the children will need for the rest of their lives. The importance of speaking and listening must be passed on to the children and they must be able to see that they can access the tools in any subject in the curriculum – teachers must inspire this thinking and as a result parents must encourage constructive speaking and listening out of school. In order for pupils to realise the relevance they must be provided with a range of contexts and opportunities to further develop their speaking and listening skills including being able to generate pros and cons of a topic in the format of a debate and being able to review and share experiences and explain why their experience was important to them.

The Oakhill Primary School OSAL Award

At Oakhill Primary School, we pride ourselves on challenging our children in all areas of the curriculum. One aspect of the curriculum we feel to be of great importance is that of speaking and listening and, as a result, creating brilliant public speakers. This is something that will benefit the children going forward in to high school and on in to the wider world. Our OSAL award gives children Opportunities for Speaking and Listening. The children perform a poetry recital, a presentation to their peers and an aspect of storytelling and come out with an OSAL award graded from 1* to 5*.

Areas in which we support children in their oracy abilities

• Enunciation and spoken English – ensuring that all adults model good enunciation of letter sounds and words when speaking.  Reinforcing and correcting children and having high expectations that they will do the same.
• Giving children opportunities to practice speaking through role play, drama, paired and group work, assemblies, performances and visits.
• Speech and Language specialist teacher – we have a specialist practitioner who aims to diagnose speech and language problems very early and address them.
• Assessing the speaking and listening skills of our KS2 children using formal, confidence-building assessments through the Oakhill Primary School OSAL Award.
• Discussion roles (instigator, summariser, challenger, builder, prober and clarifier) which assist children in formulating discussions. This can be used to support and challenge in a safe and nurturing environment.

What our pupils say about Oracy at Oakhill

"OSAL made me more confident because I never thought I could stand up and talk in front of the other children."

"It's good to discuss things in class as you learn more."

"OSAL is fun because it's different to other lessons."