Oracy
Intent
A Foundation for Voice & Communication 🗣️✨
At Christ Church CE Primary School, we believe that a quality oracy curriculum should instil in children the essential skills of speaking and listening, creating a firm and lasting foundation of knowledge. We aspire to widen our children’s horizons through developing their ability to communicate effectively and thoughtfully to a variety of audiences and expand their capacity to interpret and comprehend the spoken word that surrounds them.
Articulating Learning & Critical Thinking 🧠🗣️
Our aim is for children to become adept at articulating their learning clearly, using precise, subject-specific vocabulary that allows them to deepen their understanding of the topics they study. We equip children with confidence in their own voices and endow them with the skills to think critically, present their ideas to others, represent themselves well and deal with conflict or disagreement in a positive and productive manner.
Empowering Citizens for the Wider World 🌍🤝
By learning to express themselves with clarity, confidence and mutual respect, our pupils are fully prepared to face the future. Expressing themselves in this articulate manner enables them to contribute positively as confident local, national and global citizens who embody our core school values.
Inclusive Access for Every Voice 🤝🏆
At Christ Church CE Primary, we ensure our oracy curriculum is inclusive and accessible to all, maximising the development of every child’s unique ability. We provide effective scaffolding and adaptations so that all pupils, including those with SEND and EAL, experience success, build verbal resilience and exercise their right to engage fully in the varied and rich language and discussion available to them.
Implementation
Oracy Across the Curriculum 🗣️🚀
Oracy is deliberately woven through our wider curriculum planning, ensuring that speaking and listening are systematically taught and practised in all subject areas.
Using the Voice 21 progression document and Springboard frameworks, teachers plan meaningful, high-impact tasks that allow for a great depth of knowledge, explicitly using oracy to elevate learning. This framework ensures that specific physical, linguistic, cognitive and social-emotional oracy skills are explicitly taught, which are progressive as children move through the school.
Vocabulary Frameworks & Scaffolding 📑🎯
To scaffold high-quality discussion and ensure all learners can access the curriculum, we embed structured language support across all subjects:
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Sentence stems and key vocabulary are rigorously planned out for all subjects, giving children the precise linguistic tools required to participate in meaningful exploratory and presentational talk.
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Summary Bullseyes are used widely across the curriculum. These visual frameworks help children target, prioritise and summarise key vocabulary and concepts during discussions.
Daily Talk Tactics in Mathematics and English 🔢✍️
In daily Mathematics and English lessons, children engage in structured opportunities to discuss their learning and articulate their mathematical reasoning.
A central pillar of this approach is our school-wide use of Student Talk Tactics. Both staff and children are familiar with these tactics, using them daily to guide and elevate the quality of classroom dialogue:
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Instigate: Starting a discussion or introducing a new line of thought.
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Build: Developing, expanding or adding evidence to a peer's point.
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Challenge: Respectfully disagreeing, questioning or offering an alternative perspective.
These Talk Tactics are intentionally used more widely across all school environments to foster a rigorous culture of debate and collaborative thinking.
Strategic Subject Leadership & Staff Development 🧠📊
To maintain a high-profile culture of oracy, leadership and professional development are closely aligned with Voice 21 principles:
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Oracy Updates: Oracy explicitly features in all regular English curriculum updates, ensuring it remains at the forefront of staff focus.
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Subject Leader Modules: Subject leaders are directed to the Oracy Exchange modules and documents, empowering them to audit and enhance talk within their specific disciplines.
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Talk Assemblies: Initiated in Autumn 2, our Voice 21 Talk Assemblies run regularly, providing a structured, whole-school platform to model, celebrate and practise high-quality oracy, and allowing children meaningful opportunities to discuss current affairs.
Poetry & Expressive Arts 🎭🌟
We provide regular, high-profile opportunities for children to perform and showcase their spoken language skills to authentic audiences:
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Poetry Fridays: Held weekly both within individual classrooms and as a celebrated feature of our whole-school celebration assemblies, allowing children to perform poetry with confidence, rhythm and expression.
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Art Gallery Events: Following our Sky Arts Week, we host Art Gallery events, inviting parents and carers into school to view artwork while children confidently present, explain and showcase their learning journey.
Oracy in our Relationships Policy 🤝❤️
Oracy at Christ Church CE Primary extends beyond academic lessons and forms a core part of our pastoral care. As part of our Relationships Policy, staff and children utilise the WINE (Wonder, Imagine, Notice, Empathise) and PACE (Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity, Empathy) communication frameworks. This ensures that restorative conversations, emotional expression and conflict resolution are handled through positive, productive and empathetic dialogue.
Upcoming Initiatives 🚀🔮
We continuously seek innovative ways to expand our oracy culture. Upcoming initiatives designed to further embed talk into the school day and wider community include:
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Dinner Hall Discussion Questions: Daily conversation prompts introduced into the dinner hall to transform lunchtime into a vibrant, social space for purposeful, structured dialogue.
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‘Bring Your Parent to Class’ Afternoons: These interactive afternoons replace traditional class assemblies, inviting parents and carers directly into the classroom to engage in collaborative learning, talk activities and oracy tasks alongside their children.
- A Window 🪟: Allowing children to look out into the lives and experiences of others, hearing diverse viewpoints, learning about different cultures and faiths and developing deep empathy by truly listening to alternative perspectives.
- A Mirror : Providing a safe, collaborative space where children can confidently voice their own identities, beliefs, emotions and unique ideas, validating their personal worth and strengthening their sense of self.
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A Door 🚪: Giving children the verbal tools, courage and communication skills to step through into new possibilities, using their voices to challenge injustice, articulate critical thinking, resolve conflict and flourish as confident global citizens.
Impact
Oracy Impact 🎯🏆
Our comprehensive approach to teaching spoken communication ensures that oracy is not merely an addition to the curriculum, but the very vehicle through which our pupils grow, learn and succeed. At Christ Church CE Primary School, every child's voice is deeply valued, creating an environment where pupils know that what they say matters.
Self-Advocacy & Constructive Relationships 👥🤝
The impact of our oracy culture extends far beyond academic achievement, shaping the personal development and emotional intelligence of our pupils:
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Confident Self-Advocacy: Children possess the confidence and language skills to advocate for themselves, expressing their needs, emotions and viewpoints clearly and effectively.
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Constructive Conflict Resolution: Equipped with positive communication frameworks, children resolve arguments constructively, moving away from reactive responses and towards productive, empathetic dialogue.
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Polite Challenge: Our school-wide Talk Tactics enable children to challenge the ideas of others politely and respectfully, fostering a culture of healthy debate where disagreement is handled as an opportunity for mutual learning.
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Active Listening: Pupils develop the vital social-emotional skill of listening actively and thoughtfully to the views of others, showing genuine respect for diverse perspectives within our vibrant school community.
Academic Articulation & Expert Vocabulary 🧠📊
Through explicit instruction and daily practice, our pupils develop into highly articulate learners:
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Subject-Specific Precision: Children draw upon a complex, rich bank of subject-specific vocabulary, allowing them to discuss their learning in Art, DT, Mathematics, History and beyond with remarkable accuracy.
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Clarity of Thought: Pupils explain and present their learning journeys clearly, demonstrating a secure grasp of the concepts they study by being able to teach, summarise and elaborate on them verbally.
Versatile Speakers for a Global Future 🎓✨
By the time pupils leave Christ Church CE Primary, they have transformed into confident, respectful and thoughtful communicators. They are fully equipped to speak to a wide range of audiences—from peers and teachers to parents and external visitors—and for a variety of purposes, including performance, debate, explanation and collaboration. This strong foundation of oracy empowers our children to navigate the wider world successfully, ensuring they enter secondary education and life as active, articulate and globally-minded citizens