Oracy
Oracy at St Chad’s
Across St Chad’s, developing and teaching children oracy skills is an important aspect of classroom learning. To support our children, we continue to teach children to talk and teach through talk. The ability to communicate well is the number one skill that employers look for, yet speaking and listening in schools has not always been a high priority. Many other countries, with high levels of educational achievement recognise and champion the importance of developing children’s oracy skills. Here at St. Chad’s, we recognise that communication skills should be valued and taught explicitly to our children.
The Four Areas of the Oracy Framework
Across the school, children have been taught oracy skills weekly within an English lesson. These skills are now being further developed throughout curriculum lessons. We follow an Oracy skills progression map which focuses in on the 4 key areas of the Oracy Framework, which are:
- Social and Emotional
- Physical
- Cognitive
- Linguistic
The Oracy progression map used across the school clearly develops particular skills in our children which enables them to become confident within this skill as they progress through the school.
How do we support the teaching of Oracy within lessons?
Alongside the weekly oracy lesson, children have a range of different support systems to help develop their understanding of subject-specific vocabulary.
Knowledge Organisers
Children are provided with knowledge organisers within a range of curriculum subjects to support them with their understanding of particular knowledge, alongside the development of subject-specific vocabulary.
![](https://www.stchadsprimaryschool.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Knowledge-Organiser-768x531.jpg)
Subject-Specific Vocabulary Progressions
Across curriculum subjects, vocabulary progressions have been introduced to identify which key subject-specific words will be introduced in which academic year. This enables children to build on their understanding of key vocabulary throughout their time learning at St Chad’s. Subject-specific vocabulary can be found on knowledge organisers and working walls within the classroom environment.
Multi-Sensory Learning Approaches
To ensure that all children learn within an inclusive learning environment, teachers use a range of multi-sensory learning approaches to enable all children to make progress. Many of these multi-sensory approaches require children to use their oracy skills that they continue to develop and work as a team to achieve the learning objective.