Oracy

Oracy at Whitby Heath

One of the main objectives we have this year and in our long term plan is to develop children's oracy. We have entered into a 3 year partnership programme with Voice 21, an organisation that grew from research conducted by Cambridge University and the Education Endowment Foundation. We believe oracy is an important life skill for us to develop in our children before they leave us and head off to high school and eventually the workplace. Over the past year we have been subtlety weaving oracy into lessons and our partnership with Voice 21 will strengthen staff expertise in doing so even further. Talking partners, thinking time, answer rehearsal time, etc are all now teaching techniques our staff use in lessons to give children a chance to organise their thoughts, and practice talking through answers before sharing them with the class.

The benefits of teaching oracy techniques to children goes beyond speaking and listening though - we should also see additional academic benefits, such as in their Writing, and in their relationships with each other as they learn to listen to each other more intently and understand each other's points of view. If you would like to know more about Oracy and Voice 21, please click the link: https://voice21.org/what-is-oracy/