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Oracy
Intent
At Thurgoland CE Primary School, we believe that every child should develop the confidence, language and communication skills to express themselves, understand others and participate fully in learning and life.
Our Christian vision, “To be, and become, your Best Self,” underpins our approach to oracy. We want every child to develop the confidence to find and use their voice, express themselves, listen to and value others and grow in confidence as a communicator.
We believe that every voice should be heard and valued. Oracy provides children with opportunities to develop their communication skills through speaking and listening, helping them to express their thoughts and feelings, build relationships, deepen their learning and participate confidently in school and the wider community.
Oracy is a golden thread running through our curriculum and pedagogy. We see talk not simply as an outcome to be taught, but as a powerful tool through which children think, learn, make connections, develop vocabulary, rehearse ideas and learn with and from others.
Our approach begins with Strong Foundations in Communication and Language, developing the attention, listening, interaction and vocabulary skills that underpin future learning. These foundations develop progressively into opportunities to reason, explain, question, discuss, present, perform and communicate for different purposes and audiences.
Through Talk in the Early Years, Talk for Learning and Talk for Life, we develop children who can communicate confidently, think deeply, build positive relationships and contribute positively to their school, community and wider world.
A golden Thread
Oracy is a golden thread running through our curriculum and pedagogy. It is deliberately embedded across subjects and throughout school life, with pupils taught to use talk effectively while also using talk as a tool for learning.
Our approach is underpinned by consistent whole-school practice, including explicit modelling, purposeful questioning, structured talk, oral rehearsal, deliberate vocabulary development, sentence stems and appropriate scaffolding. These approaches support pupils to develop their thinking, communicate their understanding and learn with and from others.
Talk in the Early Years
Our approach begins with Talk in the Early Years, establishing Strong Foundations in Communication and Language. Adults create language-rich environments, model high-quality language, develop vocabulary and support attention, listening and sustained interaction.
Children experience purposeful opportunities for conversation, storytelling, role play, Talk Through Stories and sustained shared thinking. Adults use high-quality interactions to support children to develop turn-taking, sentence building, questioning and the confidence to express their ideas.
These Strong Foundations provide the basis for the progressive development of oracy throughout the school.
For this reason, Talk in the Early Years is a crucial pillar in our framework. Ensuring that young children are immersed in a language-rich environment, with repeated reads, purposeful adult interactions, and opportunities for structured and free-flowing talk, lays the groundwork for their future educational success. Research also suggests that children from disadvantaged backgrounds particularly benefit from high-quality communication-focused individual and group work, making this approach vital for closing gaps in achievement (Hart, B., & Risley, T.R. 2003).
Talk For Life
Oracy supports children’s personal, social and emotional development as well as their academic learning.
Through structured conversation, reflection and restorative approaches, pupils develop the language and confidence to express their thoughts and feelings, listen to others, manage differences and build positive relationships.
Journalling and reflective opportunities provide pupils with structured opportunities to consider experiences, articulate feelings, reflect on relationships and develop the language needed to resolve difficulties constructively.
Pupils also develop their communication skills through wider opportunities including pupil voice, school leadership, assemblies, presentations, performances, visitors and community experiences.
Talk For Learning
Across the school, teachers deliberately plan and model opportunities for pupils to use talk to support learning.
This includes:
- purposeful partner talk and carefully considered pairings
- structured talk routines such as Partner A and Partner B, Think-Pair-Share, Wave, Nest and Popcorn
- explicit modelling of high-quality spoken language
- purposeful questioning and thinking time
- oral rehearsal before recording or writing
- structured discussion and opportunities to build on others’ ideas
- sentence stems and other appropriate scaffolds
- opportunities to explain, reason, justify and challenge respectfully
These approaches provide consistency across the school while allowing teachers to select the most appropriate strategy for the learning and the pupils.
Vocabulary is a key part of our oracy curriculum.
Sticky Words are deliberately selected and explicitly taught across subjects. Pupils hear, discuss, rehearse, retrieve and apply important vocabulary repeatedly so that it becomes part of their active language.
Vocabulary is not taught simply as a list of words to remember. Pupils are supported to use new language in meaningful talk, enabling them to articulate increasingly sophisticated ideas and make stronger connections across their learning.
Sentence stems provide an additional scaffold where appropriate, supporting pupils to explain, reason, compare, challenge, agree, reflect and build on the ideas of others. These scaffolds are gradually reduced as pupils become more confident and independent communicators.
Talk is deliberately used to deepen learning across the curriculum.
Pupils use talk to:
- explore and develop ideas
- rehearse language and thinking
- explain processes and reasoning
- ask and answer questions
- develop and apply subject-specific vocabulary
- solve problems collaboratively
- discuss and evaluate different viewpoints
- make connections between prior and new learning
- reflect on and articulate what they have learned
Teachers use pupils’ spoken responses as part of formative assessment, identifying misconceptions, extending thinking and adapting teaching accordingly.
Values that are at the heart of Thurgoland
"Be, and become, your BEST SELF!"
Getting here
Halifax Road
Thurgoland
Sheffield
S35 7AL
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