Speaking and listening
Intent:
At Wellington Primary School in Hounslow, where over 90% of our students are English as an Additional Language (EAL) learners, our curriculum is rich in oracy opportunities, emphasizing knowledge, skills, experiences, and vocabulary. We are committed to using purposeful dialogue throughout our school to enhance learning. Through planned, modelled, scaffolded, and structured talk, we help all learners develop effective and confident communication skills. Our explicit teaching of oracy supports progress in the physical, linguistic, cognitive, and social & emotional strands, ensuring children can speak coherently and politely in their everyday experiences, effectively communicating their thoughts.
The Oracy Framework
We utilise the Voice 21 Oracy Framework where the four strands are interwoven throughout all subjects within the curriculum to build solid foundations across our curriculum and equip our children with the tools they will need to become confident speakers and communicators.
Through the framework, planned lessons are expected to be talk-rich and opportunities for partner and group talk are carefully built into each lesson plan.
Through the use of targeted questioning and assessment for learning tools, ensure all children are able to fully participate and every voice is valued. Subject specific vocabulary is provided in lesson plans in order to support children in working on collaborative projects, group discussion and debate or oral presentations.
Progression of Oracy
Together with the framework and DfE guidelines, we ensure children progress within their speaking and listening abilities. The use of carefully selected vocabulary and sentence stems enable children to rehearse talk in the classroom to become confident speakers. The use of ‘think, pair, share’, ‘say it again better’ and modelled talk by adults is fundamental to our talk centered child centered classroom environments.
Oracy Opportunities
At Wellington we aim to provide our children with a range of opportunities to develop their speaking and listening skills. These include -
- Taking part in presentations in school
- Through ‘hot topic’ discussions in the classroom and through debate clubs
- Drama activities including; Hot Seating, conscience alley and Mantel of the Expert, Role Play
- Exploring a Text through Performance and performance poetry
- Reading allowed and responding to questioning
- Cross curricular exploratory talk in maths, and foundation subjects
- Weekly Talking Tigers & Listening Lions (KS1) and Talk Tuesdays (KS2)
