Oracy Lead - Miss Becca Rollason      

At St Dennis Primary Academy, we are committed to developing children's speaking and listening skills. We aim to provide children with a wide range of opportunities to speak confidently and listen attentively, supporting their overall language development and learning.

Spoken Language: We aim to develop children’s ability to express themselves clearly and confidently, using standard English where appropriate. Children will be encouraged to speak in a variety of contexts, from informal conversations to structured discussions, giving reasons for their views and opinions.

Listening and Responding: Children will learn to listen attentively to others, respond appropriately, and build on ideas in conversations and discussions. They will be taught to understand different perspectives and develop their ability to engage with others in meaningful ways.

Group Discussions and Interaction: Children will take part in discussions, collaborating with others to develop their thinking and understanding. They will be encouraged to listen to and evaluate different viewpoints, offering their own ideas in turn.

Performance and Presentation: Children will have opportunities to speak in front of an audience, whether through formal presentations, storytelling, or other performances. This will build their confidence and ability to articulate ideas clearly and effectively.

By focusing on these areas, we aim to ensure that children gain the confidence to use language effectively in all aspects of their learning and our intent is to foster an environment where speaking and listening are integral to children’s social, emotional, and academic growth.

Oracy is a key driver for our curriculum and we aim to develop the physical skills of oracy, along with the linguistic skills of vocabulary and grammar.  In turn we also aim to ensure that oracy develops thinking skills so children further their knowledge, understanding and reasoning skills.  It is also an aim to develop the social skills of being able to work co-operatively through listening and being respectful and tolerant of each other’s opinions. 

The Oracy Framework, devised by Voice 21 and Oracy Cambridge, provides us with a structure through which we can understand what constitutes good speaking and listening in different contexts.

EYFS Oracy Framework

We have decided on 'Talk Rules' that we use as a 'Guideline for Discussions' in classrooms.

The Tower Hamlets Progression in Language Structures is a framework designed to help children develop their language skills progressively throughout their education. It focuses on building the ability to structure thoughts and ideas in increasingly complex and varied ways, using appropriate language for different contexts and audiences.

As a school, we use this framework to support children in expressing themselves clearly and logically across all subjects. It provides a structured approach to developing sentence construction, vocabulary, and the use of different grammatical structures.

The language structures are progressive, meaning that as children move through the school, they are gradually introduced to more complex forms of language, which suit their developing skills and we embed these structures into daily learning across the curriculum.