Oracy

Oracy Curriculum Statement

Intent

At Netherton C of E, we want all children to believe they can grow and ‘can do it’. We believe that this includes growing and achieving in terms of our speaking and listening skills.

We aim for all learners to become confident and capable orators and listeners during their time at Netherton. We believe that although children will learn some skills through daily experience, it is important for speaking and listening skills to be taught and it not just be assumed that children will develop these skills by exposure to them.

Developing the social and emotional skills required for speaking and listening also helps enable children to express their care for and acceptance of each other: ‘I am loved’ and ‘I am accepted’.

Implementation

Our programme for Oracy is built from the National Curriculum but split into 4 key strands: Physical, Cognitive, Linguistic and Social and Emotional skills. From here, these four strands are split into progressive objectives for each year group. The programme begins in EYFS and follows through to Year 6 with the intention of children being Year 7-ready by the end of their time at Netherton C of E Primary.

Whilst some objectives are taught discretely if appropriate, these objectives are threaded through other curriculum areas to provide children with opportunities to develop age-appropriate skills against the objectives for Oracy.

Children are taught a range of ‘Talk Tactics’ that broaden and deepen as they work their way through the year groups. These are supported by both actions and key vocabulary in the form of stem sentences that are also differentiated by year group and phase. These ‘Talk Tactics’ and stem sentences are gradually being embedded across the whole life of the school to develop Oracy skills as life skills for different contexts.

Impact

As the programme embeds through school, children will have developed comprehensive skills in Oracy to support them to achieve in life and to make a difference to their success in life. Children will have developed the linguistic, cognitive, social, emotional and physical skills to be capable and confident speakers and listeners.

The Listening Ladder

The 4 Strands

Talk Tactics

Sentence Stems