At Willingham Primary School, we believe that spoken language is a vital tool for life. Oracy – the ability to communicate effectively through speaking and listening – supports children to express their ideas clearly, listen with understanding, and engage confidently with others. Strong early language skills empower children to think, reason, and build positive relationships with their peers. High-quality Oracy lessons also build children’s confidence, self-belief, and provide them with the social-emotional skills to collaborate and problem-solve in all future endeavours. 

In every year group, Oracy is planned into all aspects of the day and through explicit teaching. Using the Voice 21 Oracy Framework, teachers plan thoughtful lessons on one of the four strands: physical, linguistic, cognitive and social emotional. Physical skills are associated with pace, tone, projection, and body language like eye contact and gesture. Linguistic skills are about developing register, grammar and vocabulary choice. The cognitive strand is about appropriate questioning, giving reasons to support views and the ability to structure arguments and opinions. Finally, the social and emotional strand focuses on working with others, being a confident speaker, and having an awareness of different audiences. 

In Oracy lessons, children are taught to articulate themselves clearly and express their ideas through planned talking activities. Through opportunities such as discussion, performance, and class debates, children develop their own voices and know how to speak with purpose. Oracy lends itself to all subjects; from explaining a science investigation to reasoning in maths.  

Our aim at Willingham is to develop articulate learners who can share their thoughts, listen respectfully and communicate effectively in a range of situations. By placing oracy at the heart of our curriculum, we are preparing our pupils not only for success in school, but for life beyond the classroom.