Teach-Primary-Issue-19.3

To really see a boost in oracy skills in your classroom, be the change you want to see, says Tamsin Duckett ... W e all know that oracy skills are crucial for children’s academic and personal development; not only do they promote academic achievement, and help close the attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils, but they also play an important role in bridging cultural and linguistic divides. Being able to articulate their feelings and meaningfully engage with their peers also improves pupils’ mental health and wellbeing. All of these factors are hugely important to ensure children flourish and thrive. Employers also rank communication as one of the most important skills for employability ( tinyurl.com/ tp-SkillsDemand ). However, since the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the amount of time pupils (and teachers!) have been able to spend with one another, there has been an increased emphasis on developing the ‘lost’ communication skills for a generation of children. While the government reviews the national curriculum and promises to embed oracy as a vital component, at the Chelmsford Learning Partnership, we have already taken steps to guarantee that all our teachers have a strong understanding of the strategies they need to develop pupils’ oracy skills, and have dedicated our Trust-wide Continuous Personal Development (CPD) sessions this year to oracy. On the same page As a teacher, you know that oracy is more than the ability to speak; it encompasses the physical, linguistic, cognitive and social aspects of communication. At our Trust, we have began the journey of using the Oracy Skills Framework ( tinyurl. com/tp-OSF ) to provide a comprehensive roadmap for how all our teachers can support pupils across the Trust to develop their oracy skills. Designed as a tool to support the explicit teaching of oracy, the framework – which is broken down into “Oracy encompasses the physical, linguistic, cognitive and social aspects of communication” Talking THE TALK 28 | www.teachwire.net