Teach Primary Issue 19.6

F EATURE S RE A L S CHOO L S www.teachwire.net | 55 There are also children who share classes, and come from countries that are historically hostile to one another. “We don’t shy away from difficult conversations,” adds Joanna. “We address them head-on and move forward together. It’s essential for building healthy relationships – not just professionally, but personally.” Tell me more... However, it’s not just rules for conversation that comprise the oracy focus. Rokesly teachers – under Madeleine’s guidance – provide sentence stems modelling enquiry, to help pupils cultivate their own curiosity and information literacy. “We embed big questions into our curriculum,” says Joanna, “in every subject, but especially in disciplines like history and geography, where there’s typically more room for discovery. We encourage pupils to connect knowledge with their own opinions and discuss them openly.” Debate also lends itself to nurturing curiosity, tying in the children’s perspectives of what they’re learning, along with important information literacy techniques. To this end, discussion is built in across the curriculum. Joanna explains: “You’ll see it in RE and history – like when children debate who was the greatest queen in British history; it’s not just about facts, but about understanding perspectives, and how narratives change over time.” Nurturing curiosity nurtures creativity, too, argues Bola, and all the staff in school are keen to remind the children that learning is a lifelong process; not something that stops when you leave school. That also requires teachers to be OK saying they don’t know something, Bola says. “Sometimes we’ll check answers later or research together with the pupils, depending on the context,” she explains, noting that the former option requires stringent rules about turning off the class screen before Googling anything, just in case something untoward slips through the school’s filtering system. But as long as those measures are in place, Bola continues, “admitting uncertainty is powerful”. It takes a certain amount of confidence and security in your own knowledge and identity to admit that you don’t know something, especially when you’re in a position of authority like a teacher. But this is part of the oracy focus, here. Not only are children taught how to be polite, respectful and coherent in their arguments, but they are supported to have the confidence to speak up in the first place. And it seems that pupils are certainly not afraid to say what they think. “I had a great example the other day,” says Joanna. “We’re a very multicultural school, and one of our displays shows a map of the world with pins in it to show the countries that our pupils and their families come from. I was fixing a pin on it, and a Y4 child came up to me and explained that we didn’t have a pin for Columbia, and then started telling me all about his views on America and Columbia. His opinions were shaped by family and home life, and he felt confident sharing them. It shows children are listening, absorbing, and forming ideas early on.” Walk the talk It’s easy to see this kind of learning in practice, too. Walking through classrooms at Rokesly, it’s clear that children are engaged, and – mostly – genuinely interested in what they’re being taught. A science lesson in Madeleine’s Y3 class sheds light on how the sentence stems and talk rules work in real life. Children are shown three images on the board – one of a spider on a flower, one of a ladybird perched on a petal, and one of a butterfly, also on a flower. Referring back to their previous science lesson on pollination, Madeleine asks the children which image they think might be the odd one out. Pupils have time to discuss the question in their ‘talk trios’ (another feature of the oracy framework based on feedback from the children – some felt pairs put too much pressure on them to say a lot) and then Madeleine brings them all back together to discuss. Hands shoot up when asked to explain what they think, and we hear from a few pupils, all of whom use the sentence stems that are stuck to the wall under the board to structure their arguments, including things like “I think... because”, and “I can see why OUR ROKESLY FAMI LY Having the opportunity to hear about different cultures and languages is a central part of the celebration of all things oracy at Rokesly. This includes the children having the chance, twice a year, to take part in a class assembly that celebrates their family’s culture and language. The assemblies are presented to the whole school, and families are invited along, too. Sometimes, the children will start by saying hello and good morning in their home language, so it truly showcases all the wonderful cultures that make the school such a vibrant place. “I really wanted children in our school to have an appreciation and understanding of different dialects, languages and accents,” says oracy lead Madeleine Clinton, “because so many of our children have very different backgrounds. That’s part of what makes our school amazing.” “We encourage students to connect knowledge with their own opinions and discuss them openly”