Teach Secondary 13.8

DO THIS EMBEDTHE RULES Exercise better class control with these tips fromRobin Launder... A structured 5-step activity I’ll typically use a week into the start of a new academic year: 1. Cover your classroom rules display. Tell students they have 2 minutes in silence to write the rules down exactly as they’re written on the now concealed display. It doesn’t matter if they can’t remember the precise wording; what matters is that they’re trying to remember the wording, and thus really thinking about what the rules are. 2. Students share their written responses with a partner. 3. Ask a student to read what they’ve written for rule 1, then uncover rule 1 on the display. Thanks to steps 1 and 2, our student will be invested in finding out its exact wording. Repeat this approach until all rules are displayed, with students correcting their work along the way. 4. Ask the question, “ Which of these rules is the one that will help you learn best in this classroom? ”Allow students 30 seconds of thinking time, followed by 2 or 3 minutes of writing time. All written answers must include the word ‘because’. 5. Students share their pair work; you then select two or three pairs who will read their responses out to the class. Praise any pro-learning or pro-social points, and drill down for deeper thinking if needed. Finish by crisplymoving on to the next part of the lesson. Robin Launder is a behaviour management consultant and speaker; findmore tips in his weekly Better Behaviour online course – formore details, visit behaviourbuddy.co.uk FOCUS ON... ORACY The ability to communicate – to possess the emotional, linguistic and cognitive skills needed to express yourself and engage with others – is increasingly critical to society at large, withmany employers regularly highlighting it as one of themost important skills needed by tomorrow’s workforce. In a world that’s becoming evermore connected, and yet alsomore polarised, being able to advocate well for yourself and your community could play a crucial role in creating amore cohesive and harmonious society. The past fewyearsmay have seen the explicit teaching of such skills queried and de-prioritised in the context of wider education policy, but refreshingly, more recent developments indicate that thingsmay be starting to shift. The recent publication of ‘We Need to Talk’ – a new report fromThe Commission on the Future of Oracy Education inEngland – marks an importantmoment in the discourse surrounding the topic. The report is wide-ranging, spanning all phases of education, and highlights themany ways inwhich oracy education ought to become an established practice within classrooms. It presents evidence showing the profound impact that teaching oracy can have on young people’s outcomes – particularly those fromdisadvantaged backgrounds. For those of us in the oracy space, these arguments are very familiar. At the English- SpeakingUnion, we’ve observed countless times just howprofoundly impactful and life-changing oracy education can be in developing students’ confidence and building valuable life skills. The ‘We Need To Talk’ report describes ‘oracy education’ as having three overlapping dimensions: supporting children and young people in learning to talk, learning through talk and learning about talk. At the ESU, we’ve witnessed the remarkable ability of students to seamlessly navigate these dimensions when they participate in our programmes. An individual taking part in one of our long-standing debating or public speaking competitions, for example, must engage with the speeches of others (teammates and opponents), before considering theirmost effective response and deploying this via an appropriate formof expression and performance – all while bearing inmind the judging criteria being used to assess their choices. Students who have learned how to talk effectively through talkingwith others, and studied effective communication techniques will bemuchmore likely to succeed in our competitions (and, indeed, in the wider world). The report also advocates for an ‘oracy entitlement’ throughout a child’s education. The Commission argues that children should be given frequent opportunities to engage in four distinct ‘modes of talk’ – building understanding; debating and persuading; negotiating andmaking change; and expressive performance. Thesemodes of talk are all present within the programmes we offer at the ESU, but the people best placed tomake themostmeaningful changes for the highest proportion of students are teachers. The ESU therefore agrees with the report’s authors when it states that, “We have to accept that we need to support teachers to foster these critical communication skills in asmanymoments in the classroomand school life as possible. The ESU thus agrees with the report’s authors when it’s stated that, “Teachers need to be equippedwith the knowledge and skill required to support all students’ learning to, through and about talk, [as well as] listening and communication through professional learning, fromITT to leadership development. This cannot be confined to a one-off course, or INSET day for teachers with a particular interest in oracy.” Oracy should be developed in the practice of all teachers – not just a select few taskedwith doing so as a specialism. Through our work, the ESUhas seen how oracy development is most effective when approachedwith an holistic, whole school mindset; when a school’s leadership promotes its value and creates constant, multimodal opportunities for young people to engage with it. It’s clear to us that teachers wouldwelcome and value training in oracy, yet struggle to find the space for it. Providersmust offer support for varying timetables and budgets – but meaningful support and resourcing must also flow fromgovernment policy. The ESU looks forward to the outcome of the curriculumand assessment review currently being undertaken by Professor Becky Francis and her colleagues.We hope it will support the Commission’s oracy recommendations, and that this in turnwill help galvanise the government into helping education leaders prioritise oracy in their settings. THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING UNION SUPPORTS YOUNG PEOPLE IN BUILDING THE SPEAKING AND LISTENING SKILLS THEY NEED TO THRIVE; FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT ESU.ORG 84 teachwire.net/secondary