Oracy
We are incredibly proud to be recognised as a Voice 21 Oracy Centre of Excellence 2025 for our work in developing students' oracy skills to become confident speakers, listeners and communicators to succeed in school and in later life.
Why Oracy Matters.
Oracy is as vital as reading, writing, and maths. By teaching our students to communicate clearly and confidently, we empower them to:
Understand themselves and others more deeply.
Build strong foundations for reading and writing.
Excel academically—students with strong oral language skills are more likely to achieve well in GCSE English and Maths.
Support their mental wellbeing—good communication skills are linked to better mental health.
Communicate with a range of audiences in a variety of contexts.
How does Oracy look at Bedgrove Junior School?
At Bedgrove Junior School, our aim is for all children to be inspired to communicate in different ways and for different purposes. This involves being able to respond to social cues and act in a respectful way whilst engaging in meaningful and purposeful discussions. Children are challenged to think critically in order to succeed, preparing themselves for a future in a fast-moving, diverse world.
As a Voice 21 Oracy Centre of Excellence, we put oracy at the heart of teaching and learning across all subjects. Research shows that speaking and listening play a key role in developing critical thinking and deeper understanding, helping students strengthen their knowledge through meaningful talk in the classroom. We support our students to become articulate and effective communicators who are able to present themselves confidently across a range of settings and contexts, from group discussions to formal presentations.
Opportunities for oracy are carefully planned, modelled and scaffolded in order to develop critical thinking. This approach helps children learn from one another, build on their ideas, better understand social cues and grow in confidence. They also learn to evaluate their own and others’ contributions using the oracy framework, becoming more aware of their roles as both listeners and speakers.
The oracy framework is broken down into 4 distinct strands – physical, cognitive, linguistic and social and emotional. We ensure that all of our teachers are equipped and feel confident to promote oracy in their classroom; to scaffold learning enabling children to become confident speakers and listeners. Within the classroom, we use a variety of strategies and resources to promote a culture for oracy including setting oracy guidelines with our classes based on the framework.
Our oracy curriculum allows children to:
Actively engage in lessons.
Use oracy to develop their learning.
Talk for different purposes and understand social cues.
Talk about how they use oracy in the classroom and choose the most appropriate role in talk.
Feel more confident to engage in discussions within the classroom.
Show they are listening to those speaking.
Adapt their talk based on their audience (exploratory and presentational talk).
Evaluate their contributions using the oracy framework.
Acquire a wide vocabulary.
The National Curriculum outlines the importance of oracy, using discussion in order to learn, elaborate and explain their understanding and ideas clearly whilst adapting their talk through tone of voice, formality, audience and purpose (presentational talk).