Oracy at Crawford Village

“Oracy develops students' confidence, articulacy and capacity to learn.  To provide a high quality oracy education empowers pupils, regardless of their background, to find their voice for success in school and in life.” Voice 21

At Crawford Village Primary School we are working with Voice 21 resources to develop our children’s Oracy skills in order to enhance their speaking and listening skills. Fundamentally, Oracy underpins the development of reading and writing and is the key to progress in all subject areas.

Oracy can be described as a combination of learning to talk and learning through talk.

We use the oracy framework that was developed by The University of Cambridge and Voice 21. This framework breaks oracy into four strands:

1. Physical

2. Cognitive

3. Linguistic

4. Social and Emotional

The framework allows both staff and pupils to understand what makes good spoken communication. The four strands enable successful discussion, inspiring speech and effective communication. The framework is used by staff to give feedback and assess progress.

Through talk in the classroom, which has been planned, designed, modelled, scaffolded and structured this will enable our children to develop and deepen their subject knowledge and understanding.

Our children participate in a wide variety of planned oracy activities across the curriculum every day.

This could be seen in class as:

• Partner talk

• Group discussion – Trios/Fish bowl

• Problem solving

• Debate

• Role play/Drama

• Presentations

• Use of STEM sentences

• Opportunites to learn and use subject specific vocabulary.

We ensure we provide a wide range of opportunities for children to develop their oracy skills outside of the curriculum.

We do this through:

• Assemblies

• Election speeches for important roles in school such as: School Council, Team Captains, Values Leaders, Sports Leaders, Cyber Ambassadors and Eco-councillors

• Class/Year group Productions

• Meet and greet with Governors and visitors

• Reading buddies

• Subject/themed events

Oracy is a powerful tool for learning; at Crawford Village Primary School we aim to encourage fluent speakers, who are confident to communicate, debate and present in a wide range of situations.  Through Oracy, we empower our children to better understand themselves and the world around them.

Examples of Oracy opportunities.

Poetry Recital at Lathom High School - Autumn 2025

Poetry Recital at Lathom High School - Autumn 2025

Children in Ks2 gave speeches to all classes in order to explain how they would be suitable for certain roles in schools. The children then voted on who they would like to represent them throughout the year.

Our Ks2 Cyber Ambassadors gave a small presentation in each class introducing AI and how we can use it to raise awareness of sustainability through the use of coding games.

They then worked with small groups to explain how to code simple instructions for a character to clean up a beach.

Class Three took part in the 'Road to Riat' sustainability project.

They had to work collaboratively in pairs and small groups to design sustainable rockets.