This blog has been written by Jon Smedley, Founder of Teach Active and Ex Deputy Head
Everyone's talking about oracy. Here's what it actually looks like in a primary classroom, and how to get your pupils doing more of the talking.
If oracy has come up in your last three staff meetings, you're not imagining it. As a former deputy head, I know how quickly a "new priority" can land on an already full plate. So let's make this one as painless as possible.
So why is everyone suddenly talking about it?
Partly because there's a gap. The Curriculum and Assessment Review found that spoken language doesn't have a clear progression across the current English curriculum. The government has said yes to the review's call for oracy frameworks, which will come with a revised national curriculum for first teaching in September 2028. Oracy has also made its way into the teacher training and early career frameworks, and into Ofsted's inspection toolkits.
But it isn't only a policy story. The Education Endowment Foundation looked at 188 studies and found that oral language approaches add around six months' progress on average. The biggest gains were for younger pupils and those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
So it's worth doing, and it's coming either way.
What is oracy, exactly?
It's more than "pupils talking a bit more". The Oracy Framework used by many schools splits it into four strands:
- Physical: voice, pace, gesture and posture
- Linguistic: vocabulary, register and grammar
- Cognitive: organising ideas, reasoning and building on what someone else said
- Social and emotional: listening, taking turns and having the confidence to speak up
You're probably already covering more of this than you think. The tricky bit is fitting more in when the timetable's already bursting.
Three things to try this week
No new scheme needed. These slot into the English lessons you're already teaching, and each takes about five minutes.
1. Walk and talk. Before pupils write anything, pair them up and send them on a lap of the classroom (or playground) to explain their plan to their partner. By the time they sit down, they've already said it out loud, so they know what they're writing.
2. Freeze-frame and thought-track. Pupils strike a pose from a key moment in your class text. Tap one on the shoulder, and they say what their character is thinking, in role. It's a quick way to get inference out of pupils who'd never put it in writing.
3. Choose a side. Read out a statement about the text ("The wolf was right to be angry"). Pupils move to an "agree" or "disagree" spot, then have to justify their choice to someone standing on the other side. Cue lively debate.
Why moving helps
Anyone who's asked a class to "turn and talk" at 2:15 on a Friday knows how quickly it can fizzle. Movement changes the mood. Pupils who are up on their feet are usually more willing to speak. Quieter children and reluctant writers get a way in that doesn't depend on being first to put a hand up.
That's the thinking behind Active English. The KS1 and KS2 lesson plans are aligned to the national curriculum for English and built around movement. Pupils talk through ideas, read aloud and perform what they've learned as part of the lesson itself, so oracy isn't a separate add-on to squeeze in.
See it for yourself
Reading about it is one thing, but seeing it is much easier. I'd love to show you round.
Book a free online walkthrough and I'll talk you through the Teach Active dashboard and the Active English resources you'd have access to. You can ask as many questions as you like, and there's no pressure and nothing to buy.