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This is long for a blog but it felt essential to include some of the highly significant quotes found throughout the report.

The Oracy Education Commission Report was released on Tuesday 8th October to a wide and eagerly awaiting audience. Many schools and senior leaders are still growing and developing their understanding of what oracy actually is and the implications for future teaching and classroom practice. Many consultants, like myself, and presumably also many academics, were wondering whether the findings of the commission would support or conflict with already formed opinions and recommendations. We need not have worried. The report is a liberal summation of the opinions and findings of the majority and there is little to conflict or negate authentic existing practice.

There are, however, just three areas I would appreciate further clarification and possibly exploration around. They are the matters of the definition of:

• What is oracy?
• Why should oracy be actually taught pro-actively in schools?
• How should that be done for the best outcomes for children?

The answers to these questions will then inform the decisions and future actions of teacher trainers and school leaders as they move forward to address this sensitive but vital inclusion in the curriculum – the fourth R!

Let me open by listing the many aspects of the report that I found particularly encouraging, reassuring or even exciting, and express the few concerns I have as I go along.

A huge strength of the report is the frequent inclusion of the words of actual teaching practitioners on many levels, and – for me in my work – the thoroughness and creativity with which so many primary practitioners are empowering pupils in the gift of choice is both moving and humbling. As teachers, it is not our job to challenge the opinions of linguists, but many of us do keep abreast with the world of academia to strengthen our beliefs and for confirmation and justification. I particularly valued:

Oracy education should [..include] learning about talk, particularly the sociolinguistics of code-switching, to raise awareness of the validity of effective communication in multiple spoken Englishes. THE ENGLISH ASSOCIATION, WRITTEN EVIDENCE TO THE COMMISSION (P18)

I loved the statement at the opening of the report that:

There is very strong evidence that oracy education helps children in learning to, through and about talk, listening and communication. (P5)

This is not, in itself, a definition but is rather a statement of fact that justifies the opinion that oracy must become the fourth R, on a parallel with reading, writing and arithmetic. On pages 14 and 28, the report provides its definition of oracy saying that:

Oracy is: articulating ideas, developing understanding and engaging with others through speaking, listening and communication.

My personal research and opinions remain that oracy is this and so much more than this – and also so much less! The report appears to define oracy as the general aim of talk and communication rather than as a specific – that is the process towards oration and oratory. It identifies, in the need for change:

To realise the promise of oracy education, we need to adopt a shared definition and common understanding of what oracy is, and where to locate it in our education ecosystem. (P18)

I do so agree with this and feel there is more work to do in this area as we are not quite there yet.

The quoting of Sir Robin Alexander, whose inspirational work on dialogic teaching failed to create the impact and change that it deserved, which would have seen the initiation of the implementation of oracy through an alternative approach, was pleasing.

Dialogic teaching is a ‘pedagogy of the spoken word which harnesses the power of talk to stimulate and extend students’ thinking, learning, knowing and understanding, and to enable them to discuss, reason and argue. (P15)

Oracy also aspires to ‘harness the power of talk’ to inspire, excite, convey and convince through the passion of communication. This exciting process could benefit from a definition that is slightly more than speaking and listening.

The report goes on to say that:

The study of speech and debate (perhaps through the study of rhetoric) is a key aspect of oracy education. Complementing their subject-led learning, these practices help students to explore the relationship between persuasion, argumentation and evidence. They learn how arguments can be evaluated in relation to reason; knowledge or fact; and community or audience. As such, speech and debate provide opportunities for students to develop critical thinking and reasoning skills that are of benefit across all curricular learning, and to active citizenship both at school and in later life. (P15)

Here, the report is surely describing a process that includes but is so much more than:

articulating ideas, developing understanding and engaging with others through speaking, listening and communication

Indeed, all the modes of talk listed on page 32 can be pursued equally effectively as both plain talk or as oratory.

I very much agree with the immediate acknowledgement at the opening of the report that the effectiveness of oracy must start from talk, the acknowledgement that the impact of teaching and developing language skills – ideally from birth in the home but this has proved to be sadly not always the case – and thus it is essential from a very young age and/or as soon as children enter the Early Years of education. It says:

we believe that alongside reading, writing and arithmetic, oracy is the fourth ‘R’: an essential, foundational building block to support our young people on their journey towards living fulfilling adult lives. (P5)

I did, however, find there is still a little confusion as to whether this crucial early development of talk and listening skills is actually the first stage of oracy or an essential preliminary other.

On page 7 the report states:

We know that oracy education is not a panacea that can address all the challenges experienced by our children and young people or the weaknesses of our education system. It is neither a quick-fix, nor an intervention that can simply be added as an appendage to the prevailing ways of educating our children and young people.

Yet it also states emphatically that oracy does enable additional informed choices that can change people’s lives. I very much, therefore, appreciated the quotation from Barbara Bleiman, (2024):

Studying spoken language can empower students to make informed choices about their language and communication and understand the impact of these choices. It can also help them analyse and appraise the speech choices of others. (P14)

Children and young people should learn about listeners’ perceptions and consider how race, class, and other speaker characteristics influence what we hear and why. (P15)

The key word, for me, when working in this area is ‘choice’. If pupils are not taught the codes of language, about language and about the purposes of codes of language they are not empowered to make choices. Pupils move through school intuitively code switching for purpose and impact, but if there is a code that they are denied access to for fear of bigotry or discrimination or judgemental behaviour, their choices and resulting opportunities – especially in adulthood – may be seriously limited.

The opening paragraph on page 20 may illustrate the difficulties of summing up a complex process in a brief definition. It could be read as indicating a difference between talk per se and oracy, when it says ‘Oracy is also a …’:

Talk is a feature of every classroom and educational setting. Harnessed effectively for learning, it enhances cognition and improves outcomes. Oracy is also a curricular object and educational end itself. It can be nurtured, taught, demonstrated and applied through explicit instruction, planned authentic learning experiences, as well as teachable moments.

Yet rereading suggests it could purely be using ‘also’ as a further qualifier rather than as an addition. The final findings of the paragraph advocate embedding oracy from ‘the earliest stage’, but many teachers would advise that the job of teaching talk, the purposes of talk, learning to talk and through talk and to listen to and absorb the talk of others – responding and learning from it appropriately – are huge targets in their own right and involve many hours of planned, quality discourse throughout and across the curriculum from the moment of entry to education. Is oracy simply a progression on this journey of talk? In which case why give it a new title and more importance than the other stages? Or is it an extension in its own right? In which case must its definition be more specific to inform effective planning, preparation and implementation?

It was inevitable that the old chestnut, ‘Standard English’, would be obliged to raise its head once more. We are all aware that Standard English is no more than one of the many codes of speech found in English and that it is no better or worse than any other code, however it is the agreed code for public communication and publication and as such it is extremely important that pupils should have the choice of deploying it.

It is important to remember that speaking in Standard English is not the same as speaking with Received Pronunciation (‘talking posh’). Standard English purely means speaking with the agreed standard form of grammar and pronunciation. Speaking with an accent doesn’t mean you are not speaking or can not speak Standard English.

The purpose of teaching Standard English in primary schools is to enable pupils to write in Standard English when required. The premise that teaching children to speak in Standard English for purpose is not the way to ensure children can then write in Standard English, is flawed. If the child can say it, the child can write it – providing speech and writing are part of their portfolio of skills. In nearly sixty years of teaching and advising I have never found a more effective way to teach language constructions than through talk – and I have always worked hard to ensure I trial fairly every new hypothesis put forward. Use of qualifiers such as ‘sometimes’ and ‘in some cases’ when mentioning bad practice (P45) does not justify a failure to empower those who will not receive this gift of choice naturally, providing this is done in a culture of embracing and respecting all codes of speech. Using the bad practice of a few is not justification for refusal to teach an important aspect of the curriculum. If it were, very little would be taught. I felt that re-introducing the right to choice here would have brought balance to the perspective.

I opened by stating that there were three areas I would appreciate further clarification and possibly exploration around.

• What is oracy? I believe the answer is that it is both a progression and an appendix to talk and as such it requires informed pro-active teaching.
• Why should oracy be actually taught pro-actively in schools? Because children everywhere have the right to be given the full range of codes of speech to enable present and future choices that will empower and enable success. Most codes are learnt naturally through life experience, but for many children exposure to both oratory and Standard English are not natural and will only be acquired through planned and informed classroom activity.
• How should this be done to achieve the best outcomes for children? Through regular – and when necessary repetitive – teaching and application of skills within and across learning, preferably in enjoyable and stimulating contexts. There are many interesting and helpful quotations of good practice within subjects and contexts throughout the report, and yet every one of these applies elements of oracy to a particular subject that could – in reality – be applied universally in every subject and context with skillful planning.

The final paragraph on ‘What needs to change’ states:

Children should be taught to explore their language choices and make conscious, informed decisions about how to communicate effectively in different contexts. As a result, the oracy components of a revised National Curriculum should emphasise the value of different dialects and ways of communicating and avoid placing undue emphasis on ‘standard English’ or ‘fluency.’ The aim of learning to talk, listen and communicate should be to support all young people to increase their repertoire of speaking, listening and communication skills, rather than to adopt one particular form of spoken language. (P47)

Perhaps this excellent ending to a thorough and comprehensive report could acknowledge that the role of the teacher when addressing language is to cross those boundaries between speech and writing, emphasising the need for confident conscious use of Standard English when required, at the same time as valuing and celebrating all personal codes of speech deployed for purpose. The report correctly acknowledges that many children enter school with little or no grasp of Standard English, which remains an essential for future success. This must also be one of the codes in a pupil’s repertoire of choices for purpose and as such, must continue to be taught in schools.

When the Oracy Commission’s report is accepted into practice, I sincerely hope that the answers to these questions and dichotomies will have been clarified and agreed so that they may then inform the decisions and future actions of teacher trainers and school leaders as they move forward to address this sensitive but vital extension of the curriculum – the fourth R!

In the meantime, warmest congratulations to Geoff Barton and the Commission for an outstanding piece of potential oratory; for all the hours of hard work, conversations, thought, effort and decisions committed to present so comprehensive a document. May it be the forerunner of greatly increased clarity and vision that leads the world of education and the population of the future to effective lasting change.

Read the full report here.

Find out more about oracy.

Order Oracy Is Not Just Speaking and Listening.

It really is like a birthday when the first copies of your new book arrive! On August 29th we celebrated a birthday – in a very large cardboard box.

‘Oracy is Not Just Speaking and Listening’ was conceived in April 2024 and written between June and September. It was not hard to write as I had researched and generated almost all the content over the previous year or more in the context of my work supporting schools and organisations.

Natural birth is always painful without intervention by others. It is the culmination of a period of preparation, growth and development that is enhanced – usually – by anticipation and some excitement. The last weeks, however, may be very painful with constant monitoring, checking, proofing, reading and re-reading, editing and worrying until at last someone has to say ‘enough is enough’ – let’s do this thing. Then we commit…

I am so fortunate in the colleague I work with when publishing. Richard is calm, focused and with an eye as sharp as a razor in the final proofing stages. This is important because – although I am a very effective proof reader – all who write will tell you that you can’t proof your own work without something slipping past you. Even with three thorough reads by each of us, Talk:Write still has one very small slip in it which I only spotted very recently. Has anyone else found it yet?

This latest book is not intended as an academic tome or an anthology of research, although it does contain sufficient information about the roots of the term ‘oracy’ to justify the interpretation of this terminology as closely as possible to the way Andrew Wilkinson intended when he created the concept in 1965 and also to the later research of others, including Rupert Knight. The confusion of interpretations, definitions and opinions that exist today will hopefully be resolved by the National Oracy Commission when their work is done. Geoff Barton is a great thinker and leader. I look forward to the commission’s findings with interest. In the meantime, I am confident that the interpretation of ‘oracy’ portrayed in this book is as close to the original intention of the creator as is possible.

Besides de-mystifying the term ‘oracy’ however, the new book provides clear strategies and guidance for effective launch of oracy in a school. This includes ways to make it enjoyable and even fun whilst ensuring that all codes of speech are respected and protected. Our aim is not to change children’s daily speech, but rather to empower them to make choices about how they speak in different situations. The choices they make and the situations they choose to deploy them in are down to the children themselves. My aim is to see pupils enter the adult world of employment and enterprise as individuals with choices, and when they feel the time and situation is right – adults who are empowered to switch smoothly and naturally into powerful oratory that is passionate, persuasive, emotive, informed and detailed.

But when that birthday box is opened, and we first see the product – the fruits of our labour – aims and aspirations are forgotten. It is a moment of pure excitement that focuses solely on the product. And what a moment that was! What a cover and graphics! What simple and effective layout. I love it and I hope that all of you who have already bought it will love it too.

Thank you to you all, Ros

Find out more about oracy.

I was sent a link to an ongoing discussion on Twitter about the ethics of teaching children who do not speak in Standard English to do so. There are clearly many people who feel great sensitivity around this area – and that is totally understandable.

One of the schools I work most closely with is in an area of massive deprivation, with almost the entire pupil body speaking either in strong Yorkshire accents or with cultural ones. Their teachers and support staff, most of whom also speak with regional accents (although less than half the teachers are from Yorkshire, while all the support staff are from the locality of the school) have embraced the necessities of children learning to speak in the standardised form of English. They have long used my maxim: ‘If a child can’t say it, a child can’t write it,’ and this is now modified to:

‘If a child can’t say it in Standard English, a child can’t write it in Standard English.’

Children must learn to speak confidently and articulately in Standard English if they are to think in the standard form and therefore write, proof and edit in it, but this does NOT mean that they can no longer enjoy and celebrate their own local accent.

The risk of offence or humiliation for children in learning Standard English is not the ‘what’ but the ‘how’. By including the standardised form of English as one of the ‘codes of speech’ pupils will hear around them in their lives – whether in shops, in restaurants, on streets, on transport, on television or on other media – and teaching children to respect all these forms of speech, the stigmas are removed and the elitism is eradicated. We then teach them to switch easily between forms (this is called code switching) whilst having fun – often through role play and performance – and with practice this becomes a smooth transition from their own home accent into other forms of their choice for purpose, but always including models that are entirely in Standard English.

Sadly, some in the profession have not yet understood that Standard English may still be spoken with a regional accent – it purely means that all grammar and pronunciation will be accurate. Where alternative grammatical and vocabulary forms exist that are not in the accepted standard form, speech becomes a dialect (again, a wonderful thing to be celebrated. I love Yorkshire dialects).

Included in the children’s increased repertoire of readily-available forms of speech, however, will also be ‘received pronunciation’ – or the accent of many of the highly educated or the wealthy – formerly known as ‘BBC English’. This is treated purely as another code of speech in their repertoire, and children will use it in role play, drama and presentations in the same way as they will use other codes. We have renamed this code ‘School Speak’ in our oracy programme, and encourage schools to modify that to the name of the school (for example, Roundwood Speak) if they so choose.

Thus, we make ‘School Speak’ an inclusive form that every child and adult in the school will use when asked – whether as the sustained form of speech for all throughout one or more entire lessons a day, or for specific purposes such as a debate, a performance (for example, of poetry) or as a particular character in role play. ALL children sharing the same speech form for the same purposes at the same time… equality with mutual respect – and then all children reverting to the daily speech code of their choice… again, equality with mutual respect!

I have just enjoyed writing a short book for publication as a PDF to help schools to launch and support development of powerful oratory in their schools with dignity. This very affordable book will include resources to support teachers and pupils in developing their exciting and highly entertaining orations for school gatherings and celebrations. More information will be available on our website soon.

Through this means of embedding School Speak in fun and dramatic performances, children will find, as time progresses, that switching from their daily voice, local accent or ‘street talk’ into an impressive form of oratory when appropriate, to be a natural and rewarding experience that will support them in their life as they represent their class, their school and their family, as they attend interviews and as they interact with people of other speech forms in the wider world.

There is no shame in this achievement – only joy and celebration of choice and flexibility. Where else will children develop this empowering and life-changing skill? The clue is in the name – ‘teachers’. We are the teachers, we should empower and enable without being made to feel shame or derision.

Only a week or so ago, a secondary teacher tweeted explaining how he modelled speaking in modified standard English, using sophisticated features and in expressive tones of respect and oration when speaking to all his students in school, and how so many were beginning to reply in a similar vein, modifying their local ‘street talk’ without the need for judgmental comment or potentially humiliating teaching. I wonder, sometimes, whether all our secondary colleagues – who we value so highly – are aware of how hard we work to prepare our pupils for secondary education?

We TEACH them…

…and so often a challenging aspect of learning in one phase of education later becomes a revisit – reawakening memories that are deep seated in the sub-conscious and enabling them to be refreshed, extended and invigorated with the maturity of the years and giving the impression of an ease of learning that belies the hard work of the previous phases.

Never feel shame about teaching children something that could potentially enrich and reform their life opportunities, for we all know that TEACHERS MAKE THE DIFFERENCE.

Find out more about oracy.

I visit schools who are doing ‘oracy’ and I see speaking and listening! Mind you – I am so pleased to see children conversing and teachers asking a wealth of interesting questions – but it ain’t oracy. Speaking and listening is valuable; oracy is valuable – they overlap and have elements in common – but they are different. It remains confusing because, inevitably, you see and hear one in the other and vice versa and often the boundaries are very blurred.

So, what IS oracy and how do I know what it isn’t when so many great teachers and leaders think they are ‘doing’ it? Well, to be fair it has taken me over two years and a lot of hard work to come up with an answer that may solve that mystery.

You see, Andrew Wilkinson did not know the answer himself when he came up with the terminology in 1965. How can you create a new ‘something’ to teach children when you do not yet know what the ‘something’ is? It is important to be able to define your vision before you attempt to communicate it to others. That is why new thinking and new ideas often have slow and shaky starts until the definition is crystal.

Wilkinson’s aspiration was good, however, he wanted to raise the profile of talk and language so that it was NOT just speaking and listening. He created the name ‘oracy’ to put his new aspiration on a par with numeracy and literacy and he developed a massive and much underrated national initiative to promote it, but he still didn’t know what it was and neither did most of the country.

There is so much written about the cruciality of oracy, and I have read much of it, but nowhere do you truly understand what it means. Voice 21 has established itself as an authority, saying;

We believe that schools have the power to change a child’s life and create a fairer society. We support schools to build oracy into learning, the curriculum and wider school life. Oracy is the ability to speak and listen in a range of different contexts – one-to-one, in groups and to a larger audience. Oracy skills set children up for success in school and life.

So what is it? Well, perhaps Voice 21 is close to defining ‘oracy’ when it tells you what you will see and hear in schools they work with:

In Voice 21 schools, you will hear students solving problems collaboratively in maths and dissecting arguments in history, talking through conflicts in the playground and leading assemblies.

So close to a definition – but not! Was Andrew Wilkinson influenced by Sir Evelyn Wrench when the latter said that effective discussion and communication had four components:

• reasoning and evidence;
• organisation and presentation;
• listening and response;
• expression and delivery.

Wrench, a former journalist, had seen his original international communication organisations morph into the promotion of discussion and communication between young people around the world in order that they might better understand each other and show mutual respect by the mid-1960s, before he died.

Wrench (1882 to 1966) saw international co-operation and communication as crucial for world peace and his summary of the four components for his aspirations possibly reflect the aims of Voice 21:

Voice 21 sets out four strands of oracy – Physical, Linguistic, Cognitive and Social and Emotional. The ‘physical’ includes elements such as voice projection, using eye contact and gesture. ‘Linguistic’ involves using appropriate vocabulary and choosing the right language for different occasions; ‘cognitive’ is about organising the content of your speech and ‘social and emotional ’ includes working with others, taking turns and developing confidence in speaking.

Ah, now it is becoming clearer. In identifying the four components of communication promoted through his work, he was embracing the best of speaking and listening – a best that verges on oracy and sometimes becomes it.

Wilkinson’s aspirations for the National Oracy Project (1987 to 1993) were established as a key contribution to the early National Curriculum. However, Wilkinson himself struggled to define the term – eventually coming up with a statement he immediately felt was inadequate for the job. In his own words, Wilkinson said that oracy was;

…the verbalisation of experience.

As he promptly acknowledged his dissatisfaction with this, a colleague suggested that perhaps it was rather;

…the experience of verbalisation…

whereupon Wilkinson seized the diametric and married the two. I read them, I understood them, but I knew not what they meant.

I was extremely fortunate to be invited to participate in the Bradford strand of the National Oracy Project upon my return to the United Kingdom in 1986 after 17 years in the Caribbean. I had no training, no induction or introduction, no materials and attended no meetings but I much enjoyed working with my 13-year-old Middle School pupils on communication skills and we all developed a passion for the huge effectiveness of talk, debate and discussion on our studies. We ‘did’ speaking and listening in the best sense of the word. We talked endlessly about the power of talk and the role inspirational discussion plays in understanding learning, clarifying it, embedding it and moving it forward.

We benefit so hugely from the first three elements of Wrench’s description, but we do not often – in the busy overloaded world of education in England – move through to that final stage…

For the past two years I have studied, reflected on and written about oracy, and finally I feel my understanding reflects Wilkinson’s diametric. I have watched communication and discussion radically improve in the schools participating in our trials, but the key element is still in development. And then – while enjoying a dramatic performance of a verbalisation of the experience of analysing a response to a mythical image – the penny dropped as the missing word fell into place.

It is an oral performance of an experience, performed with passion and dramatic communication. It takes creativity, skill, rehearsal and interpretation… but oh it is so powerful in its illustration and conveyance of the impact of an experience that must have been 100% understood, absorbed and embraced to be verbalised through oracy.

It is exciting to be on the fringes of the birth of the Oracy Commission:

The Commission on the Future of Oracy Education in England is an independent commission, chaired by Geoff Barton and hosted by Voice 21.

I see with interest that their discussions and contributions follow that same pathway that I have been struggling along with so much joy and enlightenment. Now I have words to express what I was fortunate to have been given by an articulate and inquisitive family at the kitchen table in the days before TV and media – an ability used all my career without ever knowing how to define it. This was not a gift of class but rather a gift of culture. We were genuinely impoverished financially but blessed in ability to use language. Now every child in the country and the world may have the great good fortune to acquire those same skills.

Of course I was unable to define oracy, I was still in the understanding and absorbing phase – as so many others are still today. It is everything both Welch and Wilkinson said and everything Voice 21 has said. You can’t achieve oracy without speaking and listening but you can usefully and productively use speaking and listening in education without taking it on that final, massive-for-many climb into oracy.

Now we know it, let’s get our boots on…

I recently started a Twitter debate about the merits and disadvantages of the formal teaching of technical terminology for grammar. The consensus seemed to be that the only advantages for the teaching of primary aged children were if a school wanted children to perform well in the SPAG tests in Year 6! As ever, there was some advocacy for the benefits for MFL teaching in secondary schools – however, the majority of primary school leaders do not seem to see preparing pupils for success in secondary MFL exams as a priority for primary education.

Over 70% of the colleagues who responded to the poll we circulated on teaching myriad technical grammatical terminology that was included (by statutory requirement) in the revised National Curriculum of 2014 – without consultation – concluded that it had little or no impact on pupils’ writing prowess in Year 6. Indeed, a significant number of comments indicated that writing had lost a lot of its zest and had become more of a technical chore. Over 20% of respondents thought the benefits were minimal to none. One comment noted improvement to understanding rules of punctuation and the others related to later benefits in secondary education.

If children already have a good understanding of more complex grammatical structures and are able to use them effectively in their writing, then the later learning of the formal terminology is made easier and has purpose and meaning. The problem with the grammar requirements imposed is that they require the formal teaching first and then the later explanation of what it means and why a writer might need it. It reminds me strongly of the textbooks we used for learning grammar when I was at secondary school back in the 1950s.

Thinking of these led me to google grammar textbooks of the 1950s and to my surprise the search picked up on grammar today, and the first items identified were all blogs or similar by esteemed writers or educators criticising the imposition of the technical grammar for SPAG.

Michael Rosen’s blog of March 2016 makes protest about the introduction of SPAG. He provides a sample 11 plus paper from that era and says:

You can see what kind of ‘grammar’ questions we had in the 11 plus exams in the 1950s here. It was limited, as I have said, mostly to using the simplest terms – noun, verb, adjective, adverb… and the simplest stuff on tense. The questions mostly involved ‘filling in the gap’ type, so at least you had the context of that sentence to get it right. I’m not saying that this was ideal either, but it was fairly limited in terms of the amount of time we spent doing it and how much emphasis there was on doing it.

Even so, this was part of the means by which the 1950s system failed at least two-thirds of all children. It is quite unfair of Nick Gibb to claim that this is what’s being ‘brought back’. A much more complex raft of terms and processes are in SPaG and it’s one of the main means by which schools and teachers are being judged.

In ‘The Wrong Way to Teach Grammar’, Rachel Cleary (The Atlantic, 2002) says:

A century of research shows that traditional grammar lessons – those hours spent diagramming sentences and memorizing parts of speech – don’t help and may even hinder students’ efforts to become better writers. Yes, they need to learn grammar, but the old-fashioned way does not work. This finding – confirmed in 1984, 2007, and 2012 through reviews of over 250 studies – is consistent among students of all ages, from elementary school through college. For example, one well-regarded study followed three groups of students from 9th to 11th grade where one group had traditional rule-bound lessons, a second received an alternative approach to grammar instruction, and a third received no grammar lessons at all, just more literature and creative writing. The result: No significant differences among the three groups – except that both grammar groups emerged with a strong antipathy to English.

And Rachel was discussing the impact of formal grammar in secondary schools.

In a desperate urge to be democratic and quote both sides of the argument I then put ‘support for teaching technical grammar at primary school’ into the search engine and the following came up: Teaching Technical Grammar Terms Doesn’t Improve Children’s Writing (Dominic Wyse, Teachwire, 2024). Dominic says:

We now have the benefit of a significant amount of research to inform the ways in which writing can, and perhaps should, be taught. I have recently contributed to this research in two ways. Firstly, I’ve undertaken an analysis of the research evidence on whether the teaching of formal grammar helps writing. Secondly, I’ve also undertaken a four-year study of writing from a range of perspectives including philosophical, historical and empirical research studies addressing writing across the life course… In addition to more than 150 individually specified elements of spelling and five pages of detailed specification of grammar (that are statutory), primary teachers in England are required to teach and assess their pupils’ knowledge of a range of terms, including compounds, suffixes, determiners, cohesion, ambiguity, ellipsis, modal verbs and lots more. It is presumably intended that the learning of these terms will help children to write better because they are included in the programme of study for writing, yet the evidence is clear – traditional grammar teaching does not lead to improvements in children’s writing.

All in all, articles and blogs critical of the NC 2014 grammar requirements far outweigh support for the arbitrary decisions of the then non-educationalist Secretary of State for education and confirm my despair that a succession of changes of leadership has failed to address the lack of judgement in the English curriculum criticised by so many. The degree of detail required by the inclusion of technical terminology for grammar in the 2014 NC is absolutely unnecessary for effective writing by pupils up to fourteen years old and has no impact on communication, creativity or composition. This level of learning is only necessary for those seeking higher level qualifications in the area of linguistics.

I conclude this blog with the wisdom of Simon Kidwell, President NAHT, in his blog, published by Teachwire in 2022:

Since 2014 I have spoken to a senior politician at the DfE and to experts in the field of teaching grammar, and I am yet to meet anyone who believes that the current grammar curriculum for primary schools is fit for purpose or age-appropriate. One teacher, Alison Vaughan, commented: “The overloaded grammar curriculum holds back learning for those with poor working memory and slow processing. These students are already working hard to remember punctuation and spelling… They need more time consolidating the basics, not complex terminology.” My colleague, headteacher Michael Tidd, added: “I think some of it is just pointless at primary level (I’m looking at you, subjunctive form!) and ends up being overly simplistic because of that…” Objections extend beyond the classroom, too, with The Times reporting that the government’s key curriculum adviser, Tim Oates, said that there was a “genuine problem about undue complexity in demand” in the content of 2016’s SPaG test. A lot of the issue, then, is with curricular sequencing, or a lack thereof. The teaching timeline for these complex concepts is out of whack, and we need to reconsider at what point we should be expecting our pupils to understand and absorb them.

Simon Kidwell has worked as a headteacher and school principal for 17 years, and has led three successful primary schools to achieve rapid and sustained improvement.

It is distressing to see political leaders, who appear to be totally lacking in knowledge or understanding about the needs and abilities of pupils in primary education, ignore the wealth of knowledge and opinion expressed by primary leaders and experts. If, as Simon Kidwell intimates, the NAHT is ready and able to take the lead in decision making for education, we may at last see curricular reform that reflects the true principles of education for our pupils. Simon closed the powerful 2024 NAHT Conference with the words; “The solutions to the challenges we have exist in this room.” May our talented heads rise to those challenges and bring stability and strength back to our profession.

It is now 4 years since we published ‘It Takes 5 Years to Become a Teacher’, and it is gratifying how popular this little book has become. Besides the main body of my personal biographical experience and myriad advice and tips, there are a significant number of case studies full of the early days of a range of colleagues from all over the country and the world.

Recently, I have so enjoyed dipping back into these case studies, savouring the rich mix of experiences from the first years in the classroom and amusing tales of blunders and mini disasters that never fail to make me chuckle. I shall always be grateful for the plethora of colleagues who so generously contributed their memories of those first years in the profession.

What the writing and compilation of this book shows so clearly is that no amount of university study and brief placement experience can prepare us for the totally unexpected and unpredictable mishaps and moments of bliss that working with children brings. It is that very unpredictability that makes no amount of training, coaching and study able to prevent or adequately prepare us for. Many of us – seemingly well prepared and geared up for this new adventure – found the first weeks ran smoothly with compliant pupils and sweet successes – and then the trials began. Small difficulties and unexpected glitches began to confront us and exposed our naivety, tempting some pupils to test us and seize the opportunity to amuse their peers with antics of a class clown. The worst events, however, were often those that were purely the outcome of our own lack of experience and thus slow or inappropriate reactions.

Teaching is a wonderful career, diverse and different from minute to minute. It is hard to think of another profession where, for six hours a day (seven, but with two short breaks), an individual is unable to sit down and relax, sip a coffee or a coke, nibble a biscuit or suck a sweet or make or answer a quick phone call. Other professions that handle life can snatch a couple of minutes between cases – but not teachers. Save for a short toilet stop at morning play and an average of 20 minutes of the 45 to 60 minute lunch break, we are constantly vigilant, orating, articulating, chattering, conversing, discussing, echoing, enunciating, expressing, pronouncing, ranting, repeating and generally performing – dynamic, dramatic and vigorous.

We are thespians, scientists, astronomers, explorers, researchers and debaters. Does any other profession that is not on the stage wear so many cloaks? Adopt so many roles? It is our privilege to interest and engage, to motivate and excite, to charm and persuade, often with charisma and wit – even when we are exhausted, under the weather or in the midst of some personal crisis in our private life.

Rereading this summary of features of life for those of us with the privilege of working daily in the classroom, I wonder how we do it and how we sustain it day in and day out, in all weathers and throughout all the normal traumas life brings – and particularly how we did it as young and innocent newcomers to the profession. No wonder there were times when we struggled, times when we questioned our abilities and our commitment. And then there was the ever-increasing mountain of paperwork, most of which has no bearing on our daily ability to teach effectively; much of it imposed by those who have never experienced this career we have chosen and have no in-depth knowledge of what we go through day in and day out.

Yet we survive, we battle on and slowly the sun rises and all falls into place and clarity dawns. We are never safe from the unexpected, but our competency to cope and to lift our heads and deal with the day-to-day crises and chaos with confidence and clarity grows and blossoms as we truly become effective and efficient teachers. So, have faith, learn to laugh at yourself and talk endlessly with trusted colleagues, family and friends as you find your way, blossom and grow.

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Find out more about oracy.

In my last blog I compared the simplistic definitions of oracy found in popular dictionaries – mainly being alternative ways of saying ‘speaking and listening’ – with the impressive analysis of The English-Speaking Union, founded in 1918 by Sir Evelyn Wrench. My summary of these findings, in the first blog, was that these are the skills of research, communication of findings, debate and presentation. THIS is oracy, the ability to not only speak, but to adapt speech, selecting and refining – and ultimately to write if that is the goal – for audience and purpose.

Currently, I am working with a school very close to my heart on the development of oracy. The two newly appointed lead leachers are excited and enthusiastic about the proposed programme for embedding oracy across the school in everything they do. They know that the children’s learning will be so much better, richer and more comprehensible with an oracy driven approach – reflecting authentic ‘talking to learn’ – and that children’s learning will also be more accurately assessable through speech – but they also know that the children’s oracy will itself improve and become the school’s own style of speech, ‘school suave speak’ in constant use throughout every lesson, and this is a school where the majority of the children have a strong Yorkshire accent or dialect, like myself. We are already celebrating that accent in this school, and pupils are having fun code switching between their Standard English, school suave speak and their informal, Yorkshire daily speaking voice. Talk:Write is not about judgement and disparagement, it is about adaptability – having appropriate speech forms for purpose.

In this school, pupils are already using oracy techniques to embed up to three new suave words a week, deploying them successfully in communication both through speech and writing. Further, they are creating short, fun dialogues between characters speaking in different speech forms and are also embedding suave sentence structures for use in presentations – both oral and written. The most recent addition to their portfolio of oracy activities will involve 30 minutes being devoted to each child in the class forming a suave sentence to explain which aspect of learning – in any subject – they found most interesting or exciting each week. They will open the sentence with their own chosen suave opener and include one suave word of their choice from the many suave words they have already embedded in classrooms throughout the school. They will practise their oral delivery with friends and then each will, in turn, deliver their sentence to the class. If anyone wishes to respond, they may raise one finger and then will be invited to do so with an appropriate response, such as: ‘Jonah, I see you wish to comment?’ Tables will usually be arranged in an open horseshoe to facilitate this introduction to the future skills of debate, to be focused on next year.

To this end, each class is being provided with a list of oracy openers for display, to start the process rolling. These include statements like:

• ‘For me, the moment of greatest area of interest this week was…’
• ‘Undoubtedly, the most exciting moment for me this week was….’
• ‘Overall, I feel the most fascinating learning of the week has been…’
• ‘As I think about my learning across this week…’
• ‘I have enjoyed so much of my learning this week, however, I feel that …’
• ‘Despite enjoying almost all my learning this week, one item especially…’
• ‘Although I have thoroughly enjoyed my learning this week, of particular enjoyment was…’
• ‘An outstanding aspect of learning for me this week was…’
• ‘With great difficulty, I have identified learning about XXXXX as the most fascinating…. ‘

And so forth.

Throughout the term, children will be encouraged to experiment with these forms as they produce their weekly comment, restructuring and mixing and matching from the start, in order to personalise them and to widen the range heard and used. In the last week of each term or half term, each child across the school will then select the one they performed that they enjoyed most that term, writing a short paragraph on that learning. They will share this with friends, building in suave features of language, being creative with structures and rehearsing oral presentation through constant re-reading and rehearsal, with some – hopefully – learning from memory. Then each class or year will have a presentation session where every child presents their speech and the one or two voted best to represent their class will go forward to a whole-school performance in assembly.

The following are exemplar steps in the process for Jonah, aged 10:

1. His curriculum statement in his class’s contribution to weekly assembly:
   ‘An outstanding aspect of learning for me this week was our research into the impact of global warming on weather throughout this winter, 2023/24.’
2. Jonah then worked with Daisy and Leon to turn this contribution, and each of theirs, into suave speak paragraphs. The following is Jonah’s, but Leon contributed the word ‘engrossing’ for Jonah and Daisy checked the range of suave openers used by Jonah, concluding he had used a good range without overdoing things. The following is Jonah’s finished paragraph:
   ‘An outstanding aspect of learning for me this week was our research into the impact of global warming on weather throughout this winter, 2023/24. This project commenced with our collecting data on weather patterns throughout the past decade in Yorkshire in winter, using information from The Yorkshire Post and the BBC, besides the local internet weather site. Ultimately, this led to comparisons with data from recording the weather throughout December, January and February, using daily temperature and climactic measures and the internet. All in all, this proved an engrossing piece of research that led us to conclude that our weather had been both far warmer and wetter than the usual winters experienced in my lifetime.’
3. At the March year assembly, Jonah performed his paragraph as one of three representatives for his class. He had rehearsed it a total of eight times with his friends and at home with his family, practising his inflection, projection, pronunciation and pace – his class’s agreed targets for school suave speak.
4. Although Jonah did not know all his speech by heart at the Easter assembly, he used a modified form for his summer term presentation on the subject of research into the origins of the Yorkshire dialect, his chosen learning from that term, which he performed in late June entirely from memory with no script.

We hope you have enjoyed this snapshot of real-life oracy teaching. I hope to keep a record tracking progress in two very different schools over the coming calendar year, sharing outcomes and ideas as we proceed.

There are now resource sheets on oracy openers which will be available on the website from April.

Find out more about oracy.

For those of us who were teaching in state school classrooms in 1989 and beyond, the introduction of the original National Curriculum for England came as a total shock. We were in no way prepared for it. We received no helpful training or induction. Colleagues working for Local Authorities appeared to be only a short paragraph ahead of us in their understanding.

As a head of English in a middle school, I naturally focused my initial energies on the curriculum for English, with its three distinct sections; AT1: Speaking and Listening, AT2: Reading and AT3: Writing. I found, as did many others, that the Speaking and Listening said little, expected less and interested no-one. It stood alone, in isolation.

I was, however, extremely fortunate to be invited to take part, with our pupils and staff, in the National Oracy Project – with its wealth of materials and resources – piloted from 1987 to 1993 to support the development of speaking and listening skills. This re-enforced my career-long passion for the priority of oracy in education and pupils’ future lives. However, my move to primary in 1990 to become assessment lead led to my embracing the entire curriculum, except for English AT1.

In 2013, the revised National Curriculum renamed AT1 ‘Spoken Language’ but its introduction still maintained clear separation between the two most integral skills of oracy. I quote:

The quality and variety of language that pupils hear and speak are vital for developing their vocabulary and grammar and their understanding for reading and writing. Teachers should therefore ensure the continual development of pupils’ confidence and competence in spoken language and listening skills.

Is THAT all it is?

This revised English curriculum takes up almost half of the entire National Curriculum for Key Stages 1 and 2 with its 11 intrinsic subjects and 4 associated subjects, and yet – after just over a side on Spoken Language for all of Key Stages 1 and 2 – it is almost entirely devoted to spelling, grammar and punctuation rules. And thus, the National Curriculum has persisted in paying lip-service to the crucial skills of oracy by refusing to acknowledge the need to embed the two skills as one for children’s learning and development.

Indeed, the world of education failed to truly embrace the creation of the concept when it was first developed by Andrew Wilkinson in the 1960s. He created the name ‘oracy’ by analogy from the terms ‘literacy’ and ‘numeracy’.

Wilkinson executed this revolutionary perspective in response to the perceived neglect of the skills of oral communication in education 64 years ago – and it has only recently been discovered by the majority of the world of education in this millennium.

According to Wilkinson’s conceptualization, oracy in educational theory is the fluent, confident, and correct use of the standard spoken form of one’s native language. It also established a standard where students’ abilities are developed within an integrated program of speaking and listening, reading and writing. Recent studies also equate oracy with the notion of “talking to learn” within the perspective that knowledge is constructed by the individual knower, through an interaction between what is already known and new experience. An example of oracy-based education initiative was the UK’s National Oracy Project, which recognized the role played by classroom talk and put equal treatment between spoken and written modes. (Wikipedia)

In The Concept of Oracy (1970) Wilkinson says that, when asked to qualify ‘oracy’ in only three words, he defined it as the ‘verbalisation of experience’ – expressing our own experiences and ideas, but was never satisfied that covered all bases until he realised he could re-order the words: ‘the experience of verbalisation’ – listening to the experiences and ideas of others. I agree with him that the two definitions together paint the whole picture.

Listening is intrinsic to speaking – the two should never be separated conceptually. The child learns to speak through hearing speech, subject to speaking and listening ability:

• The more the parent/s or carers of a young child talk with that child, the more the child will talk.
• The wider the vocabulary that same adult uses, the wider the vocabulary the child understands and eventually uses.
• The more often a word is repeated in a range of contexts, the better the child will understand and embed it.
• If the adult who talks to the child for most or all of its first years, talks with a local accent, the child will talk with a local accent.
• If the adult talks in dialect, the child will talk in dialect.
• If the adult talks in Standard English (correct grammar and pronunciation) the child will talk in Standard English.
• If the adult talks in received pronunciation, the child will talk in received pronunciation.
•  If the adult uses dialogic constructions in language, the child will use dialogic constructions.

These are facts, simple and clear. If we want children to be competent and confident speakers, presenters, writers and debaters, we MUST fill their lives with these models through constant exposure and active participation in oracy.

The ability to adapt speech for purpose is a strength, not a weakness. Being able to code switch into local accent or dialect is not a negative, as long as it is a choice and not the only form the individual has.

The English-Speaking Union was founded in 1918 by Sir Evelyn Wrench, with the aim of English-speaking democracies working together to build international fellowship and, ultimately, peace. It now devotes the majority of its work to developing young people’s skills of oracy in schools around the world. This organisation defines the skills of oracy as having four components:

• Reasoning and Evidence
• Organisation and Prioritisation
• Listening and Response
• Expression and Delivery

I found this inspirational; these are the skills of debate and presentation. THIS is oracy, the ability to not only speak, but to adapt speech, selecting and refining – and ultimately to write if that is the goal – for audience and purpose. Remember my historic maxim? If a child can’t say it, a child can’t write it. A reasoned argument for ‘A’ Level or for a Doctorate is seeded at the adult’s knee in the first seven years of life, and it blossoms (or not) and grows as that child moves through education.

In his letter to the Secretary of State, 30th September 2020, Robin Alexander (University of Cambridge: ‘Improving oracy and classroom talk in English schools: achievements and challenges’) presents six propositions:

1. We have known for a long time that talk is essential to children’s thinking and learning, and to their productive engagement in classroom life, especially in the early and primary years. We now have additional evidence, from over 20 major international studies, that high quality classroom talk raises standards in the core subjects as typically measured in national and international tests.

2. There can no longer be any doubt that oracy should feature prominently within the statutory national curriculum.

3. We need a different kind of talk from teachers in order to extend the repertoire of pupil talk and raise the standard and cognitive impact of classroom talk overall.

4. Though the terms ‘speaking and listening’ and ‘communication skills’ indicate objectives of indisputable educational significance, they have become devalued by casual use and should be replaced by terms that signal the emphatic step change in thinking and practice that is needed. ‘Oracy’ is a neologism which some find unappealing; ‘spoken language’ fits the bill reasonably well, though it doesn’t have the connotation of acquired skill that, by analogy with literacy, ‘oracy’ possesses.

5. There is a strong case for revisiting the 1975 Bullock Report’s advocacy of ‘language across the curriculum’ in order to underline the argument that educationally productive talk is the responsibility of all teachers, not just those who teach English.

6. Since this is about the quality of teaching as well as the content of the curriculum, it has implications not only for the NC review but also for initial teacher training, CPD, inspection and professional standards.

Alexander goes on to note that the ‘Cambridge Primary Review’ took the penultimate point further:

We recommend that in addition to the programmes of study of English, there should be a clear statement on language across the curriculum which requires attention in all subjects to the character, quality and uses of reading, writing, talk and ICT, and to the development of pupils’ understanding of the distinct registers, vocabularies and modes of discourse of each subject.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines oracy as:

the ability to speak clearly and grammatically correctly.

It is SO much more!

In my next blog I will exemplify one or two of the oracy activities I have seen embedded in lessons recently in schools.