We are proud to be a Voice 21 school. This means that we work with the excellent 'Voice 21' team to develop children's oracy skills across all aspects of school life. Our vision, linked to our school motto, is as follows:

At Lydiate Primary, we believe that all children are inspired to listen carefully, communicate confidently and use articulation to achieve their goals. They value their own and others’ contributions and have a voice to support them and prepare them for life in modern Britain.

The teaching staff, and indeed the children themselves, have made massive progress in their Oracy journey so far this year. We now regularly use different talk groupings – from ‘nesting’ (personally rehearsing and preparing to speak), through paired talk, trios and right the way to whole-class ‘traverse talk’.

We have also established discussion guidelines within each class (adapted for our youngest children), ensuring that children listen respectfully, agree or disagree politely and are able to challenge each other, build on ideas, probe, summarise and clarify each other’s verbal interactions. We play talk games to build the children’s oracy skills and we are now building oracy into our lessons across the curriculum, ensuring that children learn to talk and also learn through talk.

Children are learning to become talk detectives, chair discussions and debate issues, using a rich variety of language and increasing their confidence in appropriately projecting and using their voices.

We are extremely proud of the progress that children and staff have made through this journey, and could not have been prouder when the Voice 21 Oracy Expert visited our school a few weeks ago. She commented that the staff at Lydiate Primary ‘have taken a really impressive approach to establishing ambitious and challenging norms for talk across both Key Stages …

Teachers support pupils to participate in and benefit from classroom talk and opportunities for oracy across the school day…

All pupils listen meaningfully, develop cogently and share respectfully …

Teachers are intentional in their planning and teaching of oracy, taking risks to ensure activities are challenging but appropriately pitched, and taking time to teach specific skills explicitly to ensure success …

Oracy is widely harnessed to elevate learning and pupils engage in dialogue in various groupings, for different contexts and purposes, to enhance their understanding.’

As our Oracy teaching and learning continues to build and grow, we will provide you with regular updates. We were told that Lydiate Primary is on track for becoming a Centre of Excellence for Oracy within the next two years, so watch this space!