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. This aligns with government initiatives which emphasise the importance of an oracy education in the rapidly developing modern world.

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 over the past three years. 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’. High-quality talk runs through all of our lessons and other aspects of school life, such as playtime interactions, assemblies and clubs.

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 incorporate speaking and listening into lessons, ensuring that pupils have opportunities to share their ideas, hear the ideas of others and learn through talk. 

Children practise being talk detectives, chairing discussions, debating issues and giving oracy-specific feedback, using a rich variety of language and increasing their confidence in appropriately projecting and using their voices.

We also think it is important that children share their oracy skills with those around them, including children in other classes, parents and carers and the wider community. We are eager to showcase our skills with you during Come Talk With Me sessions and talk about our learning using prompts from Oracy October activities and newsletter items.

We are extremely proud of the progress that children and staff continue to make through their oracy journeys. Well done everyone!