Heronsgate Heralds

This term the English team has worked hard to implement a culture of oracy across the school. Each year group has incorporated talk and discussion points into their medium term plan across the breadth of the curriculum. Teachers have been observing the progress that children make in oracy through a tracker linked to the four oracy strands. (Social & emotional, Linguistic, Physical, and Cognitive). 

Hand to Heart - EYFS

In Nursery, we have been learning to agree (hands on our chest), disagree/challenge (finger on our noses) and build on each other’s points (fists) when presented with a comment. Children responded to statements such as it is raining when it isn’t and are prompted to respond with actions or words. All children are beginning to encourage each other by nodding and smiling when someone is speaking.

Agree to Disagree - KS1

In Year 2, we have been implementing the actions for ‘agree’, ‘disagree’ and ‘build on’. We have also been including  opportunities to improve oracy skills on the mid-term overview document, ensuring a range of topics from different subjects were picked. Children discussed statements and questions. Pair talk and group discussions remained to be an important part of every lesson. We also used concept cartoons and promoted talk tactics in the classroom. Active listening was encouraged in every discussion. Also behaviours associated with effective listening were visualised through displays. 

Talking Points - LKS2

In Year 3,  we have been implementing discussion throughout  the curriculum by including meaningful talking points throughout the lesson tailored to what they have been learning. This has been a mixture of concept cartoons, statements, and talk games; such as would you rather, or if I ruled the world.

Children have built on their ‘agree’, ‘disagree’, and ‘build’, and have started to use other tactics such as probing, asking for clarification and summarising. 

Debating and Orating - UKS2

In Year 5 we have started summer with lots of debate. We used oracy to hook the children into their new book, “Adventures of Odysseus”. Children were ready to discuss straight away about whether Prince Paris had made the right choice when he chose to give Aphrodite his golden apple. Children were able to justify their ideas using evidence from the text and the world around them. Making links and connections to other books they had read. They are working on their challenging and probing skills - trying to dig deeper to understand their classmates ideas fully.