Oracy at Burnside Primary School

"Our pupils are our greatest strength; they are our future. At Burnside Primary School, we empower every child with the tools to confidently express their views, opinions, and ideas, and to engage in high-quality, purposeful dialogue that supports their education and future lives. Equipping our pupils to use their voice with confidence is fundamental to our school motto—be safe, be smart, be kind—ensuring every child is supported to thrive, achieve, and belong."

 

Why Oracy is Important to Us

Oracy is the ability to articulate ideas, develop understanding, and engage constructively with others through spoken language and active listening. Research and evidence show that high-quality oracy:

• Increases Engagement: Elevates enthusiasm, active participation, and deepens thinking across all subjects.
• Improves Academic Outcomes: Strengthens vocabulary acquisition, cognitive development, and reading/writing fluency.
• Fosters Wellbeing & Self-Confidence: Builds emotional resilience, self-regulation, and positive mental health.
• Supports Future Transitions: Prepares children for the communication demands of secondary school and future careers.
• Promotes Social Equity & Inclusion: Ensures every child, regardless of background or starting point, finds their voice and feels valued.
• Empowers Responsible Citizenship: Equips pupils to collaborate, debate respectfully, and contribute meaningfully to modern society.

How Oracy Reflects Our Values

Be Safe: We build a supportive, psychologically safe environment where children feel secure taking creative and intellectual risks, sharing their thoughts, and expressing their feelings without fear of judgment. Developing emotional literacy and clear communication helps pupils thrive.

Be Smart: Pupils master precise vocabulary, structured sentence stems, and critical reasoning. By learning how to build, challenge, and summarise arguments across biology, history, maths, and literature, children develop deep disciplinary knowledge to achieve academic excellence.

Be Kind: Oracy is as much about active listening and empathy as it is about speaking. Pupils learn to respect differing perspectives, take turns, and offer constructive feedback, ensuring everyone experiences a genuine sense of belonging.

 

Curriculum 

At Burnside Primary School, quality talk lies at the heart of our evidence-informed pedagogy. We strongly believe that pupils' voices must be nurtured so they can express themselves with clarity, accuracy, and confidence.

We do not view oracy as a standalone subject, but as a vital learning tool woven through every area of the curriculum. It is our responsibility to prepare pupils for the modern world, empowering them to become articulate, independent thinkers who can advocate for themselves and others.

Oracy is embedded across our everyday classroom routines and teaching practices. In every classroom across Burnside Primary, you will see:

• Talk Guidelines: Clear criteria in every room so pupils consistently understand expectations for purposeful dialogue and active listening.
• Oracy Targets & Frameworks: Explicit, age-appropriate targets linked to the core strands of physical, linguistic, cognitive, and social-emotional talk.
• Structured Talk Tactics & Stems: Visual prompts and sentence starters (e.g., "I agree because...", "To build on that point...", "Have we considered...?") to help children construct, refine, and challenge ideas respectfully.
• Active Listening Expectations: Clear frameworks that teach children how to be a supportive talk partner and take ownership of collaborative tasks.
• High-Quality Modelling: Staff who consistently model articulate language, active listening, and ambitious vocabulary in every interaction.
• Purposeful Performance Opportunities: Integrated speaking and listening outcomes, including debates, drama, poetry recitations, and presentations, allowing pupils to adapt physical and linguistic tone for varied audiences.

 

By embedding oracy across our curriculum and school culture, we cultivate confident communicators who take pride in making their voices heard. Teachers monitor and evaluate oracy progress through ongoing formative assessment, adapt talk structures for individual needs and conduct regular Listening Walks and peer reviews to ensure high-quality talk in every classroom. We ensure our oracy provision remains rigorous, inclusive, and impactful, giving every child at Burnside Primary the confidence and skill to thrive, achieve, and belong.