Oracy at St Finian's
At St Finian’s, we believe it is essential that children learn to express themselves clearly through spoken language. This helps them become effective learners and gain the ability to express themselves confidently and respectfully- giving children a voice. We use the Oracy Framework created by Voice 21 and teach children important life skills, reflected in 4 key oracy strands:
1. Physical: Voice, Body Language
2. Linguistic: Rhetorical techniques, Language, Vocabulary
3. Cognitive: Content, Structure, Clarifying & Summarising, Self-Regulation, Reasoning
4. Social & Emotional: Working with others, Listening & Responding, Confidence, Audience Awareness
Equipped with these important skills, children can communicate and collaborate at a much higher level, allowing their overall learning to reach greater depth. Across the curriculum, a particuar focus is placed on expanding children's vocabulary, and supporting an exchange of dialouge, scaffolded by useful phrases and sentence structures appropriate to the context e.g. 'Expanding on your point, another example might be........'So in summary, what I understand you to mean is' ......' Oracy involves working with children to develop their confidence in both speaking and also in their ability to actively listen, whether engaging with a single partner, a small group, whole class or a larger audience.
