Oracy
At North Ealing Primary School, our vision for oracy is to create an oracy-rich community where every member has the skills to communicate effectively, believes they have a voice, and feels valued and listened to. We believe this is essential to supporting pupils’ learning across the curriculum and preparing them for life in modern Britain.
Through our work with Voice 21, we place oracy at the heart of teaching and learning, recognising that high-quality talk underpins academic success, wellbeing and positive relationships.
We are a Voice 21 Oracy Centre of Excellence!
We are proud to have been recognised as a Voice 21 Oracy Centre of Excellence for our work in developing students’ oracy (speaking, listening and communication) skills.
Becoming a Voice 21 Centre of Excellence certifies and celebrates that we are leading the way in providing a high-quality oracy education for students and acting as a beacon of good practice for over 1200 Voice 21 Oracy Schools nationwide.
We believe oracy enables children to have the power to change their lives and create a fairer society, setting them up for success in school and their wider lives. Voice 21 supports schools to deliver high-quality oracy education by ensuring speaking, listening, and communication is part of the curriculum, teaching and wider school life.
Why Oracy Matters
Oracy, like reading, writing and arithmetic, is a foundational skill that ensures students thrive at school and in life. By teaching students to become effective communicators, we empower them to better understand themselves, each other and the world around them.
• Speaking, listening, and communication skills are critical foundations for reading and writing.
• On average, oral language approaches have a high impact on pupil outcomes of 6 months’ additional progress.
• Young people with good communication skills are less likely to have mental health difficulties.
• Young people with good communication skills are less likely to have mental health difficulties.
As a Voice 21 Oracy Centre of Excellence, we put oracy at the heart of our teaching and learning across all subject areas, enabling students to develop and deepen their knowledge and understanding through talk in the classroom.
We support our students to become articulate communicators who are able to present themselves confidently across a range of settings and contexts, from group discussions to formal presentations.
Mr Gami
Oracy Leader, Year 1 Leader and Assistant Headteacher
Thank you so much for welcoming us to North Ealing Primary School and for generously sharing your Oracy journey with us. It was inspiring to see how deeply Voice 21 principles are embedded across your school and how naturally confident your children are in using their voices to think, learn, and communicate. We were particularly struck by the clarity of your expectations and the way you pair them with thoughtful scaffolds so that every child can participate meaningfully. The routines, visual prompts, and shared language created such a purposeful learning environment, and it was evident that pupils feel both supported and challenged to express themselves with precision and pride. Your staff team’s commitment to Oracy shone through in every classroom we visited. The consistency, the calm confidence, and the joy in talk were genuinely impressive.  We left with a wealth of ideas, practical strategies, and a renewed sense of what’s possible when a whole school embraces Oracy as a driver for equity and excellence. Thank you again for your time, openness, and hospitality. We returned feeling energised, inspired, and excited to continue developing our own Oracy practice.
Coteford Junior School | March 2026
Why we teach oracy
We teach oracy because spoken language is fundamental to thinking, learning and belonging. Purposeful talk enables pupils to explore ideas, deepen understanding, collaborate with others and express themselves with confidence and clarity. By teaching oracy explicitly, we ensure that all pupils—regardless of background—have equitable opportunities to develop strong communication skills and a belief in their own voice.
Our approach to oracy reflects and strengthens our learning values, supporting pupils to be:
Creative in expressing ideas and presenting thinking in varied and engaging ways
Harmonious when working with others, valuing different viewpoints and showing empathy
Independent by articulating reasoning, asking questions and explaining learning
Lifelong learners who use talk to question, reflect and deepen understanding
Determined to refine ideas, persevere in discussion and improve communication skills
Respectful communicators who listen carefully and respond with consideration
Engaged through active participation, listening attentively and contributing thoughtfully
Nurtured, feeling safe and confident to share ideas, challenge thinking and be heard
What we want to achieve for our pupils
Through a structured and progressive approach to oracy, we aim for pupils to:
Communicate confidently and effectively in a range of contexts and audiences
Use talk to think critically, reason, problem-solve and reflect across the curriculum
Listen actively and engage in meaningful, respectful dialogue
Develop rich vocabulary and increasingly complex language structures
Believe that their voice matters and that they can contribute positively to their community
By the time pupils leave North Ealing Primary School, we want them to be articulate, confident and considerate communicators, well prepared for the next stage of their education and for life in modern Britain.
Our oracy targets
To achieve this intent, we will:
Embed explicit oracy teaching across all areas of the curriculum
Provide regular, purposeful and structured opportunities for talk, discussion and presentation
Develop staff expertise through ongoing Voice 21 professional development
Use shared language and consistent approaches to oracy across the school
Monitor pupils’ oracy development and adapt provision to ensure all voices are supported
Our long-term ambition is to sustain a school culture where oracy is valued, modelled and celebrated, ensuring every child feels listened to, empowered and equipped to succeed.
This year, we have launched debate club with year 6 pupils and recently held a live debate attended by parents and carers. The students debated a topic that they had researched in advance and were put on the spot with questions from their peers and the audience.
Feedback from the co-headteacher, Mrs Bruley:
It was a pleasure to see the Year 6 pupils demonstrating increasing confidence and maturity during the oracy debate. They spoke clearly and articulately, listened respectfully to one another and responded thoughtfully to opposing viewpoints. The children showed a good awareness of audience, used appropriate vocabulary, and presented their arguments with clarity and purpose – demonstrating how strong the emphasis has been placed on developing oracy skills in school. The parents seemed really pleased.
