Oracy is the ability to express yourself effectively - to speak eloquently, articulate ideas and thoughts, influence through talking, listen to others and have the confidence to express your views. These are all fundamental skills that support success in both learning and life beyond school.

Oracy is at the very core of Distington Community School. We all enjoy the benefits oracy brings to our school community.  We believe spoken language to be essential in the development and achievement of our children across the curriculum.  We have an oracy element across our curriculum.

At Distington Community School, we strive to develop spoken language skills through the taught curriculum, the hidden curriculum, playtimes and lunchtimes, extra-curricular activities and the whole ethos of the school.

As the children's time progresses in our school community, they learn progressive talking and listening skills. As a school, the following strands are taught across our curriculum:

• Language of Argument
• Language of Explanation - maths
• Language of Comparison
• Language of Hypothesis
• Language of Deduction
• Language of Opinion
• Language of Description
• Language of Prediction
• Language of Evaluation
• Language of Retelling
• Language of Explanation
• Language of Sequencing

In school, oracy is a vital tool for learning: by teaching students to become more effective speakers and listeners we empower them to better understand themselves, each other and the world around them.  Speaking and listening play a large part in a child's progress in all curriculum areas and teachers plan to develop these skills in a wide variety of ways both formally and informally. We aim to develop and encourage fluent speakers, with rich vocabulary, who are confident to operate in a wide variety of situations.

Good oracy skills support wider literacy skills; improvement in oracy is also linked to improvements in reading, writing and overall attainment.

Every child has a voice and that voice is valued.

Rhyme Time at DCS

EYFS and Year 1

In our EYFS and Year 1 classes we aim to introduce one nursery rhyme per week linked to the book we have been reading/ topic in hand. Once learnt, these nursery rhymes are then repeated throughout the year and again in Reception and Year 1 using the appropriate actions and toys.

Rhymes and songs are really important for improving children's ability to listen and discriminate between sounds and so learn to read more effectively. It can also build anticipation through children anticipating what will happen with each resource when they see it and hear the associated song. During rhyme time we sing songs that are accompanied by different sensory experiences e.g. The nursery rhyme, ‘Old MacDonald had a Farm’ is introduced and sung whilst using animal figures in conjunction with the lyrics of the rhyme.

Year 2

In Year 2, we continue to use ‘Rhyme Time’ as part of our daily routine but instead of using nursery rhymes we use poems. Poems that can be chanted as a whole class and have a focus on the following poetic devices: rhyming words (couplets), alliteration, assonance and repetition.

Progression in Oracy