Developing Oracy
Everything you need for developing fantastic oracy in your school.
Face-to-face courses. Bespoke support delivered in school. Online courses. Downloadable resources.
A framework for oracy skills progression
The seven strengths are:
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VIBE - Physical focus
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Language Mastery
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Purposeful Listening
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Thinking Engine
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Social & emotional
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Toolkit
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Ownership
Based on a wide range of research, this evidence informed structure equips pupils for life-long success in oracy : empowering pupils through the power of communication.
Each strength is supported by a detailed breakdown of key skills. This depth ensures that teachers can target oracy development precisely—tailoring it to their pupils’ needs, building strong pillars on which success can rest.
Whether you're planning across a year, designing a unit of work, or shaping a single lesson, the framework helps you:
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Identify pupils’ next steps in oracy
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Align activities with the most relevant skills
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Confidently assess progress and impact
Pinpoint where pupils are now, and unlock their next stage of progress.
This resource can be used in many ways: For planning, for assessing, for teachers to consider their professional development needs against, to plot progression across key stages, to celebrate strengths and work out how to address gaps.
My courses focus on LEADERSHIP: supporting leaders to take ownership for driving the development of oracy in their school.
Training feedback:
100% ratings of excellence for overall event, quality of presenter, activities, resources and content - from multiple events and schools.
"It was incredibly useful to look at it from a leadership perspective. Very engaging, interactive training with a lovely range of resources to take away with us. Thank you so much for an enjoyable and useful day."
"Great resources linked to audit for steps to success."
"I gained a clear vision of how to deliver and implement oracy development in school. Thoroughly engaging!"
"Great discussion opportunities. Really helpful and came away with loads of ideas."
"Creating an action plan. Practical examples. Engaging resources. Above and beyond expectations! Leading oracy is a key priority on our SIP and I now feel prepared to take on the challenges."
"Activities developed understanding. A wide variety of strategies and tools to support implementation in school. A great day - thank you!"
"Lots of practical info and access to resources that we can use in school to impact knowledge, support teachers."
Oracy assessment
Editable assessment tools support pupil self-assessment, group reflection, and teacher tracking—making it easier to plan next steps and encouraging pupils to take ownership of their oracy development.
A raft of prepared sheets to choose from speeds up the process, while blank proformas allow teachers to design their own assessments.
Oracy Coaching wheels
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Teachers make a judgement about each segment (0-10) and shade the corresponding segment to produce a profile.
Different questions can be used with the coaching wheel depending what you wanted to explore e.g.
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How confident and skilled do you feel in developing pupil skills in each of the seven areas?
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How would you rate pupils' skills currently?
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When considering the statements, which aspects are a typical part of your current practice?
If you were to make improvements to one segment, which would have the biggest impact on pupils?
Sets of questions can aid professional dialogue:
🧠 Thinking Engine (Example questions linked to current practices)
You've rated this at 4. What makes it to 4, rather than 0?
Can you describe what 10 would look like?
If you were to move cognition from 4 to 5, what would you need to do?
What difference would it make to pupils if this aspect of your oracy practice improved?
The following questions can help a teacher consider how improvements can be made related to the 'Thinking Engine':
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What could you do to support pupils prepare for structured discussions?
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What thinking routines or scaffolds could help pupils organise their ideas?
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How are pupils encouraged to build on others’ ideas or challenge respectfully? What resources, modelling, examples and rewards might help to increase this?
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There are 5 subsections of the thinking engine in oracy, which area would be most useful to explore: organisation, engagement of the mind, noticing, content, or recording and sharing?
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Which types of thinking could be better supported in oracy activities, e.g. summarising, comparing, analysis, recall, evaluating.
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Looking at the criteria for the thinking engine what aspects of CPD would be most helpful to you? For example, would CPD on teaching summarising skills be useful, or would you find it beneficial to co-plan an activity which utilised diagrams and graphs in a speaking activity?
In addition, older pupils can also use the wheels to self-assess and set targets for their own development.
Oracy teaching framework : 4 quadrants
At the beating heart of the system is the 4 quadrant model by which teachers plan, conduct and evaluate oracy activities.
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Foundations
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Conditions
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Execution
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Reflection
For oracy leaders, this tool is a game-changer - it supports focused, strategic conversations that strengthen classroom practice and ensure oracy is embedded with intent and impact.
The model, key questions and a comprehensive guide support the use of the 4 quadrat model.
Leaders and teachers can fear that time spent on oracy activities leads to improvements in speaking and listening skills, and often engagement, but can make it harder to achieve academic outcomes than other more direct teaching methods. By employing the 4 quadrant framework, teachers can ensure that oracy activities are well planned to deliver on outcomes, are excellently set up to create the best conditions for learning, and practice is continually refined and enhanced for impact.
The 4 quadrants to aid teacher practice alongside pinpointing pupils skills development through the 7 strengths provides schools with rock solid foundations for oracy excellence.
Oracy Audit tool
Leaders can also utilise a 7 section audit tool covering:
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Pupil skills
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Quality of pupil answers
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Targeted development
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Curriculum
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Progression
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Leadership & holistic elements
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Teaching
The audit tool can be edited to make it customised to your school. Leaders can assess the current position and identify next step.
Access support on identifying priorities and mapping out a plan for success.
Want even more oracy support?
In addition, leaders and teachers can access:
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7 strategies for teachers to ask better questions as part of whole class teaching;
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Advice on improve learning through questioning as part of whole class teaching;
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Toolkits and resources to aid teachers in planning questions;
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Think pieces to aid teacher knowledge of research linked to the development of pupils' listening skills.
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Support for leaders on the strategic leaders of oracy.
Bespoke support
Use the contact form below to get in touch about bespoke support: leadership zoom calls, training days and twilights, on-going support for a school improvement goal.
ONLINE COURSE & DOWNLOADS
Use the contact form below to receive details of low cost online training options and resource download packages.
TESTIMONIALS
“Brilliant ideas easily put into practice.” “Really practical resources. Lots of activities to take back and use immediately and longer term actions.” “Vicky’s whole course was outstanding.”
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