We are almost at the end of our first term of introducing
Oracy as a whole school initiative at St Ambrose Barlow. I started my NPQSL course in September 2015
and settled quite quickly on literacy as a real area of deficit for our school. I am the subject leader for Drama and wanted
the work to alleviate concerns that I often shared with fellow middle leaders:
the challenging new specifications require a level of independent mastery that
we have not been fostering under controlled conditions, where tasks could have
scaffolds and be controlled by teachers into small chunks. I, therefore, settled on a literacy focussed ‘Teaching
and Learning Inquiry Group’ to develop consistent practice across departments
in teaching oracy, reading and writing skills with the objective of facilitating better independent practice
across the curriculum by students.
At one of our interim meetings, my head teacher suggested
visiting School 21, I contacted them and they were keen to facilitate my
visit. Without cakey platitudes, it is
difficult to sum up my visit – I think the willingness to facilitate a visit
speaks volumes, but beyond that looking back now, it’s the purposeful, happy
hum of the place, which dominates my first experience of School21. The commitment to excellence, challenge and determination
to deal with the complexities of teaching, learning and being a school
community also strongly dominate my sense of their approach. After the visit, they sent me the application
for their EEF Pilot research study on Oracy (http://www.voice21.org/eef-pilot), we
were chosen as one of the schools and the real work began.
The EEF pilot research focuses on three areas in school:
Discrete Lessons with
Year 7
A team of three teachers shares the responsibility for
delivering this program in our school in one lesson a week. Two of us were lucky enough to go to School21
for two days of training and I have since returned for a third day. The lessons have been welcomed by staff,
students and parents alike; OFSTED who
visited our school this term, didn’t see any of the lessons they could have but
wrote about the lessons because the students talked about them. I have delighted in crafting lessons to
expose this hidden curriculum. The
curriculum teaches protocols in both classroom talk (formative, process based,
spontaneous talk) and presentation skills (summative, product based, crafted
talk).
Assemblies and Whole
School Gatherings
At Ambrose, we chose early on to focus on the small detail
and through this the large issues; greeting each other in our corridors and at
the start of lessons was a first step to increasing connections and fostering
more talking. A term in, students often
greet me in corridors before I greet them.
We have established protocols for our assemblies such as oracy cue cards
and expectations of crafted talk; on two occasions this term, I have watched as
year 7 presented to year 11 with clarity and confidence. The old shaking, small, disengaged voices are
beginning to be consigned to our past – we are building a community that can share
ideas, speak of issues, listen to each other and respond. We are connecting verbally with each other.
Building Cross
Curricular Oracy
We have worked hard to develop a CPD program in stages (Image
of first session above) exposing our whole staff to protocols after we have year
7 confidently using them in Oracy lessons.
If a teacher uses a protocol such as a talking point, all of this year
group will know what to do and therefore be able to focus on the
content/knowledge of the lesson. We are
fostering this approach in the other years with planned ‘no pen’ days and
debate protocols in Harkness which allow exploration of issues in breadth and
depth as well as fostering independence of thought – owning the academic
knowledge and principles taught.
What we are doing has real significance to the young people
we work with on cognitive, social and emotional levels. It harnesses the whole person and deals with
the complexities of the academic issues of learning alongside the personal and
social barriers. I have found myself
appreciating the real issues within my lessons; discrete lesson practice has influenced
and developed cross curricular practice.
- In
a lesson exploring the oracy of ‘You Tubers’ using the Voice 21 framework of
assessment, learning stalled when students failed to reach consensus on who to
look at. The idea of ‘finding agreement’
was beyond their social framework; we had to unpick the emotional immaturity of
wanting to ‘be chosen’ or ‘win’ before we could move forward. Looking to ‘find agreement’
became a really powerful concept for our young people in discussions.
- ‘Listening and responding’ is the key to all
oracy work. Students often confuse
listening with agreeing and promptly interrupt before the other student has
finished because they see it as their right to stop ‘wrong’ thinking. In fact, more learning happens when they can
listen and respond regardless of agreement – to truly consider another person’s
point of view we have to experience our own knowledge differently and this
widens and develops our understanding.
- A true discussion involves everyone, if you continue to allow a person in any group not to speak you are partly to blame. We now teach our students that it is their responsibility to ensure that they ask for that quieter person to speak and that they leave space for that person to talk if they will. This fosters equality in our learning spaces and as we learnt when we explored Malala Yousafzai’s Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance speech equality fosters peace. In any community, anywhere, this idea has huge implications.
I could go on at length, but as the points above hopefully
illustrate the discrete teaching of oracy develops understanding of the skill for
the teacher and the student alike. I
think as a school we might need to consider pushing this further, by revolving
who is in the Oracy team constantly to ensure that oracy is constantly
developing and broadening our practice as teachers.
Currently our teaching team is made up of English teachers, what would
happen next year if I led Science teachers through the same curriculum? And the
following year, MFL-a team who are already exploring the ‘say it first’
approach to learning; the cross curricular wins would be huge.
My final reflection is that as with all truly great
initiatives, our oracy work is exploring a truth we all know and yet seldom
have the time to explore and develop. To
quote Shaun Allison and Andy Tharby,
‘Thought
and speech are intertwined.
Verbalising
our thoughts helps to clarify them. Once
we find the right words to express our ideas, they are often easier to write
down later.’
Pp144-145
Making every lesson count: Six principles to support great teaching and
learning
If we insist on verbal engagement we build cognitive
processes, strengthen social interactions and emotionally equip students with
resilience because they truly own their learning in their own words.
You don’t mark it and it has huge impact, what’s not to
love?
