Collaboration’s heart is communication #Oracy #WomenEd

This is my talk from Lead Meet 3 at #WomenEd #Unconference 2018, only Vivienne Porritt’s exceptional time keeping skills are not here to keep me to five minutes so I have extended a little (!!) of what I said to cover my first unconference experience:

In September 2015, as my son started Junior school and my daughter started High School, I had decided that it was time to get back to focusing on my future by starting NPQSL. In hindsight I can see I can see I was trying to find my voice again after 10 years in part time posts and after a day with the #WomenEd tribe, I can finally accept this: I had other people’s definitions of me as a part time ‘mummy’ teacher in my heart and head.  I was a person who had irrevocably chosen her family over her career.

I found Oracy by chance, guided by the principle that anything I did as a whole school initiative had to be linked to Literacy. I’m glad I did as it became a process of real self actualisation. A program which gave as much to me as the professionals and students that have been involved in it.  The definition of Oracy is:

‘the ability to express oneself fluently and grammatically in speech’

There are two targets for our practice within schools

1. Classroom Talk 
2. Presentation Skills 

I outlined how it is incredibly easy to ignore the challenge of a typical day in school: I used the example of #unconference and the salutory reminder of how attending two ‘assemblies’ (Opening/Plenary) and four sessions was exhausting. At high school particularly, the skills needed to survive a day at school are assumed without teaching them: punctuality, organisation, focus, engagement, planning, evaluating, time management and, of course, talking, listening and literacy. Thus, my NPQSL initiative was focused on developing a discrete curriculum for year 7 oracy, developing a CPD program to improve the use of Oracy protocols in lessons and looking at whole school culture through assemblies. This was as part of an EEF pilot research program supported by School21/Voice21.

In school CPD has explored the divergent forms and purposes of classroom talk whilst delivering important INSET through the oracy protocols, focusing on:

• Groupings -
  actively using groupings to promote engagement in talk and have as many students engaged in talking as possible 
• Purpose -
  clearly identifying opportunities for talk and actively planning for them 
• Outcomes -
  clearly identifying, recording if required and reflecting on the outcomes of talk 

For example, we reflected on our OFSTED judgement through Harkness Discussion, we used roles of talk to explore the ‘Literacy Ladder’ and we have used the ‘onion’ to diversify an INSET on behaviour.

Classroom talk needs to be democratised: we are all familiar with the teacher who uses hand up volunteers, we are all familiar with the handful of students who dominate discussions with their contributions, we are all familiar with the child who gets through a whole day without saying a word. It limits the cognitive load, promotes inequality and diversity and yet it happens every day. Oracy teaching empowers every voice within the classroom through the environment we create and through clearly identifying the purpose of talk:

• The WHAT of the talk - considerations of content 
• The HOW of the talk - considerations of form and developed use of protocols that help talk; discuss ‘this’ is not a clear enough instruction 
• The WHY of the talk - considerations of the purpose of our talk and beyond this to the fundamentals of being an individual in a community. 

Beyond this, our oracy work targets talk scaffolds that build towards reading and writing - how through expressing our learning with our voice in our own words we begin to own our learning. Connecting talking and listening as the first steps towards reading and writing.

We value students individual voice and identity in our week of speeches from year 7, where each student earns their Embrace badge by focusing on presentation skills:

Your confidence in speaking publicly will be linked to your experience of speaking publicly, I always use the maxim in class that the first time the year 7’s cross our school gates they are highly aware of them, but by the time they are in lessons in October they do it daily without thinking about it. Talking publicly is the same, the more you practice the easier it becomes: the frequency with which you do something is highly linked to your confidence in doing it. Confidence is a muscle, the more you use it the stronger it becomes. The challenge for schools, therefore, is to find moments for every year group where every student speaks publicly. It’s what we are trying to do at our school.

I wanted the students words on the impact of #Embrace to shine here, but was rapidly running out of time so these lovely quotes did not appear in my presentation:

• “I said something that needed to be said, #Embrace gave me the platform to do this”
• “It was an opportunity to share something that was important to me”
• “It built my courage”
• “It feels like the school know me better having given my speech”
• “Not going out there and giving your speech, would be worse than the nerves you feel doing it”

I would urge anyone reading this to come and experience our #Embrace week for yourself. It is an amazing week: we have witnessed so many great speeches, but I referenced two that stood out to me from last year’s program. The first was a profoundly deaf student, who spoke about the gifts her deafnesses have given her, acknowledging all the good she sees in being deaf and in the process making the audience laugh and weep. The second a student who re-wrote Maya Angelou’s Rise poem with black female heroes at the heart of each verse - the final verse was about her mum who was sat right in the middle of the audience. Both speeches were fierce, brave and full of each student’s passion, perhaps what is more exceptional is that there were 208 other speeches that matched them. The program gives each student the opportunity to let their light shine and as they do they unconsciously give others the permission to do the same. It’s a marvel and a delight - we’d love to help you do it with your students too.

I was pretty much at the end of my time here but managed to say that Oracy is a culture based programme

• A community is defined by the way that it communicates 
• At the heart of real collaboration is real communication 
• No voice can be lost in a community that truly makes EVERY PERSON MATTER 

The future of those you teach will be decided by how they speak at interview mostly: If the students’ literacy can define their life span, Oracy defines your opportunities. I was very much out of time here, but wanted to convey the story of a mother who came to our first year of #Embrace speeches and was overwhelmed by her daughter’s efforts. The mother had not been applying to jobs with presentation tasks, but was so inspired by her daughter's efforts that she had decided she would now.

The anecdote shows that there are real term issues of losing your voice. In my family alone I have a son who did not speak till he was 3 and whose early primary years were thwarted with a lack of vocabulary - I struggle to sum up how hard the vocabulary rich classroom was for him. My daughter is a further example of how oracy is connected to well being as after a year 3 full of unkindness from others, she clearly communicated to her dad and I that she wanted to be ‘invisible’ and not speaking at all was the best way to do this. Beyond them I have a niece, Teren Brandy, who was, in her teens, selectively mute - she wrote a book, Alma, as a tribute to those struggles and which we now use in our Oracy program. Mental Health rests on being able to talk, to share how we feel - we must prioritise teaching talk to ensure well being both for the professionals and the students within our care.

Teaching is talking, we convey everything through our voices and therefore as leaders we cannot underestimate the importance of our colleagues' voices. At the start of every sharing for #Embrace I give a speech; I tell the students that I would never ask them to do something I wasn’t willing to do myself. We wanted year 7 tutors to do the same, but the refusal rate has been alarming. Teachers tell me that they ‘can’t’ do it. How strong are our teachers' voices in our schools? What does this suggest about their communities and collaboration? It seems we need an #Embrace day for teachers as much as year 7.

Oracy is a program of Virtuous Circles: the more you give, the more you get. Above all, it teaches us the truth of Paul Dix’s words:

‘We have to teach the behaviour we want to see’

We are our students’ best models - we can’t afford to have weak voices. We have to risk being heard so that they will. We have to be 10% braver so they will be. It's hard. Your voice might wobble as mine definitely did this Saturday, but what you give will be returned and more.

It is worth the risk, because you are worth more than you currently are.  You always will be.  There is always another step, another challenge, another way to achieve and having a strong voice will always be a great asset. 

Thanks all @womened for helping me to believe in me.