Key takeaways:

- Amy’s Background and Role: Amy, a former teacher with experience in the UK and internationally, served as the lead oracy teacher at School 21 and later as director of teaching and learning at Voice 21, promoting oracy-focused education to enhance classroom practices across schools.

- Importance of Oracy: Amy emphasizes oracy for social mobility, citing the 30-million-word gap by age three between privileged and underprivileged children, necessitating talk-rich classrooms. Oracy boosts wellbeing, relationships, academic outcomes across subjects (per Neil Mercer’s research), and employability, as employers value strong verbal communication skills. Beyond the dictionary’s focus on fluent, grammatical speech, Amy includes listening as equally vital. Oracy involves teaching children to speak confidently, form meaningful sentences, and develop content to express, ensuring they “find their voice” literally and metaphorically.

- Exploratory vs. Presentational Talk: Drawing from Douglas Barnes, Amy distinguishes exploratory talk (messy, idea-forming, typical in early years) from presentational talk (polished, for sharing developed ideas). Both are part of a continuum, with exploratory talk leading to better writing and learning when scaffolded effectively.

- Scaffolding Oracy: Strategies include varied groupings (e.g., talk partners, trios, traverse, onion) to keep discussions fresh, sentence stems (e.g., “I agree with,” “building on”) to structure conversations, and clear ground rules for talk (e.g., respecting ideas, proving listening through eye contact). These foster inclusive, purposeful dialogue.

- Stimuli for Talk: Activities like “Odd One Out,” artifact discussions, ranking tasks, and “Would You Rather” questions (e.g., “Would you rather have porridge or bacon?”) encourage exploratory talk, embedding sentence stems and sparking imagination in low-stakes settings.

- Oracy Skills Framework: Developed with Cambridge University, School 21’s framework includes four strands: cognitive (content/structure), linguistic (word choice/register), physical (gestures/tone), and social-emotional (group dynamics/confidence). Games like “One to 20” (social-emotional), “If I Ruled the World” (cognitive), “Articulate” (linguistic), and “Which Emotion” (physical) target these strands.

- Top Tips for Implementation: Amy advises starting small (e.g., talk-based lesson starters), weaving oracy into existing routines like register time, and maintaining confidence in oracy’s cross-curricular benefits. For schools with rigid structures, evidence oracy’s impact through student interactions, photos, or videos, rather than relying solely on written records.

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