Close your eyes and imagine a great lesson. Most people would envisage at least some dialogue - and rightly so, as we know that discussion is a powerful way to learn, and communication is key to success in life.
School 21, in Newham, East London, was founded in 2012 on the premise that oracy should be raised to the same status as reading and writing.
Fourteen years later we welcome the education secretary, Lucy Powell, saying this herself during this year’s Confederation of School Trusts’ conference.
“That ability to articulate yourself confidently is central to success in work and in life, but for too long it’s been a marker of privilege,” she said.
A turning point for oracy
This endorsement from the secretary of state marks an important moment in moving oracy from the margins into mainstream education policy.
We have long argued that, in the face of an increasingly uncertain future for young people, spiralling concerns around AI, a rapidly evolving careers landscape and a rising mental health crisis, oracy should be the “fourth R”, accompanying reading, writing and arithmetic.
As employers increasingly , it has never been more important to give young people a voice.
Undoubtedly grades open doors, but you need more than numbers in an envelope to walk into the room and sit at the table.
The debate, then, is no longer whether oracy matters; it is how to define it clearly and implement it consistently across the system.
However, unlike reading and writing, oracy is a little more slippery to pin down.
If we want to teach students explicitly to apply it successfully in their learning, we must develop clearer parameters so that teachers, students and parents can have a tangible sense of what it is and how to make progress.
School 21’s motto is “Find Your Voice”, and we mean that in a literal sense as well as metaphorically. In practice, oracy means .
To embed it at scale, greater consistency is required in what actually happens in classrooms.
How do you know if oracy is happening?
Over the past decade, we have grappled with the challenges of implementing oracy.
One myth worth busting is that oracy is everything we do. It is one tool among many. To improve consistency and quality, we have established a shared set of, which underpin classroom talk across School 21.
“Always justify a point” is a general skill, but it’s shallow if it’s not anchored with subject knowledge. The goal is not the superficial performance of a justification, but its use as a vehicle for deeper thinking and more effective learning.
All key stage 3 students receive an hour-long oracy lesson each week in which they are assessed and made acutely aware of the link between these skills and learning in other subjects.
We have developed a codified bank of oracy strategies, each serving a distinct purpose. For example, “Find the Link” for introducing or recapping vocabulary or “Consensus Circle” for prioritising and reasoning key features of a topic.
Each strategy is tightly structured, with clear protocols and scaffolds that ensure both rigour and accessibility. We have learned that effective oracy is not built on enthusiasm alone.
With School 21 now part of Oasis Community Learning, we have an exciting opportunity to test, refine and share effective oracy practice through a diverse national network of academies.
Through our annual oracy exhibition, we are also seeing a growing demand from educators keen to learn from high-quality oracy in action.
The need for clarity
If oracy is to genuinely be the “fourth R”, we must build on existing work to avoid it becoming so broad that it means everything and nothing. The government’s commitment is a welcome first step.
The next must be a clear framework, underpinned by training and support, to help schools deliver high-quality oracy successfully and consistently. And schools such as ours stand ready to shape that work.
The opportunity now is turning a growing national interest into a clear, shared approach that gives every young person, in every classroom, the opportunity to find their voice.
Daniel Thomas is assistant principal and head of oracy at Oasis School 21 in Newham, East London
