Oracy Curriculum Culture and Assessment Toolkit
Intervention description
Oracy Curriculum, Culture and Assessment Toolkit is a framework for the teaching and assessment of speaking skills. The framework has been developed by Voice 21 in collaboration with the University of Cambridge. It sets out the physical, linguistic, cognitive, and social-emotional oracy skills required by students for education and life, and provides a common approach for teachers and students to plan their oracy, execute it and provide feedback to each other. There are four main strands to the framework which aim to improve students’ oracy skills: dedicated oracy curriculum time; oracy in every lesson; making oracy more prominent in the school culture; and familiarity with the Oracy Framework. Dedicated oracy curriculum time takes the form of a Year 7 Oracy Curriculum which uses weekly lessons to to introduce students to specific oracy techniques (e.g. speaking roles in a group, question types, understanding pitch and tone) and provide them with multiple contexts to which they can apply all their skills. The other three strands aim to raise the profile of oracy within the school (for instance, embedding it across other subject lessons) and enable teachers to provide useful feedback on oracy tasks. Through the skills-based Assessment Toolkit, teachers to make well-informed ongoing assessment of students’ oracy skills in any context and use this to inform their teaching.
Staffing requirements
The intervention is a whole-school approach
Professional development/training
The provider offers Development Days, and Oracy Leaders Programme,
Evidence Summary
The Education Endowment Foundation recently ran a project investigating the effectiveness of Oracy Curriculum, Culture and Assessment Toolkit. This found the Oracy Skills Framework provides a useful tool for schools wishing to review and develop their approach to oracy, but it was not possible at this stage of development to provide a valid measurement of impact. They are now running a further project to look for evidence that the intervention is likely to impact on academic attainment.
Key research
The Education Endowment Foundation evaluation report should be available in summer 2018
https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/projects-and-evaluation/projects/voice-21