External resources
Good practice in the Early Years Foundation Stage.
Public speaking: speech topics and ideas, outlines, examples, writing tips and more.
Oracy: The state of speaking in our schools
‘State of the nation’ report by LKMCo and Voice 21, published Nov 2016.
A toolkit for assessing students’ speaking and listening skills.
An excellent, searchable library of resources and activities for teaching oracy.
Professor Neil Mercer’s home page, with details of publications and projects.
A free book examining oracy from multiple perspectives. Recommended reading!
Speech topics lists – free persuasive and informative ideas for planning and delivering public speaking.
A programme designed to improve the way children communicate across the curriculum.
Practical strategies for using teacher talk more effectively.
Resources for enhancing dialogic teaching and learning.
Teaching Mathematics – a talk focused approach
Report of the Nuffield-funded Thinking Together project on teaching mathematics in primary schools.
The Essential Speaking and Listening
Recommended reading for primary teachers.
A set of resources and publications for teaching speaking and listening.
Teaching Mathematics – a talk focused approach
Report of the Nuffield-funded Thinking Together project on teaching mathematics in primary schools.
Organisations
An educational charity and membership organisation dedicated to helping people realise their potential through giving them the skills and confidence in communication to articulate their ideas and share them with others.
Supporting the improvement of literacy skills.
A group of schools, educational organisations, other bodies and individuals, all sharing a belief that we should be doing much more to develop young people’s speaking and listening skills.
‘We believe that the curriculum needs to provide all students with the opportunities to acquire expertise in the basics and subject disciplines as well as developing their character, skills, critical thinking and leadership.We want children to develop their thinking skills, explore the world around them and acquire a thirst for learning.’
Oracy-based training for students and teachers.
Encouraging the development of effective communication.
An organisation linked to School21 in Stratford, campaigning to put speaking skills on the curriculum in all state schools.
Media
A guide to implementing oracy education for teachers and school leaders, by Voice 21.
Cambridge Primary – Examples of oracy lessons (videos)
Video of a talk by Professor Neil Mercer (slides here).
Video on Combining Wellbeing, Speaking Skills, and Project-Based Learning.
Video on strategies for effective talk.
Oracy Skills for the Real World
Video on how to use the Oracy framework.
Oracy: The Literacy of the Spoken Word
Blog by Oli de Botton.
Making the most of education dialogue
Video of a talk by Professor Neil Mercer
Talk may be cheap but group work is priceless
Video interview with Professor Neil Mercer.
Video of a talk by Professor Neil Mercer.
BBC Radio 4 programme which asks: can students really be taught to be eloquent speakers? And if so, how?