Links

External resources

 

Learning Playing Interacting

Good practice in the Early Years Foundation Stage.

My Speech Class

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.

Oracy Assessment Framework

A toolkit for assessing students’ speaking and listening skills.

Oracy Network resources

An excellent, searchable library of resources and activities for teaching oracy.

Professor Neil Mercer

Professor Neil Mercer’s home page, with details of publications and projects.

Speaking Frankly

A free book examining oracy from multiple perspectives. Recommended reading!

Speech topics help

Speech topics lists – free persuasive and informative ideas for planning and delivering public speaking.

Talking Partners @ Primary

A programme designed to improve the way children communicate across the curriculum.

Talk-less teaching

Practical strategies for using teacher talk more effectively.

Talkwall

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.

Thinking Together

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

English Speaking Union

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.

Literacy Trust

Supporting the improvement of literacy skills.

Oracy Network

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.

School 21

‘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.’

Talk the Talk

Oracy-based training for students and teachers.

The Communications Trust

Encouraging the development of effective communication.

Voice 21

An organisation linked to School21 in Stratford, campaigning to put speaking skills on the curriculum in all state schools.

Media

The Oracy Benchmarks

A guide to implementing oracy education for teachers and school leaders, by Voice 21.

Cambridge Primary – Examples of oracy lessons (videos)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Dialogues for learning

Video of a talk by Professor Neil Mercer (slides here).

Elevating Student Voice

Video on Combining Wellbeing, Speaking Skills, and Project-Based Learning.

Oracy in the Classroom

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.

Thinking Together

Video of a talk by Professor Neil Mercer.

Word of mouth

BBC Radio 4 programme which asks: can students really be taught to be eloquent speakers? And if so, how?