OUR KINGSTON ORACY CURRICULUM

We Are Orators

Intent

At Kingston Primary School, we believe that oracy is the foundation of learning, thinking and social interaction. Research from the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF, 2021) and Voice 21 highlights that strong oral language skills are linked to improved academic outcomes, confidence and life chances. Our curriculum ensures that we:

• Equip pupils with the ability to speak fluently, listen actively, reason critically and collaborate effectively.
• Embed oracy across the curriculum so that every child can express ideas clearly and purposefully.
• Ensure progression from EYFS to Year 6, developing skills in four strands: Physical, Linguistic, Cognitive, Social & Emotional.
• Provide authentic contexts for talk, including debates, drama, presentations and leadership roles.
• Close gaps for disadvantaged pupils and those with SEND/EAL through structured scaffolds and inclusive strategies.

Our curriculum is further strengthened through dedicated oracy-rich environments such as the Wonder Emporium, where pupils develop curiosity-led talk, reflective thinking and confidence in spoken language beyond the classroom.

Implementation

Our approach draws on EEF guidance on oral language interventions, Mercer’s dialogic teaching, and Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development. Oracy is taught through:

Four Strands Framework:

1. Physical Strand

• Voice projection, clarity, pace and tone.
• Intonation and expression during reading aloud.
• Use of gesture, posture and eye contact.
• Choral reading activities to build confidence and fluency.

2. Linguistic Strand

• Development of ambitious vocabulary linked to each unit.
• Sentence stems, talk frames and structured language models.
• Grammar awareness through speaking and listening.
• Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary taught explicitly and practised orally.

3. Cognitive Strand

• Developing reasoning skills through structured discussions.
• Speaking to explain thinking, justify ideas and evaluate evidence.
• Retrieval and knowledge rehearsal through talk.
• Preparing for presentations and debates using planning scaffolds.

4. Social & Emotional Strand

• Turn-taking, active listening and respectful disagreement.
• Collaborating with peers using talk partners.
• Building confidence through drama, performance and role play.
• Understanding audience and purpose. 

Our Oracy Offer

1. Big Questions & Debates (Debating Curriculum)

Every term, from Year 2 to 6, teachers plan one Big Question linked to thematic learning. This forms the backbone of our debating curriculum.

Purpose:

• Encourage independent, critical thinkers.
• Develop pupils’ communication and interpersonal skills.
• Strengthen long-term memory retention by verbalising knowledge.
• Enable children to sound knowledgeable by embedding key vocabulary.
• Provide authentic, high-stakes speaking opportunities.

Process:

• Pupils learn key knowledge and vocabulary through their project.
• Practise using talk partners, small-group discussion and hot seating.
• Teachers explicitly model academic language and sentence structures.
• Children debate with a range of stakeholders during their learning.
• At the end of the project, each child presents their viewpoint on the Big Question to an adult they do not know.

This creates genuine purpose:
"I need to understand this well because I will be speaking to a real audience."

Research Links:

• Mercer & Littleton (2007) – Dialogic Teaching and Collaborative Talk.
• EEF (2021) – Oral Language Interventions improve reasoning and vocabulary.
• Vygotsky (1978) – Social interaction scaffolds cognitive development.

2. Choral Reading

• Used in every year group to build fluency, confidence and expression.
• Supports vocabulary acquisition and understanding of authorial intent.
• Encourages synchronicity, team effort and enjoyment of texts.
• Choral Reading happens across the curriculum. For example: Kingston Letters and Sounds, Active Reading and Foundation Subjects.

Research Links:

• DfE Reading Framework (2021) – Reading aloud improves comprehension and prosody.
• Rasinski (2014) – Fluency instruction enhances oral and written language.

3. Drama Across the School

Drama is interwoven throughout the curriculum. Teachers utilise a variety of drama conventions such as:

• Role play
• Freeze frames
• Thought tracking
• Hot seating
• Re-enactment of key events from history, literature or PSHE

Drama supports pupils in using purposeful language, exploring emotions and developing empathy.

Research Links:

• Bruner (1961) – Discovery Learning through imaginative play.
• Alexander (2017) – Dialogic Teaching fosters engagement and reasoning.

4. Presentations and Leadership Roles

Authentic opportunities for pupils to present to different audiences:

• Year 6 Ambassadors speaking to the whole school.
• Pupil leaders presenting to governors.
• Children presenting to prospective parents.
• Class presentations linked to projects.

These opportunities develop confidence, professionalism and pride.

Research Links:

• Voice 21 (2020) – Authentic speaking tasks build confidence and resilience.

5. Talk Partners in Every Lesson

Talk partners are used consistently to:

• Practise new vocabulary.
• Rehearse ideas before writing.
• Enable all pupils to engage in exploratory talk.
• Support reasoning and deepen understanding.

Teachers model expectations and pupils use structured talk frames to ensure high-quality dialogue. For example: I think….. because….

Research Links:

• EEF (2021) – Structured oral rehearsal improves writing outcomes.
• Mercer (2000) – Collaborative talk enhances cognitive development.

6. Performance Poetry and Poetry Recitals

• Pupils regularly engage in performance poetry and poetry recitals to develop:
• Expression and intonation (Physical strand).
• Confidence in public speaking (Social & Emotional strand).
• Vocabulary and rhythm awareness (Linguistic strand).
• These activities encourage prosody, which research shows is a key predictor of reading fluency and comprehension.

Research Links:

• Rasinski (2014) – Performance poetry and repeated oral reading improve fluency, expression, and comprehension.
• DfE Reading Framework (2021) – Oral reading with expression supports understanding and engagement.
• EEF (2021) – Oral language activities, including poetry recitals, enhance vocabulary and spoken confidence.

7. Fluency Lessons

• From Year 1, weekly sessions focused on reading fluency, which directly supports oracy by:
• Improving automaticity and prosody in speech.
• Building confidence in oral delivery.
• Reinforcing vocabulary and sentence structure through repeated oral practice.

Research Links:

• National Reading Panel (2000) – Repeated oral reading significantly improves fluency and comprehension.
• Rasinski & Zimmerman (2013) – Fluency instruction enhances oral expression and overall literacy.
• EEF (2021) – Structured oral rehearsal and repeated reading improve syntactic awareness and writing outcomes.

8. The Wonder Emporium (Exploratory and Reflective Oracy)

The Wonder Emporium is a distinctive whole‑school oracy‑rich provision that places curiosity and wonder at the heart of spoken language development. It provides a calm, purposeful environment where talk is driven by genuine fascination rather than performance, enabling all pupils to explore ideas aloud, listen actively and respond thoughtfully.

Purpose

• Develop pupils’ ability to articulate curiosity and explain thinking.
• Build confidence in speaking clearly and purposefully to an audience.
• Encourage high‑quality questioning, speculation and reflection.
• Develop ambitious vocabulary through oral description and explanation.
• Promote inclusive oracy, ensuring all pupils can participate successfully.
• Use talk as a tool for thinking, reasoning and meaning‑making.

Process

• Pupils visit the Wonder Emporium through regular, structured sessions in small groups.
• Children explore a carefully curated collection of artefacts from a wide range of cultures, historical periods, scientific disciplines and geographical contexts.
• Each pupil selects an object that provokes curiosity and records thinking through drawing, questions or oral explanation.
• Structured sharing routines (e.g. the Wonder Chair) provide opportunities to:
  • “I wonder why…”
  • “This makes me think…”
  • “I chose this because…”
• Explain choices and reasoning aloud.
• Practise clear voice projection, pace, posture and eye contact.
• Use modelled sentence stems such as:
• Pupils listen actively, take turns, ask respectful follow‑up questions and build on the ideas of others.
• Teachers model academic language and facilitate discussion without directing outcomes.

Oracy Strand Alignment

• Physical: clear articulation, projection, pace, posture and confident delivery.
• Linguistic: precise vocabulary, complete sentences and structured oral rehearsal.
• Cognitive: reasoning, hypothesising, questioning and metacognitive talk.
• Social & Emotional: turn‑taking, active listening, respectful response and confidence building.

Research Links:

• Mercer & Littleton (2007) – Exploratory and dialogic talk supports reasoning and collective thinking.
• Alexander (2017) – Dialogic teaching fosters engagement, vocabulary development and depth of understanding.
• EEF (2021) – Oral language activities improve speaking confidence, vocabulary and transfer into writing.
• Vygotsky (1978) – Learning is socially constructed through meaningful interaction and talk.

Additional Strategies

• Teacher Modelling of Academic Language and Sentence Structures
  Teachers demonstrate how to use precise vocabulary and grammar orally before writing.
  EEF (2021) – Modelling supports metacognition and transfer to writing.
• CPD for Staff on Dialogic Teaching and Vocabulary Instruction
  Ongoing professional development ensures consistency and quality.
  Alexander (2017) – Dialogic teaching improves reasoning and engagement.
• Inclusive Scaffolds for SEND/EAL Learners
  Visual prompts, sentence frames, structured turn-taking to ensure equity.
  DfE SEND Guidance (2021) – Scaffolds reduce cognitive load and support language acquisition.
• Grammar and Sentence Construction in Speech
  Explicit oral rehearsal of sentence types before writing (e.g., using conjunctions, fronted adverbials).
  EEF (2021) – Oral grammar practice improves syntactic awareness and writing fluency.

Impact

By the end of Year 6, Kingston pupils will:

• Speak confidently and fluently in a range of contexts.
• Use ambitious vocabulary accurately and appropriately.
• Debate respectfully, using evidence to support views.
• Present knowledge clearly to different audiences.
• Demonstrate active listening and collaborative talk skills.
• Transfer oral skills into high-quality writing.

Impact is measured through:

• Teacher observation and formative assessment during lessons.
• Performance tasks (debates, presentations).
• Progression maps tracking development across the four strands.
• Pupil voice surveys to gauge confidence and engagement.

Linking Oracy With the Kingston Writing Process

Oracy is intentionally woven into every stage of the Kingston Writing Process to strengthen vocabulary, sentence construction, idea development and overall writing quality.

1. Immersion Stage (Experience → Talk → Understanding)

Oracy strengthens immersion by enabling pupils to:

• Explore new vocabulary orally before using it in writing.
• Discuss high-quality texts through dialogic reading and choral rehearsal.
• Use drama (freeze frames, role play, hot seating) to internalise character, setting and emotion.
• Engage in talk partners to rehearse ideas before recording them.

The Wonder Emporium enhances this immersion stage by providing an oracy-rich environment where pupils encounter artefacts and objects that stimulate curiosity, deepen vocabulary and generate authentic talk before writing begins

Impact on Writing: Pupils enter the writing process with a secure understanding of context, concepts and language.

Research Links:

• Mercer & Littleton (2007): Dialogic teaching improves reasoning and comprehension; exploratory talk builds conceptual understanding.
• Alexander et al. (2017): 20 weeks of dialogic teaching led to two months’ additional progress in English and science.
• Bruner (1961): Drama and role play deepen schema and engagement, supporting narrative writing.

2. Vocabulary Development (Explicit Teaching → Oral Rehearsal)

• Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary is taught orally first.
• Children practise pronunciation, meaning and usage through structured talk.
• Sentence stems and talk frames scaffold oral rehearsal of new words.

Impact on Writing: Pupils sound and write with academic precision, embedding ambitious vocabulary accurately.

Research Links:

• Beck, McKeown & Kucan (2013): Robust vocabulary instruction requires oral rehearsal of Tier 2 and Tier 3 words before writing.
• EEF (2021): Explicit vocabulary teaching combined with oral practice improves writing fluency and comprehension.

3. Rehearsal and Planning (Thinking Aloud → Structured Talk → Written Plan)

• Pupils share, discuss and refine ideas with talk partners.
• Teachers model ‘thinking aloud’ to demonstrate idea shaping.
• Oral sentence construction activities help pupils form well-structured sentences before writing.
• Opportunities for debate and discussion strengthen reasoning used in non-fiction writing.

Impact on Writing: Pupils produce coherent, well-developed plans with clear structure and purpose.

Research Links:

• Rosenshine (2012): Modelling and ‘thinking aloud’ during planning improves metacognition and writing quality.
• Myhill & Jones (2009): Oral rehearsal reduces cognitive load and supports sentence-level accuracy before writing.
• Vygotsky (1978): Collaborative talk within the Zone of Proximal Development scaffolds higher-order thinking

4. Drafting (Oral Rehearsal → Written Composition)

• Children verbally rehearse sentences before writing them.
• In KS2, pupils may orally explain paragraph structure before composing.
• Drama is used to support narrative writing by deepening empathy and perspective.

Impact on Writing: Drafts show clearer cohesion, improved flow and greater control of language.

Research Links:

• EEF (2021): Oral rehearsal before writing improves syntactic complexity and cohesion.
• Alexander (2017): Dialogic approaches enhance narrative depth and reasoning.

5. Editing and Improving (Discussion of Writing → Feedback Dialogue)

• Peer-editing includes structured talk prompts (e.g., "I suggest…", "Could you clarify…?").
• Oral reasoning helps pupils justify vocabulary or structural choices.
• Children read their writing aloud to check fluency, clarity and impact.

Impact on Writing: Pupils develop metacognitive awareness and make purposeful improvements.

Research Links:

• Wu & Schunn (2021): Peer feedback and oral discussion significantly improve revision quality and writing outcomes.
• EEF (2021): Collaborative editing and verbal reasoning develop metacognitive awareness.

6. Publishing and Presenting (Performance → Audience → Purpose)

• Finished writing is shared aloud with authentic audiences.
• Year 6 ambassadors model high-quality presentation skills.
• Opportunities include assemblies, visitors, governors and cross-class sharing.

Research Links:

• Voice 21 (2020): Authentic speaking tasks build confidence and improve engagement with writing.
• EEF (2021): Performance-based tasks increase motivation and deepen understanding of audience and purpose.

Educational Research References

• Alexander, R. (2017) – Dialogic Teaching
• Beck, McKeown & Kucan (2013) – Bringing Words to Life: Vocabulary Instruction
• Bruner, J. (1961) – Discovery Learning
• Department for Education (DfE) – The Reading Framework
• Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) – Improving Literacy and Oral Language Interventions
• EEF (2021) – Structured oral rehearsal and repeated reading improve syntactic awareness and writing outcomes
• Mercer, N. (2000) – Words and Minds: How We Use Language to Think Together
• Mercer & Littleton (2007) – Dialogic Teaching and Collaborative Talk
• Myhill & Jones (2009) – Oral Rehearsal and Writing Accuracy
• National Reading Panel (2000) – Repeated oral reading significantly improves fluency and comprehension
• Rasinski (2014) – Fluency Instruction and Oral Language Development
• Rasinski & Zimmerman (2013) – Fluency instruction enhances oral expression and overall literacy
• Rosenshine (2012) – Principles of Instruction
• Voice 21 (2020) – Oracy Framework and Evidence Base
• Vygotsky, L. (1978) – Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes
• Wu & Schunn (2021) – Peer Feedback and Oral Discussion in Writing Improvement