Despite the term “oracy” being omitted from the Curriculum and Assessment Review’s Interim Report, I am hopeful. Here’s why.
Oracy on the agenda
Schools increasingly recognise the importance of oracy for their pupils and are building their expertise. According to polling from Teacher Tapp in January 2025, 13% of schools now have a named oracy lead and this year alone more than 1,000 are working with Voice 21 to embed a high-quality oracy education.
Oracy is on the government’s agenda: it is included in the Curriculum and Assessment Review’s Terms of Reference (DfE, 2024), and the prime minister has outlined the importance of oracy.
In 2023, for example, he said: “These skills are absolutely critical for our children’s future success. First and foremost – for academic attainment. But it’s not just a skill for learning, it’s also a skill for life. Not just for the workplace, also for working out who you are – for overcoming shyness or disaffection, anxiety or doubt – or even just for opening up more to our friends and family.”
Space for talk
The review panel’s ambitions for the curriculum require talk. The interim report sets out six ambitions for a refreshed national curriculum. Together, these offer a vision of education that necessitates a serious attention to oracy. This isn’t surprising, given what we know about oracy’s crucial role.
The final report from the Commission on the Future of Oracy in England (2024) described oracy as the “Fourth R” alongside reading, writing and arithmetic, a “foundational building block to support our young people on their journey towards living fulfilling adult lives”.
In particular, the interim report’s ambitions draw attention to the need to foster a love of learning; to widen pupils’ horizons while also ensuring they see themselves represented in what they learn; and to ensure pupils are prepared for their future life and work.
For this expansive view of education to be a reality for every child, teachers will need to invite pupils to take part in rich dialogue in the classroom. Through talk, pupils will be able to extend and develop their thinking, connect their learning to their lives, and prepare for a world where the “human skills” of collaboration, critical literacy and communication are more important than ever.
The review acknowledges current barriers to oracy (and deep thinking) – and suggests several areas where space for oracy needs to be upheld or created in the curriculum.
First, the report offers a welcome acknowledgement that the primary curriculum as it stands is “not effectively balancing depth and breadth”. It adds: “This is reported to lead to a struggle to cover all content with sufficient depth and negatively affects pupils’ ability to master foundational concepts.”
This is frequently raised by our schools as a frustrating way in which the current curriculum works against oracy. Redressing this balance means inviting pupils to think deeply; and to engage in the rich discussions that are both a result and an enabler of deep and lasting learning.
Second, the report argues that the curriculum refresh needs to be future-facing. It should take into account the knowledge and skills that pupils need to be critical consumers of contemporary media; to “fend off threats to our democracy and cohesion”; and to “thrive in a fast-changing world”.
We know that this requires pupils to be equipped with the tools to analyse and deploy spoken language. One in 10 teens choose TikTok as their most important news source (Ofcom, 2024); and YouGov polling last year found that two-thirds of employers believe that as the role of tech and AI at work grows, spoken language and listening skills will become more important for progression at work.
Clarity on oracy
We hope that the review panel’s final report will offer clarity on oracy, supporting consistent, high-quality practice across England. This entails:
- Adopting an expansive definition of oracy, encompassing learning to, through and about speaking, listening and communication.
- Establishing oracy as a core curriculum entitlement, setting out detailed, age-appropriate requirements that build over time, and outline key contexts and modes of talk.
- Reframing the role of Standard English, ensuring pupils’ full linguistic repertoires are recognised and developed, fostering inclusion and promoting proficiency as agile communicators.
Our schools tell us that oracy runs through their curricula like a golden thread. At a national level, a curriculum that recognises the role and value of oracy across subject areas would ensure that the development of children’s spoken language and communication is not left to chance. It would unite and support the work already in motion beyond the curriculum, in professional development, initial teacher training, academia, and most importantly in our schools and other education settings, to ensure that every child receives a high-quality oracy education.
- Amanda Moorghen is head of learning, impact and policy at Voice 21, a national oracy education charity. She supports the charity’s whole-school approach to oracy education, which now reaches more than 1,000 schools. Visit https://voice21.org/ and find Amanda's previous contributions to SecEd via www.sec-ed.co.uk/authors/amanda-moorghen/
Further information & resources
- Commission on the Future of Oracy in England: We need to talk, 2024: https://buff.ly/LBTGyXo
- DfE: Curriculum and Assessment Review: Review aims, terms of reference and working principles, 2024: https://buff.ly/YmDUEnu
- Ofcom: News consumption in the UK: Research findings, 2024: https://buff.ly/3LnbV3y