I attended the launch of the oracy All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) Speak for Change inquiry at Parliament on May 20th to interview some Year 5 and 6 pupils.
These were not just any nine to ten-year olds, they are pupils at School 21, which uses the Voice21 speaking curriculum to teach oracy skills. I wanted to know how having oracy incorporated into the what and way they learn was helping these pupils both at school and in their wider lives.
What I learnt came as much from the words these young people used as the disconnect I saw between their skills in speaking to a room full of MPs and other adults one-to-one, and my lacking ability to speak to either those same people, or indeed the young people themselves.
I was in Year 6 in 1997 and judging by my social and professional anxiety in Room M at Portcullis House in Westminster, I don’t think we learnt oracy in my classroom.
I hung back for a while and watched these young people speak confidently and enthusiastically to everyone. I smiled and took photos and listened from afar as they answered questions from others. Once introduced to these intellectually intimidating youngsters – 23 years my juniors – I was blown away even more.
Speaking up
Isabella is in Year 5, she told me that learning oracy skills helps her with her friendships as well her school work. She uses quiet Senenti sitting beside her as a hypothetical example in her story:
“If Senenti said something rude to me, if he told me I couldn’t play sports with the boys then I would first take a deep breath and think ‘yes I can’. Then I would wait until everyone else was gone and have a word with Senenti and tell him how I feel.”
Suddenly it’s apparent that oracy means much more than learning to speak. Isabella says it’s about speaking up.
A self-confessed ‘chatterbox’, she says that her best friend goes to a school without oracy lessons and she notices that she speaks much less. “Everyone really likes her but she only talks to about two people so she doesn’t know that everyone likes her. She’s not shy she just doesn’t talk much”, says Isabella.
This is the other thing I’ve learnt already – oracy isn’t just about building loud speakers it’s about building confident, self-aware speakers.
Senenti who has been sitting quietly, occasionally nodding in agreement, now shares with me that he thinks oracy lessons are important so that children can learn to speak about the things that matter to them. He says:
“it’s not just about speaking, it’s about speaking effectively.”
Senenti knows that climate change and pollution are vital issues in the world. We look out the window onto Westminster bridge at the many, many cars going past. He tells me that if you ask most people if they care about climate change and think they should do something about it then they say ‘yes’.
But, he says, they don’t often turn this into action because they don’t necessarily understand how to speak about the issue with confidence and how to incorporate evidence into their arguments.
He wants to be able to speak about the environment and the things that he cares about in a way that will resonate with and empower others. He is nine years old.
Senenti also wants to be a writer, and I have no doubt that he will be persuasive whether it be magical fiction or frightening fact on his pages. Either way, I will certainly be reading everything he publishes.
Many of the MPs who speak with the children at the APPG launch also stress the importance of listening, and how glad they are that oracy skills teach pupils to both speak and listen. They tell the young people about how listening to others helps them communicate better in their jobs.
It’s encouraging to see so many MPs come in and out through the day to show their support for the Speak for Change inquiry. They are each taken aside to be interviewed on camera by School 21 pupils and asked to record a message calling for support from their constituents.
The young interviewers today tell Lizzie, from Voice 21 (who are leading the Oracy Network and the APPG process) that the answers to ‘how does oracy help you in your job?’ receives the most interesting answers.
More than speech
Two Year 6 pupils also present their own speeches on topics they care about; voting rights for children – quite brave I thought telling an all party parliamentary group that you do not want a Conservative government – and Muslim discrimination in the UK.
These aren’t just children promoting speaking skills to MPs, they’re citizens with powerful voices sharing their views on vital social messages.
They are heard because of their access an education in and through oracy.
It’s a stark reminder of the many other areas in education as well that we need to address when Isabella later tells me she would like to be a teacher – “but I don’t know if I would like to be because some children can be really difficult and aggressive and that makes it hard.” She praises her own teachers and teacher assistants and says that if she was a teacher like them then she could do it.
Big Change also supports the greater wellbeing of teachers and teacher agency to make sure all are trained appropriately, empowered to be agents of change, and stay in the profession. In our inclusion as strength focus area we also support programmes like The Difference which train teachers to deal effectively with behavioural issues before they lead to exclusion.
I went to the launch of the oracy APPG to ask the young people about their experience having oracy lessons at school. I left wishing I had these in 1997.
Zoe is marketing and communications manager at Big Change