Dear Parents and Carers 

Weekly roundup Infants and Juniors 

Being able to communicate effectively is an essential skill for everyone. It enables us to be able to express our thoughts and feelings effectively leading to us feeling understood and confident in ourselves. Last year we started our journey on the Voice 21 project which focuses on Oracy being at the heart of school life and classroom practice. Voice 21 describe the power of Oracy saying: 

In school, oracy is a powerful tool for learning: by teaching students to become more effective speakers and listeners we empower them to better understand themselves, each other and the world around them. It is also a route to social mobility, empowering all students, not just some, to find their voice to succeed in school and life. 

Through a high quality oracy education students learn through talk and to talk. This is when they develop and deepen their subject knowledge and understanding through talk in the classroom, which has been planned, designed, modelled, scaffolded and structured to enable them to learn the skills needed to talk effectively. 

This year we are embedding strategies and further strengthening our curriculum to fully embrace Oracy. The children are enjoying our Oracy Guidelines, Talk Tactics and Concept Cartoons all tools that help us develop talk for learning and learning to talk.  

This is what they feel about the project so far. 

To show that we want to talk we can put our thumbs in – Rupert 

It’s important to talk to show how you are feeling and to show what you want to do – Aoife  

We have talk partners. You need to make sure that people can hear you. – Marek 

We use Buddy talk in English. It helps us to learn what to do. – Heidi 

The teacher might say number ones talk and number twos listen. Then we swap over. - Harriet 

Oracy helps us to communicate and not just to agree with everyone else.- Freya 

We need to get better at communicating because it’s not just about talking to one person, its about being able to talk to lots of different people. – Lilly 

You can listen to other people and other people can listen to you. – Dottie 

I like doing the talk tactics because it’s fun discussing. – Emil 

I like having a little conversation and discussing the things we’re learning about.??I liked talking about the poems. I like it that we respect other people’s opinions about the poems. – Lena 

Oracy helps us to communicate better with other people who we don’t know. – Gina 

I enjoy the talk tactics because it helps us to discuss things. – Dottie 

I think it’s good because it helps you to listen to other people’s ideas and not just yours and that can help your learning. – Freya. 

The children and staff across both schools are already seeing the impact of the project. We aim to create a culture where everyone values their voice. Next term Mrs Simpkins and I will be dusting off our directors’ chairs to make a short film about Oracy at St Saviours and we look forward to sharing the finished article with you. If you would like to learn more about Voice 21, please click here to go to their website. 

Please also click here for photographs of the two Oracy displays in our schools. 

Job vacancies 

We currently have vacancies for four job roles across the St Saviour’s sites. If you are interested in finding out more about these roles (including SEN TA, multi-site manager and Early Years Practitioner), please click here 

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We hope you have a good weekend. 

Best wishes 

Sophie and Mrs Simmons