Oracy October

Resource type: Event

Price band: Free

Key stage: KS1, KS2, KS3, KS4, KS5

Region(s): All of UK

Oracy October was set up by oracy education charity Voice 21 to highlight the importance of helping young people develop key speaking and listening skills. Oracy October has a different theme each year. The theme for 2022 is Speaking like a Specialist and explores what high-quality talk looks like in different subject disciplines.

To support Oracy October, Voice 21 is providing a range of resources, including:

A programme of free webinars for teachers that examine what ‘Speaking Like a Specialist’ looks like in Science, English, Art, the Humanities and Maths.
Activities and guidance to run a ‘Speak Like a Specialist’ challenge to help primary and secondary pupils consider and develop subject-specific oracy skills.

About Voice 21: Voice 21 is the UK’s oracy education charity dedicated to transforming the learning and life chances of young people through talk. The charity provides training and resources to empower schools to provide a high-quality oracy education that will enable their students to use their voice for success in school and life.

Further resources:

Find out more about what a high-quality oracy education looks like by downloading The Oracy Benchmarks report.
You can view the webinars from Oracy October 2021 that explored the power of talk to Create Connections here.
The Story Seekers is a free, fully-resourced oracy and creative literacy project from the National and Unicorn Theatres designed to help pupils develop their communication and language skills. Open to pupils in Years 4-6 in all UK state primary schools, it will run each term through the 2022-2023 academic year. Sign up by September 30th for the autumn term.
Topical Talk is a year-round programme of free resources from the Economist Education Foundation designed to help students aged 9-14 develop critical thinking and communication skills through discussion about current affairs.