The benefits of children being fluent, confident and articulate speakers reach far beyond the limits of the classroom; oracy is a skill that equips them to succeed in life. At St. John's we help children to become effective communicators enabling them to better understand themselves and the world around them.

It has been shown through numerous studies that young people’s academic success is closely linked to their ability to communicate effectively. However, the benefits far surpass attainment at school. For example, having the tools to express themselves will also help pupils to form relationships and look after their wellbeing, whilst having the confidence to present in front of an audience will greatly aid young people in an interview situation or even in their future careers. In order to facilitate this, we teach the following areas to all pupils: 

• The ‘rules’ of social interaction – taking turns; identifying who is holding the conversation and how to judge when this can change; how pairs of language work, e.g. Q and A, greeting and response; how to fix what we say or what we don’t understand. 
• Non-verbal cues – voice; volume; intonation; eye contact; pitch; pauses; pronunciation; posture; personal space. 
• How to listen. 
• How to speak. 

We use a detailed Oracy framework to support the development of speaking and listening skills from Reception right up to the end of Key Stage 2.   This provides a comprehensive guide to teaching the different areas of Oracy across the curriculum to facilitate speaking and listening skills for all pupils.  

At St. John's we understand the need to use a wide range of vocabulary to succeed at school and in life.  To progress with reading children need to understand the words they decode.  To write well they need a wide and varied use of words.  To understand all subjects including maths, science and social studies they need to understand the words that are used. 

Word Aware is a structured whole school approach we use to promote the robust, consistent teaching of vocabulary development of all children, from Early Years upwards.  Focussed on whole class learning, it supports those for starting at a disadvantage – including children with Developmental Language Disorder, Special Educational Needs and those who speak English as an additional language, whilst extending skills of all students.

We want our pupils to have fun with words, whilst recalling and knowing more.  Word Aware enables children need to be enthralled by words, not overwhelmed!

Word Aware promotes a method called STAR, which stands for Select, Teach, Activate and Review.