Help every child develop their oracy skills in Year 7 in English or drama lessons to build confidence and thrive in their learning and life beyond school.

Crafted and refined in the classroom by brilliant teacher Djamila Boothman, see every child blossom as they find their voice and build and practise their speaking and listening skills.

• Easy to slot into KS3 schemes of work with 10 fully-resourced lessons with lesson notes, PowerPoints, videos and worksheets in one customisable teacher pack for the whole English department
• Aid transition from primary to secondary school, building social skills and interactions over the course of a term
• Empower students to voice their opinions, thoughts and feelings through debating, speech making, listening, responding and working collaboratively
• Set high expectations and high challenge with inspiring activities on relatable topics
• Foster a whole school approach with subject-specific suggestions for oracy practice ​

Contents

• Lesson 1: Introducing oracy
• Lesson 2: Physical aspects of oracy: gestures and body language
• Lesson 3: The importance of the voice
• Lesson 4: Introducing rhetoric
• Lesson 5: Oracy as a social tool: working with others
• Lesson 6: Active listening
• Lesson 7: Content and structure: exploring key ingredients for speech writing
• Lesson 8: Creating confidence
• Lesson 9: Bringing it all together
• Lesson 10: Oracy: the bigger picture
• Additional notes to support oracy across the curriculum

The planning-related tasks in Developing Brilliant Speaking have been particularly helpful in allowing all students in KS3 to take an initial idea and develop it further, using structure and ambitious vocabulary to do so along the way.

This resource gives confidence to staff who are able to follow clear structures and roles for students in group tasks. In addition, the resources surrounding what good talk ‘looks like’ have been of value as part of our in-house effort-based assessments.

We have had fewer students be reticent to deliver their Spoken Language presentations in front of their peers and more students achieve merits or distinctions for the quality of their presentations. Debbie Price, Head of English Ashfield School, Mansfield

Djamila is an Assistant Headteacher, Teach First Ambassador, mother, documentary-maker (Hush…We Came on Windrush, 2020) and proud British-Caribbean. She believes that cultural competence and educational disadvantage must be tackled through the curriculum and, as an English teacher, values the power that literature has as a gateway to new worlds and experiences. Practising a ‘you cannot be what you cannot see’ mantra, she is committed to improving cultural representation in the English literature curriculum as a means of increasing student inquiry, attainment, promoting pride and placing equal value and celebration on the lived experiences of all children sitting in Britain’s classrooms. Djamila is a contributor and author on our KS3, KS4 and KS5 anthologies, as well as being a fantastic ambassador and spokesperson in education.