In March this year we launched the Commission on the Future of Oracy Education in England. This independent Commission was formed to respond to a growing recognition of the importance of spoken language on children’s learning and their lives beyond school.

It’s been a busy few months. Since the launch of the Commission, we have considered over 130 submissions of evidence and held meetings with an esteemed panel of Commissioners from across education, civil society, academia, business and cultural institutions. We’ve held expert roundtables on different aspects of oracy education such as expressive arts, GCSE English Language, assessment, inclusion and teacher development. And I’ve been exploring what oracy is and why it matters through a series of more than forty brief podcast conversations with a range of key commentators from within education and beyond.

To deepen our thinking, we have also commissioned a series of exploratory papers outlining key areas of discussion on particular issues related to oracy education. These papers have been written by experts in different fields of education who have kindly lent their time and expertise to the Commission. Each paper provides an overview of lines of discussion and key dilemmas relating to a particular area of enquiry, finishing with a provocation for the Commission to consider. Ahead of the publication of the Commission’s final report and recommendations next month, we share these discussion papers with you in the spirit of open dialogue and debate, to let you see some of ‘our workings’ as it were.

The issues we have chosen to explore in this journal include those which address what oracy is and how it should be developed at school, as well as those
about implementation – that is, what teachers need to learn about oracy, how and if it should feature in the English Language GCSE, and what needs to be done to ensure oracy education is inclusive for children and young people with communication differences. As you read these papers, we would encourage you to discuss the provocations posed by the authors and to consider some of the questions we have been working through as a Commission. That’s in the spirit of our ongoing mantra that “Everybody’s talking about oracy!”

We will publish our final report later this month and I look forward very much to continuing the conversation with you then and beyond.

Geoff Barton
Chair, Commission on the Future of Oracy Education in England