Year 5 Blog: Growing Confident Orators!

Over the past couple of weeks, Year 5 have been developing their oracy skills—and what a difference it has made! We’ve been focusing on helping children speak clearly, listen actively, and respond thoughtfully during discussions across the curriculum.

Building Oracy Through Sentence Starters

To support structured talk, we’ve been practising a range of sentence starters such as:

  • “I agree with you because…”
  • “I would like to add…”
  • “I hear what you’re saying, but I think…”
    These help pupils express themselves with clarity and confidence, especially when explaining their ideas or building on the contributions of others.

Learning to Listen and Respond

A big part of our work has been on active listening—making eye contact, waiting for others to finish, and responding in a respectful, considerate way. We’ve been encouraging pupils to ask follow‑up questions and show they have really understood the speaker. It’s been wonderful to see how thoughtful and considerate their discussions have become.

Oracy Across the Curriculum

Although our main focus has been during English and RE, we’ve noticed that children are now carrying these skills into other lessons too.

  • In English, pupils have used their oracy skills when debating character decisions, sharing interpretations of texts, and discussing author choices.
  • In RE, they have shared personal reflections, explored different viewpoints, and practised explaining their reasoning with care and respect.

It’s been fantastic to watch these skills naturally appear in subjects like history, science, and HRSE, where children are more confident to contribute, question, and collaborate.

Growing Skills for Life

Oracy is not just about classroom talk—it helps pupils grow into confident communicators who can express themselves effectively in every area of learning. We are incredibly proud of how Year 5 are applying these skills independently and showing real maturity in their discussions.

Thank you, as always, for your continued support.
We look forward to sharing more of our learning with you soon!