The latest in our conversations with the Oracy Commissioners: in this one, Artistic Director of the National Theatre, Rufus Norris, talks of the denigration of the arts and of creative tuition in schools ...  and his hope that the Commission may help to address this

Geoff Barton

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In this Commission Conversation, Chair Geoff Barton talks to Tim Oates, Head of Research at Cambridge Assessment, about oracy in the curriculum, international perspectives, and reflections on the formal assessment of spoken language

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In this episode of our Commission Conversations, Chair of the Oracy in Education Commission, Geoff Barton, speaks to Martin Robinson of @Trivium21C about bringing healthy and interesting debate into the curriculum, and supporting students to explore different people's perspectives through talk.

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Our latest Oracy Commission conversation - this one with Louisa Reeves from Speech and Language UK - about early years language, supporting parents, and campaigning on behalf on the almost 2 million children for whom oracy is a hurdle.

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Chair of the Commission on the Future of Oracy Education in England, Geoff Barton, talks to Neil Mercer about talk for learning, disciplinary approaches to oracy, how we can support teachers to become effective oracy practitioners and whether we assess students' oracy skills. Neil Mercer is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge, where he is also Director of Oracy Cambridge: the Centre for Effective Spoken Communication at Hughes Hall.

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Chair of the Commission on the Future of Oracy Education in England, Geoff Barton, talks to Tom F. Wright about the history of grassroots oracy education which stretches right back to the Victorian era.

Tom F. Wright is Reader in Rhetoric at the University of Sussex. He is a cultural historian of nineteenth century Britain and America. His research focuses on rhetoric and spoken communication and their role in politics, education and the history of ideas. Tom is Principal Investigator on the Speaking Citizens Project and teaches English and American Studies at the University of Sussex

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In this 'Commission Conversation' Geoff Barton, Chair of the Commission on the Future of Oracy Education in England, talks to Michael Rosen about...talk, including his own family history, how children talk about books and the way teachers use talk in the classroom.

Michael Rosen is Professor of Children's Literature. Since the late 1960s, Michael Rosen has been writing books, articles, plays and various kinds of scripts; performing poetry for audiences of all ages; and broadcasting on literature related subjects on radio and TV. From 2007-2009 he was Children's Laureate.

Michael's blog on the subject is here: https://buff.ly/3V0cp9U

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In this 'Commission Conversation, Chair of the Commission on the Future of Oracy Education in England, Geoff Barton, talks to Julia Snell about expectations for classroom talk, including the problem with blanket expectations for students to speak in standardised forms of English and the importance of dialogic pedagogy, including giving teachers the time and autonomy to develop this in their classrooms.  

Julia Snell is Professor of Sociolinguistics at the University of Leeds. Her research on language variation has focused on the influence of social class, investigating how children from different social backgrounds use the resources of their local dialect, in addition to ‘standard’ English, to construct their identities, negotiate social hierarchies, and manage their relationships with each other and with their teachers. Julia has also done extensive work on classroom discourse and dialogic pedagogy,  seeking to promote the use of 'dialogic' teaching practices that engage active pupil participation in rich and challenging classroom discourse.

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In this 'Commission Conversation' Geoff Barton, Chair of the Commission on the Future of Oracy Education in England, speaks to Arlene Holmes-Henderson about what we can learn about oracy education from the ancient world, why more young people should be studying 'rhetoric' and the myths about oracy and citizenship we should be challenging.

Arlene Holmes-Henderson is Professor of Classics Education and Public Policy at Durham University where she holds a British Academy Innovation Fellowship (2022-2024). After studying Classics at Oxford, Harvard and Cambridge, Arlene qualified as a schoolteacher and taught in high schools for more than a decade before returning to academia. In 2024, she is working with Dr Tom Wright (University of Sussex) on the AHRC-funded project . Her work here focuses on co-designing with teachers, new resources on oracy for use in Scottish schools.

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In this 'Commission Conversation' Geoff Barton, Chair of the Commission on the Future of Oracy Education in England, talks to Warda Farah about racial and cultural bias in speech and language therapy,  her own experiences of linguicism at school and why it is powerful to teach children and young people about standard language ideologies. 

Warda Farah is a speech and language therapist and community activist, as well as a lecturer at Greenwich University. She previously founded a specialised speech and language practice that trained clinicians and served schools in the UK in evidence-based, culturally/linguistically diverse therapy.

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In this 'Commission Conversation' Geoff Barton, Chair of the Commission on the Future of Oracy Education in England, talks to Pie Corbett about  why talk underpins children's ability to read and write, the importance of storytelling at every phase and how creative subjects can help you understand yourself and the world around you better.

Pie Corbett is a former teacher, head teacher, lecturer and OFSTED inspector who has published and edited over 250 books. He developed ‘Talk for Writing’,  a teaching framework which supports children to imitate the language they need for a particular topic orally, before reading and analysing it, and then writing their own version.  He was made an Honorary Doctor of Letters for services to poetry, storytelling and creative teaching by the University of Winchester.

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