Labour’s plan to improve children’s speaking skills gets mixed reaction

Labour’s plan to embed speaking skills throughout England’s schools has been greeted with enthusiasm by academics and school leaders – and some scepticism by the teachers who would deliver the policy.

Keir Starmer said teaching oracy – often defined as developing skill in using spoken language – would be a central part of Labour’s educational priorities if the party took office after the next election.

“It’s not just a skill for learning, it’s also a skill for life. Not just for the workplace, also for working out who you are – for overcoming shyness or disaffection, anxiety or doubt – or even just for opening up more to our friends and family,” Starmer said.

But school leaders and teachers who spoke to the Guardian were more wary, wanting to hear in more detail what the policy would entail at the chalkface.

“If this means, say, developing quality read-alouds and question and answer strategies, that’s great. If it means bringing back hoop-jumping speaking and listening coursework, not so great,” said Daisy Christodoulou, a former teacher who is director of education at a marking consultancy, No More Marking.

Headteachers were pleased by Labour’s promise that it would use its curriculum review to “weave” speaking skills into lessons, rather than by adding to them, but classroom teachers were concerned that oracy needed to be clearly defined. Otherwise it risked becoming a meaningless term covering anything from asking questions to holding structured debates, they said.

Sarah Hannafin, head of policy at the National Association of Head Teachers, said: “Creating more teaching and learning opportunities for these skills will need a holistic review of the curriculum. Time in the school day is finite and it is not possible to simply add more to an already bulging curriculum; content will need removing to create the necessary space for anything new or different.”

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders and a former headteacher, said the current school accountability system has “pushed oracy to the fringes” despite communication skills being in high demand by employers.

“We need to equip young people with the tools they need to thrive when they leave school. That’s what Labour appears to be saying, and not many would disagree that oracy should underpin high quality learning in every classroom and every subject for all ages,” Barton said.

Stephen Coleman, professor of political communication at the University of Leeds, said oracy was more about confident self-expression than elocution lessons.

“It’s certainly not about learning how to stand up and impersonate Michael Gove. It’s about having a capacity to formulate your ideas, to assume that someone is going to listen to them, and also to listen to other people,” Coleman said.

Coleman added that while skills in writing have been emphasised in schools in recent years, speaking skills have not received enough attention.

“Most people, after they leave school, will never be asked to write an essay again. But they are certainly going to be asked to speak, whether it’s in job interviews, whether it’s in pitching things,” Coleman said.

“Voice is a very, very important tool particularly for the most disadvantaged young people in society.”

Kirsten Howells, deputy chief executive at Stamma, the UK’s national charity for stammering, said that while the body supported empowering young people to use their voices, there are concerns around the emphasis on fluency and the potential impact on people with speech differences.

“It’s perfectly possible to stammer and be a great verbal communicator. ‘Fluency’ is not a marker of communicative skill or competence, so it shouldn’t be used as the yardstick by which we talk about effective communication,” she added.