At Smithdown Primary School, we believe that the ability to express ideas clearly, listen carefully, and engage in thoughtful discussion is at the heart of successful learning. Oracy ensures that every child develops the confidence, vocabulary, and skills to speak and listen effectively across the curriculum.
Through structured talk activities, debates, storytelling, and collaborative projects, pupils are encouraged to articulate their ideas, ask questions, and respond respectfully to others. We place a strong emphasis on developing subject-specific language, extending vocabulary, and fostering confident communicators who can explain their thinking with clarity.
Oracy is embedded across all areas of learning, supporting reading, writing, and personal development, and equipping our pupils with essential life skills. By prioritising oracy, we ensure that children are not only academically successful but also able to participate fully in school life and beyond. At Smithdown, we live by our motto, “Together We Grow,” nurturing confident communicators who learn, collaborate, and thrive together.
We are currently enjoying sharing the story of The Little Red Hen. We have made and baked our own bread and re enacted the story. We also made Little Red Hens using handprints and footprints! We also practiced subtraction facts using the characters and objects from the story.
We had a great time working on the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff! We re-enacted the story outside and inside. We problem solved which objects would be best for building bridges, created messages from The Troll to The Three Billy Goats and practiced our number bonds to 5 using the characters from the story. We also made Billy Goat pizzas, fruit bridges and painted the characters.
What a great turn out from our Year 3 parents. We have been practising our signs for everyday interactions and to three songs. We performed amazingly well – great work everyone!
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We created a new version of “What a Wonderful World”. We used different adjectives to describe the world around us. We then performed our new song in KS1 and KS2 assemblies.
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After reading about Odysseus’ encounter with the Cyclops, we wrote in character of Polythemus (the cyclops) to ask Poseidon to seek revenge on our behalf.
We are enjoying our gymnastics topic in PE! We have been practicing moving like a snake along the benches, jumping like a bunny through the hoops and jumping off the platforms like a frog.
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With our whole school text, ‘Here We Are’ Year 6 had the task of writing a speech. We combined knowledge gained from our recent Geography topic to help us do just this. We have also been performing them for our class, working on our intonation and expression to gain and retain audience attention.
We enjoyed creating stepping stones for the rain today and watching what happens when we drew in the puddles.
Recently last week and this week, we have been having fun in our post office role play area and preparing for our post box walk tomorrow. We are writing wishes to send home and learning about what happens when letters are posted.
Parents, carers and families all very welcome to join us on our walk to the post box tomorrow Tuesday 16th at 9.15. Many thanks for your support.
We have a very kind elf in our class and we have been seeing where he is each day!
Nativity 2025- huge thanks to all parents for coming along to our nativity show last week.
