WEBVTT - This file was automatically generated by VIMEO. Please email info@talestoolkit.com to report problems. Welcome to the webinar for October, and I'm really excited to have Amy with us today presenting. And a big thank you. 'cause we know that, um, it's the last week of term for a lot of people and they're coming in and they're tired. And also we know that we're competing with Bakeoff tonight, which we just realized about five minutes ago. So, yeah, so if you're watching Bake Off, put it on the record quick. So, yeah, so I just want to introduce Amy. Um, and Amy has got lots of experience working as a teacher in school, so she knows all the kind of stresses and things that we're up against on a day-to-Day basis in school. And Amy's taught both in the UK and internationally. So really excited stuff. Um, and also when Amy was teaching, um, you are working as the lead RSC teacher at school 21. Yep. Yes. Um, and I've been really lucky to visit School 21 and school 21. I do some really interesting work where they put RSC at a focus of everything that they do. It's at the center of their curriculum, which is really exciting and Amy's gonna tell you a little bit more about that in a minute. Um, and after working at school, 21, Amy then went on to be the director of teaching and learning at Voice 21, which has taken some of the really good work that's been happening at School 21 and making kind of like a movement of best practice in developing Ossey in schools. Is that right? Yeah. So I'm gonna hand over to Amy now, um, and I'll let you kind of talk so over to you. Yeah. School 21 is, um, a free school in Stratford that was started, uh, five years ago now. So it was started with just reception and with year seven. And then we've kind of built it up every year since. So now we've got reception to year five and year seven to year 12. So next year will be totally full. Um, we've got kind of lots of classroom spacious shoes at the moment with sort out, but as Kate said, um, the idea was that when School 21 was created, that or c was given the same status as reading and writing, um, in the curriculum. So, um, there's kind of lots of things that are different at school. So talk is really deliberately and explicitly planned. We expect talk to happen in every single lesson. Um, whether that's a maths lesson or a science lesson, you know, right away from reception all the way up to sixth four, we expect talk to happen in every single lesson. Um, some things that we do at differently, our assemblies are quite different. So instead of having children sitting in rows in our assemblies, um, they are sat in kind of circles and there's lots and lots of opportunities for them to sort of peel off and have discussion, um, with each other as well. And we model lots of different sort of strategies, um, in our assemblies. And then there was kind of lots and lots of interest about what was going on at school 21. Um, and that's why Voice 21 was formed to kind of take the good practice that was happening in the school and then spread that into other schools. That's actually developed even more now. We're working with loads of amazing schools that are doing brilliant things in their own right. And we're kind of trying to just develop sort of, you know, what does amazing RC look like? What are really good strategies to be able to develop that and, and kind of develop that in different schools, um, across the country. So that's, you know, who we are and who I work for. Um, so I thought it would be good to think about, um, you know, why it's really important we focus RC and for me, my sort of, um, big motivator is social mobility. So I think that it's really, really important that, um, that children from kind of more disadvantaged backgrounds are taught to, to speak and, um, are taught really, really good RC skills. So the statistic on this side that says that by the age of three children from, uh, privileged families, if 30 more million words than children from underprivileged, um, backgrounds, and, you know, if they're not experiencing that really high quality talk and getting all of that amazing vocabulary at home, then we need to make sure that they're getting it in school. Um, so it's our job is to create really, really kind of talk rich classrooms where children are, you know, having all of those opportunities to develop that so that, you know, as they get older, they're not going to be kind of falling behind them more. Advantaged is, um, another really, really crucial thing for me is wellbeing. I think that, you know, for, for children to express themselves and to, um, you know, to develop meaningful relationships with people, it's really, really important that they, they are able to use their voice effectively in order to build those relationships. So I think that, you know, that's, that's really important in terms of preparing children for life, um, academic standards, there's lots and lots of research. So, um, Neil Mercer, who's kind of a key academic in terms of RC, um, has done lots and lots of research that shows that focusing on really, really high quality talk, um, in the classroom and raising standards of talk leads to improved outcomes, you know, across the curriculum, you know, math and science, not just in more kind of typically focused, um, lessons. So that's really important as well. Um, and then finally sort of, you know, EEC economically and, and employability wise, employers mention time and time and time again that, um, the, the most important thing for them is that children are not children. Adults, uh, by the time they reach the employers have got really, really good verbal communication skills. But that's something we really, really focus on in reception and in the early years. But as children move through school, um, you know, we lose that focus and it's not assessed, it's not given the same status as really in writing. And I think, you know, as a consequence, children, you know, adults haven't had had that, um, kind of focus on speaking and they're not as good as, as, um, maybe children have been to independent schools where there is more of a focus on developing those speaking skills as well. Um, so we've thought about sort of why important and talked about Voice 21 and School 21. Um, now we'll talk a little bit about, um, what OC is. So according to the dictionary, um, OE is the ability to express oneself fluently and grammatically in speech. Um, you know, I don't think that definition kind of captures what our risk is for a starter doesn't talk about listening. Um, and I think that, that listening is really, really, really important. It's just as important as speaking. We need to actually explicitly teach listening to children, um, as well. So what we sort of think about as, as RSE is, uh, we want every child to be able to find their voice, both metaphorically and literally. So that means that we want to teach 'em those kind of physical or c skills so that they can be heard, they can create meaningful sentences, they, they're confident in in lots of different situations, using their voice to express themselves for lots of different reasons, but that also crucially, they've got something to say. So we've created lots and lots of context, um, in which children actually kind of develop content of what they have to say as well. And I think that focusing on, obviously in the classroom makes sure that children are able to find their voice for both, both of those reasons as well. Um, so now I'm gonna start to think about a bit more about kind of what or c looks like in the classroom context. So thinking about it in a classroom context, um, there's an academic called, um, Douglas Barnes, and he's, um, he sort of split the talk that happens in the classroom into two different types of talk. So exploratory talk and presentational talk. Um, so exploratory talk is the kind of typical of the early stages of when you are approaching new ideas. So it's really kind of talk for thinking, it's the kind of talk you might be doing when you're first kind of grappling with a concept or an idea, um, because of that, you know, you might have half finished sentences and you might start saying something and suddenly change your mind or someone else might kind of jump in and finish your sentence for you. It's really kind of talk for thinking. Um, and it's quite messy talk, I think, uh, whereas kind of conversely presentational talk is the opposite. So presentational talk is when you've actually had chance to develop your ideas and you'll then thinking about how you present those ideas to others. So if exploratory talk is quite messy talk, then presentational talk is quite polished talk because that's you presenting your ideas to others, and yet you are right Kate Loads and loads and loads of exploratory talk happens in the early years and that's how it should be. And I think, um, we've been working with lots of teachers think about how we can create opportunities to have lots of exploratory talk, you know, as we move up the school as well, because I think there's so much good practice that happens in the early years. And yeah, as I said before, it gets lost as children move up the school as we start to get this focus on, right, let's start talking, let's start writing. And actually, you know, they don't have to be mutually exclusive. Really good talk does lead to really good writing, um, as well. So, but as most things in education, um, there's not that many, um, things that I guess are very much exploratory or very much presentational. It's kind of a continuum and, and activities tend to fall somewhere, um, in the middle. Um, so I want to give a kind of a few different examples of, um, things that you might do, um, in the classroom. And then I want you to start to have a think about whether you think they're more exploratory, um, or whether they're more presentational. Um, so the first one I was thinking about is, um, if you are doing a, um, tails toolkit session and you are, you know, pulling something out of one of the bags for example, and you're getting children to talk about, you know, for example, what's this character, what do you think they're like, do you think that's more exploratory talk or more presentational talk? Um, I think there's probably lots of exploratory talk on going on with tell's talk. I mean, I dunno what everybody else thinks kind of type and tell me what you, you find, but I think there's lots of exploring different characters and thinking about different options, and you do often find that the children do chipping with different ideas and, and I think it's at that point, coming up with a story together. So lots of exploring. Yeah, I think there's, yeah, loads and loads of exploratory talk must happen in those contexts. And I guess because you're pulling something out the bag and getting them to talk about it there, and then it's not that they've had that previously and that they've had chance and they're preparing, they're presenting that to someone else. It's very much, well, I think this is this and mm-hmm. I guess that someone might chip in and say, oh no, well actually I think it's this or, or maybe even like add to each other's ideas. So yes, you know, I think this character is this and oh yeah, maybe they're like this and this and this. So it's real kind of like that sort of joint sort of thinking that's happening in there. I think it's a really great context for, um, exploratory talk as well. Oh yeah. So Charlotte say it depends on the child's level, but predominantly exploratory. So yeah, I think that's right. Yes. And do you think that adults sometimes talk for children and don't wait for them to express themselves? Yeah, I mean we find that in early years, and we talked about in our first training about having a ten second rule, but what do you find in the schools that you work in, um, About children, adults talking for children? Mm-Hmm. Yeah. I, I think sometimes that as teachers we're so kind of conscious about keeping our lessons really pacey and, and wanting to make sure that we're getting through so many things that sometimes we almost cut off those talk opportunities. Um, and actually if we really scaffold them really effectively, then children are perfectly capable of expressing themselves. And, and I think particularly in the early years have children have got so much to say and it's just about thinking about how we kind of harness what they've gotta say and, and and introduce kind of structures that mean that it's more manageable I guess as well. Yeah, yeah. And what you find with tell's talk stories as well in terms of the exploratory during the presentation and Charlotte and Alex, you say you find this too, is that you often find that the children will do a lot of the exploratory talk in a group together, and then the teacher will model the presentational side of things. So they will kind of take the ideas then and make the character talk and, and do a little bit more of the presentational stuff. And then you find afterwards that the children will go away and they become better at the presentational stuff because they're using the different voices and they're doing stuff that's more for an audience. But outside of that group setting, You know, another way that we think about this is that in a kind of a sequence of learning, it's really important that at the beginning of that sequence of learning, you're having lots and lots of opportunities, exploratory talk, and then you're moving towards having those more presentational talk opportunities. Mm-Hmm. And that could happen over like a sequence of like five or 10 lessons, or it could be all within the same lesson. So if you're having that beginning sort of tails toolkit session where there's all that sort of exploratory talk happening, you are getting children to generate ideas and do all that sort of thinking together. Yes. Then the teacher then is modeling that presentational talk. And then what you'd hope is perhaps towards the end the children are then becoming storytellers themselves and they're using all of that information that they've gleaned and ideas they've developed together to then tell their own stories. So within just one session, you're kind of developing that whole range of exploratory, um, through to presentation. Mm-Hmm. That's it. Alex was saying, um, that she's found that too, that they use exploratory talk and then they add to it. So yeah. Yeah, I think that's really good. And I think that we do a lot of adding vocab and adding kind of an extended in on the sentences that the children are giving you, like you said, so you're setting up then to do them on themselves later on. But yeah. Um, Charlotte said as well, do you think it's important to question children or how do you manage questioning? Yeah, I think it is, I think it is really important to question children. I think it's really important to think about the kind of questions that you're asking and making sure that they're the kind of questions that get children to really kind of develop Yes. And open up their ideas. Um, and, and kind of linking to that as well, thinking about, um, you know, adding to that exploratory talk as well. I think that's a really skillful mm-hmm. Thing to be able to do is to get children to do that exploratory talk, but also we need to really model that and we need to feed in the vocabulary and the language that we're expecting. If someone says, oh, this character is really kind, they'd be like, oh, are they really generous or are they really, you know, and adding in all of that language. And that's the kind of skillful thing that, that teachers are able to do. Um, as well. We need to make sure that we're giving children those opportunities, but we're also helping them to progress in their as well through those. Yeah, that's good because we do a lot of talk in our training about taking on kind of a role of being a partner with the child, that you're not like the teacher that's quizzing them, that you're kind of trying to stuff out of what they're saying rather than lots and lots of questions thrown at them. So that really fits in with what you're saying, so yeah, that's good. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. And I guess thinking about that, if we move on from kind of thinking about the exploratory and presentational distinction, I think the most important thing about that is thinking about how our expectations change according to whether we're doing exploratory talk or presentational talk. So if we're getting children to do lots not exploratory talk, it might be that we're feeding in sentence stems and language and things that we want 'em to use, but it's okay if they're kind of, oh, they, you know, they, they start saying something and get a bit stuck and then maybe don't finish their sentences. That's okay because they're, you know, really doing that talk for thinking. Whereas if we're, you know, towards the end of that learning cycle and we're expecting them maybe to do a lot more that presentational talk, then it might be that we're expecting certain things. We expect them to stand up quite confidently. We expect them to speak in full sentences, to think about the tone of voice and how they're telling their story in that way. Um, we wouldn't be expecting that in the more exploratory side. It's really important to think about the activities that you are planning in the classroom, um, and which type of talk that is, and then how your expectations, what they can achieve according to that type of talk vary as well. And Charlotte, have you ever used Macon when a child is at the exploratory stage? No. I mean, I have heard about Macon Mm-Hmm. But I think that that could be a really interesting way to, um, to develop language, particularly with children that, that are not kind of verbalizing ideas yet, but to be really inclusive to make sure that that yeah, you are including everyone into the classrooms. I think that's a really good idea and it's certainly something that you could do. Yeah. Yeah. We had, um, we had a little boy actually that had global delay in one of my first schools that I worked in Mattel circuit, and he used to sign all his stories and that was really interesting and he didn't have any language at all, but not that anybody could understand, but he used to be like very kind of like creative in his storytelling and all the other children would get what you were saying and he was, he'd act them out and use actions and, and Macon is sign in and yeah. So no, that was really successful, but verbally he didn't have the words That must have given him so much confidence that he was able to Yeah. You know, tell a story of his team being really engaged even if he wasn't doing it in that kind of traditional verbal sense. Yeah. We need to make sure that we are being really inclusive. Mm-Hmm. That's really interesting actually thinking about our sort of four strands of o that we're gonna come to a bit later. Yes. And that's kind of very, sort of developing the physical strand, but, um, but yeah, we'll come to that in a little while. Um, but I guess thinking about oi in, in the classroom context, when you thought about the, um, whether something's presentational or exploratory and how you are scaffolding that talk according to, according to the type of talk that it's, um, I think it's really important to think about what opportunities are we creating in the classroom for children to learn through talk and what opportunities, um, and, and how can we scaffold those that we're also feeding in those, um, those two talk skills as well. So for example, in exploratory context with Tales toolkit, if you are, um, pulling out, you know, a character from the character bag and you're getting children to talk about that character and they're doing loads and loads of exploratory talk, how can we make sure that exploratory talk is really, really well scaffolded? So it also kind of feeding in all of that language and those expectations, um, of how we want 'em to talk as well, which is what we think about now if we're scaffold atory talk, going, think about sentence stems that we can use, the different groupings that we can use, um, what our expectations of talk should be and how we can share these with children. And examples of kind of SMU that you can use. All the spelling data stimuli should be stimuli, um, for talk that we can use to get children, um, you know, really confident in doing lots and lots of talk. Um, so the first kind of strategy is, I guess, um, different groupings that you can use. So, um, we work with lots and lots and lots of schools and, and lots of schools do talk partners, and that's a really, really effective strategy to, you know, get children to share their ideas in a kind of quite low stakes, um, setting. Uh, but what we found is that when you are introducing lots and lots and lots of talking to lessons actually kind of turning to your talk partner, and it's often the same person can get quite, um, I guess you can get a little bit stale. So what we've tried to do is develop some different groupings that you can use to get children in. So it keeps the talk that's happening at different stages, really, really fresh. Um, so a nest that's kind of when, uh, children go in and, and on their own. So for example, you might, um, ask children to spread around the room, find their nest, and then you might ask them to do something or ax them out kind of on their own before they're meeting with a pair to share something. Um, we do a lot of work with trios because what we found is that if you put children into talk partners and, um, one person in that partner, like in in that pair isn't kind of keen to share their ideas or is quieter than someone else or you know, is, is less verbal, then actually the talk tends to stall. So we do a lot of work where we put children trios because then if one child is a bit quieter, the other two children can talk and then that person can be brought in later perhaps and develop a conference or, or got something to say. Um, the traverse is when you, um, get children sort of another way of doing partners. The idea is you get children standing up in two lines, sort of facing each other. Um, I often, often put masking tape on the floor because obviously young children aren't very good at, um, kind of putting themselves into nice neat lines. Um, and the idea is if they're talking to each other and they're standing up facing someone, the talk they're doing is quite different. If they're just sitting next to someone and turning to them, it's a lot more physical. They'll tend to use a lot more gestures and things as well. And sometimes when you've done lots and lots of talk, you've been sitting down for ages, it's really nice, like, let's stand up, get into the traverse and talk about this and it, and it kind of keeps things fresh. Um, the onion is effectively another way partner talk, and the idea is that you have three children kind of in the middle, and then you, each child has a partner that sort of sits on the outside and, um, to sort of get children talking to different partners. The idea is that kind of the middle part or the outer part can sort of turn so each child gets a new person, um, to talk to. So I mean, then, then nothing kind of evolutionary, they're just slightly different group is that you can use. But what we found is that it is really good to kind of, I guess to keep talk really, really interesting, to keep it really fresh, to get children talking to different people in the classroom. It's really important to think about the kind of groupings, um, that you are, um, that you are using. Um, and it's also really important as well, I has to think about kind of what your expectations are of those groups. So for example, if you are getting children to do partner talk or trio talk, making sure that you really model what you expect when you do that. So, you know, not just turning like that, making sure that children are turning their whole body to face the person that they're speaking to, making sure that you are explicitly telling them right when someone's speaking, you've got to give them eye contact and maybe when they're speaking, you kind of nod to show them that you're listening. So really making sure that, um, that children really understand what it means to, to talk within those situations as well. Um, from kind of in key stage when we do lots and lots of work about just making sure that you are giving the listener their full attention. So if you are in a trio or a partner, we found that loads of children when someone else is talking, start kind of looking around the room and then doing like this. So it's actually about being still and facing them and really kind of celebrating the children, um, that are able to do that. So, you know, thinking about the groupings that you're using is a really good way to scaffold exploratory talk in the classroom. Um, another thing to do is think about the way that you are actually scaffolding the language that's being used. So how we introduce sentence stems as well. Um, so what we found is that if you are, you know, perhaps you are introducing 'em to an idea, you, you've pulled something out of the Tails toolkit and you are asking them to talk about it. So a character or setting, you know, what do you think this could be? Um, if if children don't have the kind of sentence starters to be able to begin those ideas, um, they kind of get, can get a little bit nervous and start thinking about, oh, right, how do I start this sentence? As opposed to thinking about the actual kind of content of, of what they want to say. So, so we introduce kind of from right, from reception, uh, these sentence, so I disagree with, and instead of having kind of that, because that's quite negative, we've got a nice action that's sort of like this to go with it, I think agree with building on and then linking to as well. And the reason that we've got those is found that when you are integrating a lot more discussion into lessons, particularly young children, they think that a discussion is all about, um, you just sharing your own ideas. So, oh, my idea is this and I think this, and, and as soon as that they finish talking, then they stop listening to someone else. So what we've really tried to do is introduce 'em into this idea that actually if you're having a conversation with people, you are really listening to someone's idea and then you need to directly link to that. So you might say, oh, I really agree with you. I think this character could be so building on that idea, maybe, um, they have this kind of hair or, you know, something like that. I think that it's really important to teach children what a, a good sort of conversation discussion should look like. And I think that if you, we sort of introduce these sentence stems with a lot of my turn and your turn and, and we said really looking out for Children's Day that are using our sentence stems, who's using their full sentences, who's saying I think, and doing that. And then again, really pulling out those children, um, who are doing that and, and and, and really praising them. And then everyone's kind of like, oh, I want to do that. And yeah, I mean I think it take, yeah, it does take a lot of modeling Kate, but I think it's, it's definitely something that if you kind of focus on just these five key sentence stems, certainly for the kind of beginning part of the year before you introduce other ones, it's definitely something that, um, we've found even really young children able to start using those. There's, you know, a lot of children that use incorrectly to begin with. So, you know, building on so and so's idea, can I go to the toilet? And that sort of thing. Um, but you know, obviously modeling and correcting that we found that, that it's been quite successful. No, I think, I think they're really good actually. I think that often what you find with tell's talking, and I get this feedback from most schools, is that the teachers will struggle with the fact that everybody wants to give an idea and everybody wants to suggest it, then everyone wants to kind of chip in. So by having these kind of sentences that can help children to respond to what their friends are saying and take cues from them, their friends in the group, I think this is a really interesting way of working. So yeah, I I'd like to, I'd like to hear about people using these in their Tell Toolkit session. Oh, from what I've seen from Tell Toolkit, there's a lot of like whole class kind of participation actually that's a lot of children really want their ideas to be the one that share Mm-Hmm. Don't they? Whereas if you can kind of, I guess and break them off into maybe a trio and we can teach them about how to have their own little mini discussion together and then perhaps feed back to the whole class Mm-Hmm. That might be quite a nice way to manage that. That's It. The other thing as well is that we've got lots of schools that have used tell's toolkit now in nurse room reception and they want to start using the tell's toolkit in, in key stage one. So I think this kind of stuff would be a really interesting way of developing some of the work that's already been happening. So The next thing I was gonna sort of talk about, talk about how we scaffold talk, we talked about the different groupings that we can use, uh, to keep talk really interesting and make sure that children talking to lots of children, other children in the classroom, um, is really modeling kind of what our expectations are for talk. Um, so we've done a lot of work at school, making sure that every classroom has their own set of sort of ground rules for talk. And the ground rules for talk are essentially a set of success criteria that, um, outline what really good talk looks like in certain situations. Um, so these discussion guidelines that are on the screen are the ones that I created when I was in year four a couple of years ago. And I think this is, this is something we've used kind of, you know, right from reception, um, up to key stage two. Obviously the, the kind of ground rules for taught that you choose will need to be really, um, linked both to your class, but also to the year, um, the children are in. Um, but I think there's, you know, there's definitely a lot of overlap between acute stage one and stage two. Um, so the ones that I had were always respect each other's ideas, um, invite someone to contribute by asking a question. So we found that lots of children within small group discussions might be one child that doesn't necessarily contribute. And we found that actually we need to explicitly teach children that when you're in a discussion, if someone hasn't said something that actually it's really good for you to say, oh no, what do you think? Um, and invite them in that way. We've done a lot of work about giving proof of listening. So proof of listening is what we say to children, how someone will know if they're listening. So are, are you looking at the, at the person speaking you, giving them eye contact? Are you nodding to show that that you've understood, um, what they're talking about? Um, we clarify, challenge, summarize, and build on each other's ideas. So that's sort of linked to the stems before, but kind of the next level I guess. So if we teaching children about the kind of contributions they can make in the discussion. So, um, all of those sentences that we looked at before are building. So we've got building thinking on agreeing and disagreeing. I guess disagreeing is sort of challenging as well. It's about teaching children about the, the kinds of contributions that they can make in discussions. Uh, we also have be prepared to change your mind because we found that when we were having more and more sort of discussions in our classrooms, lots of children felt that you could win a discussion if at the end of the discussion everyone thought the same thing, um, as you. So we really wanted to kind of explicitly say to children, no, actually it's, it's really good within a in a discussion to actually be prepared to change your mind and, and, and to listen to someone else's idea and then change your mind. And we really kind of actively celebrated children that did that. And then the last one, um, was come to a shared agreement. So, um, what we found is that talk is often not very purposeful if you don't have like an end point in sight. So we wanted to say to children, um, you know, you you going to have this conversation together, but the idea is that you've all got to agree on something, um, as well. So that kind of means that there's an end point talk, it doesn't go on and on and on forever. Um, so yeah, this is something, these are kind of my discussion guidelines from stage two. They are essentially just a set of success criteria for really, really good exploratory talk. Um, and I thought what would be a really nice thing to do now is to start to think about, well, you know, what would ground rules for talk or discussion guidelines look for, uh, look like in the, um, early days or in key stage one, which of those guidelines think really important? Are there any other maybe more basic deadline that we, we need to put in? Um, so has anyone got any ideas about different discussion guidelines or ground rules, um, that they might use? Um, in the early in key stage one? I, I think a lot of the stuff that you've said already, you could probably simplify that and I really like what you were saying about being able to change your mind. So Yeah. Yeah. And I think probably some of the tips that you were saying about in terms of when you've got your talk partners in that you are kind of giving someone eye contact and looking at them and turning your body towards somebody and doing real kind of focus listening. So yeah. Um, yeah, Charlotte saying basic one listens to the speaker. So yeah, so the kind of basic stuff like that. Um, so Breaking down Yeah. What proof of listening is and making explicit for the children as well. Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. And I think also, I think a lot of the children early years won't have seen that good listening already. So they'll have parents on mobile phones and they'll be put in front TVs and they, they won't have seen that good listening models. And It's something we talk about a lot of teachers aren't we like, oh, you know, you're not listening or you need to listen, but actually sometimes, you know, how many times have we actually talked about, well actually, you know, what does really good listening look like? And we can't actually expect children to know that. So I guess, yeah, discussion guidelines for s or key stage one could be really breaking down what it means to be a good listener. And then yes, really simple ones like you prepared to change your mind or, um, share your ideas with others. Because I think sometimes there's that misconception as well with young children. I think if they tell other people what they think, then that's, then someone's gonna steal their idea or something. Yeah. So actually kind of saying, you know, we, we share our ideas and actually really celebrating children that do share their ideas with others as well could be a really good family to have, um, for younger children. And then what we do with these discussion guidelines once we've created them. So, um, the way that I create them in key stage two is to have like two videos that I created at the beginning of the year, one video of us having a really great discussion, normally me and the other like my teaching assistant or other teachers in my year team. Um, yeah, having an excellent discussion where we're all sharing our ideas and listening really well to each other and showing really good eye contact and everyone saying things that link to each other. And then we do a really bad discussion where someone's kind of looking out the window and then someone talks about what they're having for lunch instead of what they're supposed to be and mm-hmm. No one's giving icons and that sort of thing. And obviously the children love that because it's, you know, their teachers being a bit silly, but the idea is it's giving them those kind of, yeah, by showing you a really good and a really bad example, then you can sort of pick out actually what a good discussion looks like and then use that to generate, um, the discussion guidelines as well. I think that's definitely something that you could do really early on in the school as well. I like that because Often, like you said, unless you give them the bad examples, they don't know what the good examples are 'cause they don't know what they're looking at. So yeah, I really like that. And that fits in what Charlotte said. Oh, I was gonna say that we, lots of children don't have that experience of like sitting around the dinner table and having a nice conversation and you know, perhaps the only models of conversation that they see are, you know, maybe their parents arguing or people you know at the Apprentice on the tv, that sort of thing where everyone's shouting over each other. Mm-Hmm. You know, we don't really have many models on TV of like really good kind of nice collaborative discussions happening. It all tends to be quite sort of disputation and confrontational. So we've always gotta address that and explicitly kind of create examples where children kind of expose different types of talk as well. Right. If you can't listen, then you can't take on ideas and yeah. Then you're kind of stumped in terms of taking on any information and learning. I think it's Really good. Yeah, so I guess it's about thinking about our practice, about how we can really like really scaffold listen, give some examples of, of how we can do that, um, later as well. So hopefully that will address that as well. Mm-Hmm. Before we get onto that, the last thing I wanted to talk about was, um, different kinds of stimuli for talk. So actually what are we getting children to talk about? And obviously through um, the Tales toolkit that's, there are so many kind of such a rich discussion opportunity every time you pull a different thing out, you know, getting children's to talk about, you know, what is this, um, you know, what's this character like, all those sorts of things. That's an excellent opportunity for discussion, but I thought I'd just kind of give another few examples of things that I've used to be reactive as well, um, to get children talking. Um, so the first one is Odd one out. So, um, there they are three characters there, Goldilocks, Rapunzel, and the idea is that children have got to say which one they think is the odd one out and why. Um, and, and I guess the idea is that every single thing that you use for an odd one out has to have a reason why it could. The odd one, the idea is it generates lots and lots of talk and it's a really good opportunity to embed those sentence stems that we talked about earlier. So someone could say lots of my turn your turn, but I think one out is, um, Rapunzel because she's a kind character and the wolf Goldilocks are both baddies and then another child could say, oh, linking to that. I think that, um, that so and so is the odd one out because of this. It's a really good opportunity to sort of use those sentence stems in quite a sort of small scale, low stakes activity. Yeah, great idea. Charlotte and lots and you know, younger kids will come out with things like Rapunzel because she's got long hair or Miss the Wolf because, you know, he's a, he's an animal and the other two are uh, uh, are um, humans and that's absolutely fine. It's just something to kind of get them talking and create that sort of surround those different stems, um, as well. Second idea I've got that is just using lots and lots of artifacts, which obviously that's something that you're doing lots and lots with the tails toolkit know, because you know, lots of kind of physical things are coming outta the, the different bags. Um, but you know, really getting children to talk about what is this, who might have used it, it's a really nice sort of stimulus for talk as well. Um, yeah, exactly. Loads of open-ended random items and actually really exploring like children's imagination. They've got so many different ideas, um, of things they can bring to that as well. So thinking of yeah, objects, they've got loads of different things that they could be used for as well. Um, ranking is a really good one as well. So, um, sort of you could have like characters in the story for example, and then get the children in small groups to rank them from their favorite characters to least favorite characters. And the idea is I have to explain why, uh, rank it from rank like different settings, pictures of settings to where they'd most like to live, to where they'd least like to live. And the idea is that through all of those activities, they're practicing those sentence stems that we introduced earlier as well. So it's just nice different context for them to use those sentence stems and get them really, really embedded. Um, my favorite one is, would you Rather, um, I found the children that I work with Absolutely Love Would you rather questions? Um, so, um, thought some examples here that you could use. So in more of a geography context, you could be like, would you rather live in a jungle or a desert? Um, in maths I've done stuff like, would you rather be an odd number or an even number? Would you rather be a quarter or a half? Um, or just silly kind of everyday stuff like would you rather have no TV or no iPad, um, for example Mm-Hmm. Um, so I thought what we could do now is create some would you rathers for um, Goldilocks and three Bears? What kind of, would you rather questions? Could we ask children? Well, would you rather have a soft chair or a hard one? Yeah. Oh, that's a nice one. Yeah. Um, would you rather have porridge or Mosley or bacon? Yeah. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. I think I'd go with bacon. Um, or who can think of, because Charlotte and Alex, can you think of any, would You prefer porridge with honey without, yeah. Would you prefer someone to steal your porridge or break your chair? Yes. Yeah. Share specific example. Yeah. The idea is that just, I mean they're just really, really sort of silly. Yeah. It's a really silly context for talk, but it's really great. It's kind of the beginning kind of section of a lesson or when, when you read a story or something because it just gets children just kind of flushing out loads of ideas. It's another great opportunity for them to embed those sentence stems, you know? I agree. I prefer it without any really scaffolding that talk as well. Yeah. Yeah. Would you rather have hot courage or cold courage? Ooh, yeah. Lot of people do have cold college actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually overnight, I guess that's kind of cold college, isn't it? Yeah. Yes. That's just another example of how you can kind of get children, um mm-Hmm. So it talks about how you can really sort of scaffold exploratory talk, the groupings that you can use, the sentence stems that you can use. Um, we talked about stimulus for talk can be, and how we can really model our expectations for the talk by creating those ground rules for talk as well and making sure we're really explicitly teaching those to children. Um, the last thing that I wanted to look at was, um, what is really good. So when we're creating all of those contexts for children to talk, um, for different purposes and, and, and practicing all of those different skills, what does good oey look like? Um, so at school, 21, a few years ago in conjunction with Cambridge University, we developed, um, an OC skills framework. And the idea is that really kind of broke down what OSC is into four different strands. Um, so the four strands of OSC as we see them are the cognitive strands, which is very much about kind of the content of what you're saying, the structure of what you're saying. Um, the linguistic strand is the words and the phrase that you are using. Um, when we're speaking as well, the physical strand is about how you're using gestures to convey your ideas, but also crucially, um, how you are changing your tone of voice. So how you're using your voice as an instrument, so your sort of tone and voice as well. Um, and then the social emotional strand is how you, um, engage with the people around you. So it could be in a presentational context about your kind of impact on the audience, how confident you are, um, but in, in more of a group setting it's more about those sort of group dynamics as well. So kind of turn taking who's speaking the most sort of thing. Um, so to get us familiar with the four strands, um, I just want to typically introduce a few different games that you can play to develop each of the strands. And then I want you to try and guess, um, which strand, which game links to which strand. Um, so the one to 20 game is, um, I'm sure lots of you played this before, you get everyone sitting around in a circle and the idea is that you've got as a group to count from one to 20, uh, but you can't just go round in the circle, go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. The idea is that someone starts, so I'd say one, and then let's kind of look around the room. Someone else has gotta say two. Yeah. And then someone else might say three or four, but if two people say the numbers at the same time and you've got to go back to one, it's very difficult. Um, particularly with, um, younger children. I think that the most that I've got to with my year forecast last year, um, was 12 quite interesting to see if anyone can get any higher. Oh, so this Is the, the, the next person is that you look at them. So I'd say one and then I'd look at you and you say two. No, so, so I, the, I guess the eye contact element is you kind of like looking around the room to check. No one else is going to speak before you say it. Oh, okay. Someone And someone else has got to say two, but so you know that someone else isn't going to say two, you might wanna kind of really look around and check that, that you don't think anyone else is gonna speak kind of reading the room. I guess that's good. The next game is called if I Ruled the World. So, uh, the idea is that someone's gotta say, if I ruled the world, then you've gotta say what you would do if you ruled the world. So, uh, for example, I would might say if I ruled the world, I would make everybody have a pet. And the idea is the next person in your group then has to disagree with you. So they have to say, I couldn't disagree more because I couldn't disagree more because I'm allergic to pets and they make me sneeze. So if I ruled the world, I would decide that all pets should be shaved. So then I have to, so the next person in the circle then has to disagree with that. It doesn't have to link to pets or, you know, to what the person said it could. Yeah. So I would say, um, I couldn't disagree more because if all pets had to be shaved, then they'd be really, really cold. Yeah, I disagreed. Same with Charlotte. And then I would propose my new idea. So if I ruled the world, I would, uh, you know, make the school summer holidays eight weeks long, then the person next have to disagree with that as well. And there's a really funny moment with kids actually where they suddenly realize that it's really good if you think of something that's really great, but the person next to you will have a really hard time disagree. And they're like, no, someone's play as well. That's good. Um, so the next game is called Articulate. So that is, um, sure. Lots of you played articulate before. That's if you, um, for example have a, have um, a word on a piece of paper or a picture, and you've got to try and describe what that is to the people in your team without saying that word. So for example, if I had a picture of a fine pan, I might be like, oh, it's a cooking, a thing that you use for cooking. You put it on the stove, you put your sausages in it, you know, your mum might use it. You know, that sort of thing. Um, and the idea is that the child's, the other person's got to guess what that word is. Mm-Hmm. Um, and then the last one is called which emotion. So this is a really, um, nice game to start thinking about how you say things. Um, so the idea is that everybody has to say the same thing. So for example, in this context, we we're going to say it's going to snow today. Um, and I'm gonna say in in as if I'm feeling one of the emotions around the outside, so, and you've gotta guess which emotion I'm feeling, so I could say It's going so Oh, excited. Yes, exactly. Yeah, Yeah. Cool. And because we, we would chat about this earlier, weren't we? And I was saying this would be a really nice thing to do during the storytelling. So if the teacher could say a sentence as the character and then the children have to guess the emotion, I think that would be quite interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. Yeah, there's loads of different ways that you could use it or practice how it, like giving a line and how the character might be feeling if they were saying that line in that way and how that alters the, you know, how the story goes as well. Yes. Really nice. Charlotte says this is very difficult for children, um, on the spectrum. Yeah, I guess, I mean there's lots of activities I guess that, that maybe are probably maybe less accessible for children with, um, a SD. So I haven't got any particular kind of answers to go with that necessarily, but I guess it's about just like you differentiate with most things, making sure that that mm-hmm. It's really well differentiated and the children really well supported. Do you wanna guess which game linked to which strand? So the four strands are the cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and the physical. So which one do you think the one to 20 game is? Ooh, You're probably looking social cues actually and kind of like looking to see who's doing what and who's gonna jump in and there's gonna be a lot of eye contact in there. Um, what do you think Charlotte and Alex? Yeah, it's definitely social emotional. Yes. Um, what about if I ruled the world? If I ruled the world, Um, if I ruled the world, that's probably a lot of thinking, so maybe cognitive. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Having to give reasons for your opinion. So yeah, it's really kind of developing that cognitive strand, um, articulate, Um, articulate. Um, it's probably about finding the right word and kind of, they're probably going to use their voice in quite a lot of different ways. Um, so what was the one that had the, the musical sound one? Is it that one? Oh, So no, that's, that's the physical stone that's thinking about the way that you, um, use your gestures and things, but also how you change your tone of voice, but without, oh, well that maybe That's maybe which emotion. Yes. Yeah, exactly. So which emotion is all about how you convey an emotion using your voice without changing the content of what you're saying. Mm-Hmm. Um, whereas you articulate it's about finding different words to describe things. So it's, it's really developing that linguistic strand. Yes. Um, and the idea is the answers, um, mm-Hmm. If you are a really good speaker, you know, you are able to do kind of all of those different elements. Mm-Hmm. But I think as teachers it's really important that we are kind of explicitly teaching the different skills that fall under those different, um, areas as well. So this is kind of, I guess a more detailed breakdown of the skills framework. Um, there's, you know, there's lots of things in there. So for example, um, in the, uh, the physical strand, you've got things like how loud you're speaking, your voice projection, but also how you change your facial expressions and your posture, your gestures, things like that. Um, linguistics around, it's about the words you use, but it's also perhaps your, the register. So, um, the way that you might speak to the queen would be very different to the way that you might speak to your mum teaching children. The difference between those, that's a really nice, um, drama activity that you can do there. Kind imagining how you might speak in different situations, children in those. And yeah, cognitive is really about kind of the content of what you're saying and the reasons. And then social emotionally, it's all about those kind of social cues and how you interact as a group, um, in those discussion activity and how you're making sure that's getting chance to share their ideas. Um, so I've been thinking about this in terms of a kind of developing story context. I'm thinking that, um, there's, you know, there's loads of opportunities developed, physical strand I've seen, there's lots of actions that are used to support meanings that's really, really developing that physical strand and then also thinking about how you can change the tone and the volume of voice depending on a character and how they're feeling. So having a go at that, which emotion game could really help to support that physical strand in terms of developing story and thinking about the linguistic strand. So many opportunities within, um, storytelling. So introduce children to storytelling language once upon a time suddenly, or shortly afterwards, things like that. Um, you know, really modeling that language and you know, celebrating the children that are using that language and describing characters of settings and feeding language and getting children to find the word to describe those. As well as all developing linguistic strand, um, in the cognitive strand. You know, offering reasons for their opinions. That's a really, really big one, particularly in the early years. Can they explain why and why they think something? Um, and then also in terms of a story, making sure that you're sequencing it correctly. So kind of following those four steps. The carrot setting problem solution, the tails toolkit is really developing that cognitive strand because it's supporting children's understanding of the tructure of a story. And they'll be able to tell that story with, with really following that structure as well. Um, and then the social emotional strands really thinking about in group work, how you're turn taking, how you're listening to others when they're sharing their ideas. And then I guess moving more over to that presentational type of talk, um, children's confidence when they're telling a story to others. Um, and I said earlier that I'd give a few different examples of how we can sort of really structure listening. Um, so one example is playing word tennis. Uh, and this really relies on, um, you listening to the person who's talking. So the idea with word tennis is that you tell a story, um, and each person can just say one word. So I might say once. And then the next person might say upon, uh, time there was, uh, um, so you've got to sort of adapt to what you're saying according to what the other person says. So you've really got to listen to what they're saying and just with all sorts of sort of nonsense stories, which is quite fun. Um, I've also put picture counters there as well. So when I'm getting children to work and talk in groups to make sure that they're really kind of each all taking it in turns to speak, um, and everyone's getting to talk as well. Um, I give them all a different count, A counter, which represents different contributions with discussion. So we call them talk tokens. So in a discussion you might give each child in a trio, maybe four counters. And the idea is when they've said something in the discussion, they put their counter into the part, into the middle, and they've spent their counter. So they, you know, that's gone then and they've only got four counters to spend. So for children that tend to be quite dominating in discussions, um, that means that they've got to think really carefully about which ideas they do share because they've only got four counters, um, to share. And then children that tend to be a bit quieter and not so willing to share their ideas, having a kind of physical representation, their ideas is really, really nice for them because it means that they get that sort of satisfaction that when they put their counters in the pot, it makes that pink noise. They've spent it, they've contributed that discussion as well. So that's quite a nice way to scaffold discussions that are happening and make those really nice and organized as well. Um, so just, you know, to finish really and sum up, um, some sort of top tips of, uh, how to introduce OC um, into the classroom are make sure that you are really, really deliberately teaching OC. So make sure you're really thinking about which skills that you want to teach. So thinking about those four strands and thinking about like, how can I help children improve? What can I do to support their development, um, within those strands. Second thing, make sure that you are planning for RSC. So there are so many opportunities within, um, primary classroom to teach RSC. How are we integrating that? How are we making sure that when you do have those really talk based opportunities that we're really, um, scaffolding the language that's happening, that we're making our expectations really, really clear and we're celebrating children that are, that are doing that really well and supporting those children that, that obviously find that more difficult as well. Um, and finally make your expectations really, really clear. So what we found is that lots and lots of children don't really, um, want to speak in certain situations because they don't know what's expected of them. Um, so I think the kind of the answer to that is by making our expectations really, really clear. So make sure that you are modeling the kind of talk that you want. Make sure that if it's an exploratory situation, that you're making it really clear to children that, that it's okay to share their ideas. It's okay to change their mind. It's okay to have an unfinished sentence if it's a more presentational context. Make sure you explain to children what you expect of them so they can achieve that as well. You know, create those ground rules for talk in your classroom for those different, um, situations. Um, and that's it really. Um, has anyone got any questions? Mm-Hmm. Um, just at this point as well, I know that we've obviously talked a lot about RC and how important it's, but I just wanted to say that, um, school 21, they had their GCSE results last year, and it's their first kind of chunk of time of using ossey, um, to really extend children. And they did really, really well, didn't they? I can't remember the exact figures off the back of, you know, on top of my head Mm-Hmm. But it was, it was very kind of high, you know, naturally it was well above average. So we're really, really pleased. Oh, it's working. I feel like that Shows that she works. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, that's it. If we can start it right from nursery reception, then, you know, that's brilliant. Mm-Hmm. Yeah, it will, I think it'll make a big difference. And I think it's good because there's often, like, um, Charlotte was just saying there's lots of schools that forget the s and it takes a backbone for reading and writing. But I think when you put that at the forefront, like you said, it's like it's what people look for in a role when they're taking on employees and jobs. And it does make a massive difference across every area of learning. So yeah. Really key. Uh, yeah. Anybody got any questions And on that? Well, we found that you don't, it doesn't have to be that you are kind of choosing, right? Am I really focusing on reading and writing or am I refocusing on o that actually, you know, really good OC leads to really good writing. So making sure that you are, you know, creating all those really great structured opportunities where you're feeding all of that language that improves children's vocabulary, improves their confidence Yes. Means they're much better able to kind of structure ideas. Mm-Hmm. So yeah, we find it does improve outcomes across as well. Yeah. And also, I mean, we do a lot of this in early years, but um, we, um, like obviously should be a part of every lesson anyway. So if you do a really good literacy lesson or a really good math lesson, it should include lots of talk. Sorry, I was just laughing at, um, Charlotte said About, I know, I just noticed that conversation. We shoulda started with him in early years. That's it. There are, There's so much talk that goes on in the primary classroom. You know, we, we, we use it. So there's, there's so much talk that's happening and it's just about making sure that that, that we kind of really harness that talk and make sure it's really scaffolded Mm-hmm. And structured really well so that it's really purposeful high quality talk that really drives learning forward. And that's, you know, it's not difficult. It's, it's really simple. It's a few simple observations that you can make and actually will really raise the tide to the talking in classroom. Yep. That's it. What are your top tips for anyone who's in the school and they want to develop more oy and more talk and more creativity, um, but they may be struggling with the structure of the day and the expectations of the leadership. What would your top tips for someone like that be? Um, I think start really small. So start thinking about, you know, maybe integrating more talk in like, you know, starters of a lesson Mm-Hmm. So introduc some of those like would you rather odd one out kind of activities into the beginnings of lessons, looking at kind of things that you already do in the classroom. So when you're taking the register, for example, how can you encourage children to talk? Can, um, you know, if you say someone's name, good morning, how are you? And then that person says, oh, I'm great, thank you. And then asks the next person to register a question. So you are kind of getting more opportunities, but obviously into kind of what's already happening in school day. And then I think be, be really confident that obviously does have a really impact across the curriculum. Think perhaps the way that structured so doesn't need, you know, the first part of the lesson is the teacher kind of standing at the front and explaining something Mm-Hmm. And then the kids go off and do a task related to that. It could be that within that sort of main teaching aspect, you're interweaving loads of different talk opportunities. And actually as a teacher, that's really nice. 'cause it means that instead of you doing all of the hard work, the children are doing the talking Mm-Hmm. And you actually get freed up to be able to go in and listen into their conversations and, um, you know, act Do you kind of address any misconceptions that that come up and, and, you know, talk about that as a whole class instead of just you kind of, I guess, giving information. Yeah. Um, Charlotte was just saying, um, that trouble is that RC is not marked. Do you, how are you tracking the kind of impact in terms of the work that you're doing? I guess, I mean, I'm lucky that, that in our school, you know, obviously evidence is important, but the senior leadership team aren't asking to look at our books every five seconds and, you know, Mm-Hmm. It's not something in for this, this, this day. Um, what's gone on there. So, you know, I'm lucky in that respect. I think that in lots of schools they do have that pressure. I mean, there's lots of different things you can do, take pictures and get children to reflect on the kind of talk that was happening. Mm-Hmm. Videoing talk and things as well. But again, I'll just say have confidence that almost, I guess the, um, the evidence is in the child themselves. So then, you know, someone comes in and talks to that child and has a conversation. They're using those amazing sentence stems and they're Mm-Hmm. They really understand what good listening is and all those sorts of things that we've talked about today. It'll be really obvious that you've had a focus on it just from sort of talking to, um, those children and Yeah, you are right. Children love microphones. They do. They do. And I've, I've seen some of the children from your school speak, like, I've seen little videos in different places and, and they're really impressive. Like, some of the skills that the children have got for speaking is really great. But yeah, a big, a big thank you, um, for missing bakeoff and decided to spend the evening with us instead. That's it. And are you okay with me, um, sharing the slides and so people can have a look at these afterwards as well? Yeah, Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Brilliant. Lovely. Thank you Amy. Thank.