The agency of any child starts with voice. As human beings, we need the ability to express our needs and preferences, to listen to others, to negotiate and to persuade.

We all know and recognise these needs - but they’re not reflected in the national curriculum.

As a member of the Oracy Education Commission, I’ve been working to change this. I’ve spent the past five months working with colleagues from across the country and from multiple sectors to help secure a systemic shift in access to oracy education in England.

Today we publish our report, titled We Need to Talk, and call for a renewed focus on oracy in our schools.

Oracy in schools

Investment in oracy is an investment in our children’s agency, belonging and self-expression. Oracy enables a child to understand the power of their voice, express thoughts and feelings, explore and develop ideas and both agree and disagree.

In more than two decades working in schools, mostly as part of the Cabot Learning Federation, I have seen the community that is built when every child is empowered to use their voice in these ways.

Teaching every child to speak, listen and communicate effectively is an invaluable foundation for democratic communities. Our personal relationships and society depend on the ability of individuals to articulate their beliefs - and their ability to listen, challenge and build upon the ideas of others.

Read more on oracy:

• Everyone’s talking about oracy, but can we cut through the noise?
• What’s the evidence for a focus on oracy?
• Growing oracy focus could benefit maths teaching

The commission wants to amplify oracy to build civic engagement, civility and critical thinking, so all young people become more engaged listeners and engage in informed argument. This empowers all to use their voice for change both in school and beyond.

Belonging and self-expression are critical elements of a child’s developing sense of agency - and these start in the classroom.

Influence and agency

These are powerful elements of the culture of any school, and impact children’s relationships with their peers, with adults around them and with their learning.

Here, too, oracy has a critical role to play. At the Cabot Learning Federation, our curriculum is designed to help children think like writers, scientists and historians.

That, of course, requires them to use the language of writers, scientists and historians. It is critical that all children in our trust - and, I would argue, the whole country - are enabled to belong and express themselves as learners.

This is true for every child but is perhaps most meaningful for children experiencing disadvantage, those with special educational needs and disabilities and those who are structurally under-served; for example, those from minoritised communities.

When adults, and other children, take the time to listen to a child rehearsing their thoughts and ideas as part of their learning, the message to that child is: “You matter. Your learning matters. You have influence and agency here.”

This is why the commission is calling for speaking, listening and communication to become integral in every subject across the curriculum, and for oracy to form a key part of the training and development of all teachers, so that the power of joyful inquisitive learning is restored across all classrooms.

The investment needed to bring about this transformation is mostly conceptual, but the savings are real. The cost to society of the voiceless is grave. I have seen too often the devastating effects of what marginalised children do to seek agency and belonging.

It is where children become vulnerable to radicalisation and exploitation from criminal groups. At its most tragic, it leads to serious violence and death, which the national knife crime epidemic attests to.

The damage of a language deficit

An alarming proportion of those incarcerated in this country have diagnosable issues with speech and language.

The national profile of special educational needs is also telling: at earlier stages in a child’s life the most prevalent need is speech, language and communication.

At later stages the most prevalent need is broadly regarded as social, emotional and mental health: something that occurs when you are unable to make yourself understood or believe that your contribution is worthless.

An investment in supporting children to use their voice and to hold agency within their schools and communities may be an investment in so much more.

The societal dividends could be huge, with less need for mental health support and fewer examples of children seeking power and agency in ways that are ultimately destructive for themselves, their families and their communities.

At the same time, we could see an increase in the attainment of the pupil groups that nationally cause most concern - with more joy-filled classrooms and more invigorated and hopeful school staff as a much-needed by-product.

Our profession, our schools and our communities need this focus: doing better for our children cannot wait. This is why the commission argues that the time for the oracy transformation is now.

Sally Apps is interim deputy CEO at the Cabot Learning Federation and was a commissioner on the Oracy Education Commission