They say that interests and trends in education come and go in cycles: the faddish focus on ‘learning styles’; the debate between phonics versus whole language reading; the pendulum swing between flipped learning and personalised devices and more traditional, analogue instruction; the endless recurring discussions around diversifying the curriculum or whether to bring back coursework.

The latest hot topic seems to be on the importance of ‘oracy’ in schools. In 2023, Keir Starmer promised to make oracy a priority, stating that the ability to speak clearly and argue cogently ‘opens up a lifetime of empowerment’ for students: ‘confident speaking gives you a steely core, and an inner belief to make your case in any environment.’ Now it’s back on Labour’s agenda. Education Secretary Lucy Powell has announced that oracy needs to be ‘hardwired’ into a revised national curriculum and assessed as part of GCSE exams, on a par with reading and writing. She also wants to reduce the amount of academic ‘desktop’ work and assessment that pupils take in certain subjects (such as Drama, PE and Music) and move to more ‘practical’ assessments.

Labour is right that oracy skills have been overlooked for too long: there are minimal spoken language requirements for children aged 11 to 14 (even in humanities subjects like Geography and History they are non-existent). The GCSE Spoken........

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