Summer 2024 sees a litany of major global sporting events taking place, from the Olympics to the Euros; Wimbledon and beyond, Voice 21 wanted to highlight the hard work of our Voice 21 Oracy Centres of Excellence in developing an oracy curriculum for P.E. We spoke to Samuel Ryder Academy’s Joseph Murphy, a P.E teacher and oracy lead, who offered insights into how teachers are bringing oracy alive in their P.E classrooms.

What was it like first developing oracy into your P.E curriculum?

I’ve been a teacher at Samuel Ryder Academy for nearly three years. The way I approach P.E oracy is probably something I taught before we were introduced to The Oracy Framework. I favour a discursive approach, whether it be theory or practical lessons. The Oracy Framework has helped me and the staff develop that into something more structured though, especially teaching it through from primary. We’re a through school, and I teach year two, and then the same day, I teach my GCSE group as well.

I find the primary/whole-through approach is so beneficial, we focus on bedding oracy early. That way, I can go back to my year 10s and actually can take things from those early classes and just scale it up so it’s appropriate. And  I firmly believe that that routine of oracy tactics has been something that they’ve benefited from.

P.E is not necessarily the first classroom you would think of when you talk about oracy development. So what is key to delivering an engaging P.E session at Samuel Ryder?

I think it starts with them being excited about oracy and teaching oracy lessons explicitly. That could mean that there’s an entire lesson with an oracy focus or just something where it is integrated throughout. I remember that initially, the students thought “This is going to be quite nice and a bit of a laugh”. But then there is now that level of accountability that they must show. They needed to show that they were actively listening, and they understood that quickly. Really it’s no different to any other method of teaching – to figure out what works for that group you coach and the needs of that group. 

In physical education and sports more broadly, there’s a lot of both non-verbal communication and verbal communication. How have you approached that with oracy?

That’s something that I quite like to experiment with. The combination of verbal and non-verbal communication together is really what you’re looking for. So they learn to do the signalling as well as speaking.

For instance, I was teaching a year six football lesson. They’re fairly able in terms of primary ability levels. And so I said: “No one’s allowed to talk. If you talk, it’s a penalty to the other team”. At first, they’re like, “Oh, no!” But soon they had to think of other ways to communicate. And then I said, Okay, if you’re going to talk, it has to be in a full sentence, like “I’m in good space here, please pass me the ball”. You start to see their cogs turning while they’re on the pitch, having to think about how they communicate as well as executing the pass itself, for instance.

I remember saying to the students “Why did that move not work?” And they said, “Communication!” Well, what do you mean by communication? How is that? What does that mean? What does that look like? And then it becomes a question of how could give better information – that’s what we’re trying to do: we’re trying to convey as much information as accurately as we can, especially in sport where we don’t have a lot of time to communicate before acting. 

What’s the impact of bringing oracy into the P.E classroom? 

I think the impact for me is pretty apparent. Their vocabulary is much better, they can really articulate their thoughts. 

We have a lot of EAL kids at our school, and despite knowing what their strategy is at the start of a game, for example, they sometimes struggle to find the words to put that into practice. I find that by structuring opportunities for oracy explicitly with those groups, articulation definitely improves.

Another example would be our year nine boys rugby team. They have gone from being a good team with lots of good individuals to a cohesive group because they speak to each other, and they communicate space really well.

I think is it going to create better athletes/sportspeople. I think so. They can hold each other to account on the pitch in a productive way. Asking probing questions like “Why wasn’t that kind of pass on?” instead of just reverting to their raw emotions to the detriment of another player – not to take these emotions away, but to channel them productively.

How have you engaged students who are perhaps quieter or don’t naturally enjoy P.E so much?

It’s all about groupings.  Someone with a sporty background might have something really good to say about tactics, but someone else might have something great to say about the anatomy of physiology. You want it to be a collaborative learning space.

There are challenges, of course. Mixed-gender classes, for example, can sometimes turn louder students into quiet students. When we have group discussions, if you have a class of twenty boys and four girls, and you separate the girls, often it has proven more difficult to receive the same level of feedback or inclusivity from them than when they’re grouped together. For whatever reason, they can become much quieter students. It’s just something to be aware of. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to take, like with any kind of teaching. 

It’s important to experiment and adapt. If something doesn’t work, instead of saying ‘this is a bad idea’, ask: what will work? And through the inclusion of oracy into the curriculum, I’ve seen a massive increase in terms of kids participating and enjoying it.

Do you utilise the opportunities of the different roles in the sporting world, from umpires to pundits, in your lessons? If so, how does that work?

With that year 9 group, we’ve taken the ‘team manager’ route, and they love it. We also included a fourth official, which they think is both fun and engaging. And they can laugh, but you keep the standards high. If they’re rude, then they get a yellow card. Or if the manager can’t control their team, for instance.

I also enjoy changing the rules slightly in a game to see how students respond. For instance,  I set a rule that you can add a new player every five minutes – as long as the students are communicating with the ‘fourth official’ effectively. If one of the students gets frustrated, they’re sent off for poor verbal skills.  I’ll reset the game when necessary, and remind the culprit next time to think harder about how to communicate in the game.

If you were starting to integrate oracy into the curriculum now, would you do anything differently?

I would have tried to model the teaching better from the start. As the oracy lead, I’ve done plenty of CPD on this. I realise that some teachers need different kinds of support, but we’re definitely moving in the right direction. Honestly, the videos on the Voice 21 Exchange (Voice 21’s online member learning/development platform) are great for that.

I think, generally speaking, as a department and with our students, people are pretty much on board. We’re very fortunate. I’ve done plenty of lessons on it and I’ve never had one class where I felt it was a negative experience. 

When you play fixtures against other schools, do you notice a difference with your kids in terms of sporting ability or how they operate and communicate? 

I think our kids communicate more effectively. It’s less aggressive. Very rarely would I hear swearing, or people getting angry or upset. They manage themselves really well, comparatively. 

You see students being really demanding through just one word – “pass, pass” – and then getting really upset when what they wanted didn’t happen. We can see that our pupils understand why something might not go their way in a game. The level of analysis and understanding is elevated massively because of how they can now communicate

We got ourselves a video camera so it records all the games. We can watch the games back, and we can have discussions there. I think oracy is a good excuse to coach them to be positive. But also how they speak to each other isn’t isn’t just chance. It’s not just how someone’s coached. It’s so much more than that. And I think that that is because it is embedded throughout the curriculum.

As a Voice 21 Oracy Centre of Excellence, oracy is immersed across the whole school. So how do you, in your role as an oracy champion, work with the other members of your department, the other teachers? 

We have a weekly staff meeting in P.E and usually, oracy is on the agenda. I think for me, it’s about feedback.”This is what I have tried out this week, and this is the context, and this was the result.” And I try to be as supportive as I can and foster a staff culture where someone might say to me: “Can you come just check if I’m doing this right?”

Obviously, we make sure that everyone has access to the Voice 21 Exchange, which is great. But it’s about making it consistent across the team, whereby we can just roll something new out and, for instance, everyone knows that they’re doing at least one oracy-focused lesson a week. So even if a staff member is teaching, for instance, badminton, they can take a resource and apply it to any sport, to make it more seamless. You want it to be automatic.

What recommendations would you have for a school that wants to start developing oracy through P.E?

Make sure you utilise staff feedback sessions. What went well? What can you improve? And then discuss as a group, and see what the group thinks so everybody is on board and has the opportunity to feed in.

Above all, experiment and be consistent.  I know that sounds quite contradictory, but I mean experiment with the methods but be consistent with oracy. That way, you know, the kids know what to expect. They know that if they have Mr. Murphy this week at some point there’s going to be some oracy activities to look forward to.