What do Richard Branson, Malala Yousafzai and Stormzy have in common? It could be that all three were born in July, but there’s a better answer. In recent years, all three have spoken out about the importance of young people developing their spoken language skills and finding their voice. As Richard Branson put it, ‘Communication makes the world go round. It facilitates human connections, and allows us to learn, grow and progress’. 

This will be no surprise to many of us working in education. Teachers know just how important oracy (speaking and listening) skills are: our research in 2016 found that teachers overwhelmingly believe that it is critically important to develop their students’ oracy skills, even more so than their numeracy skills. Indeed, this isn’t new – going back to 1975, the influential Bullock Report noted oral language’s ‘essential place… in preparing a child for reading, its function as an instrument of learning and thinking, its role in social and emotional development’.

It’s also no surprise that when it comes to language development, Percy Bysshe Shelley’s famous adage is relevant – that ‘the rich get richer and the poor get poorer’. Research from the Communication Trust shows that economically disadvantaged students can be as much as 19 months behind their more advantaged peers in language development by the age of five. If this is left unaddressed, gaps between students from differing economic backgrounds widen rather than diminish over the course of their schooling.

Yet developing students’ oracy skills doesn’t just enhance their learning, but also has the potential to transform their life chances. Evidence from the Education Endowment Fund suggests that oral language interventions lead to approximately six months’ additional progress over the course of the year for economically disadvantaged pupils. An oracy-rich education also unlocks opportunities for young people beyond school, whether that is success at college, university or in the workplace, where successive employer surveys show that good communication skills are one of the most highly sought-after attributes nowadays. These skills are also vital to young people’s social and emotional health and wellbeing – so that they are able to articulate emotions, manage conflict and form healthy relationships with their peers.

The promise of social mobility is an integral part of modern educational rhetoric – the government’s Levelling-Up White Paper is the latest example in a long line of policy initiatives attempting to address educational inequality, raise aspirations and boost attainment. At Voice 21, however, we believe that this promise is unfulfillable without harnessing the transformative power of talk. Without enabling students from the most economically disadvantaged backgrounds to speak up, there can be no levelling-up.

On 24th March in London, we are hosting a conference to explore this theme. More than 25 expert educationalists from the UK and beyond will outline how explicitly teaching oracy skills can tackle educational inequality, in practical sessions demonstrating how doing so improves students’ learning, confidence, vocabulary development, wellbeing, employability and much more. After all, as one of our keynote speakers, former Obama speechwriter Terence Szuplat, will say – if you can find your voice, you can change the world. We hope to see you there.