How Ibstock Place School is using Cambridge Insight as part of a holistic approach to measuring the effect of oracy across the curriculum

Seeing the big picture for each student

Christine Young, now former Head of Learning Support, explains how MidYIS data supports early understanding of students as they join the school in Year 7.

“We use MidYIS both as a cohort analysis tool and as part of the wider narrative around each student, helping us to identify learning needs and monitor progress.”

While overall MidYIS scores provide a useful starting point, staff look closely at the breakdown of results, particularly across reading, proofreading and perceptual speed. This helps to uncover more complex learning profiles that may not be immediately visible in a high-performing academic environment.

MidYIS data is combined with information from previous schools, interviews, registration forms and early teacher observations. These insights are shared with Heads of Faculty and teachers in a clear, accessible format, enabling patterns and points of concern to be identified quickly at both individual and cohort level.

Embedding oracy across the curriculum

Building on this holistic approach to assessment, the school recently implemented an ‘Oracy and Debating’ lesson for Year 7 and Year 8 students, alongside an embedded oracy scheme of work for every subject for Years 7-13. This scheme of work is modelled using the Oracy Skills Framework developed by Voice 21 and Oracy Cambridge. Part of the University of Cambridge, Oracy Cambridge aims to promote oracy in schools, led by Director Neil Mercer, Emeritus Professor of Education and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society.

Their use of Cambridge Insight data is part of a holistic approach to understanding students’ communication strengths and learning profiles, enabling them to design lessons that target both confidence and skill development.

The inclusion of oracy is particularly relevant given the Secondary oracy, reading and writing framework announced in the Government response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review:

“We will therefore publish a combined secondary oracy, reading and writing framework that brings together guidance on these topics, to support teachers to connect and use all three in their teaching and to embed literacy and oracy across the entire curriculum as part of a whole school strategy.”

Chris Wolsey, Headteacher, has already seen the value of embedding oracy into their programmes of study:

“It’s not enough to simply utter warm words about the importance of oracy. If students, parents and teachers are really to take this part of our provision seriously, then it needs to be properly integrated into our programmes of study, and at a really fundamental level. Writing oracy into our schemes of work helps us to do this, and to ensure that our students experience it right across the curriculum – and sometimes in some unexpected places.”