An oracy framework for England’s schools: linguistic justice edition

It is September 2028. All schools in England have just started teaching the new national curriculum. As part of this, they are adhering to guidance contained within a new oracy framework, named as a core recommendation of the 2025 Curriculum and Assessment Review Final Report. In this article we project into the future to offer a vision and an edition of what an oracy framework can look, feel, and sound like when it is anchored in and attentive to linguistic justice. Building on insights from a raciolinguistic perspective and abolitionist thinking, we argue that oracy frameworks can be either linguistically just or linguistically unjust – there is nothing in between. Our framework, designed through an academic-teacher collaboration, is organised into six components: contesting oracy, the politics of listening, oracy and social justice, anti-racist oracy, anti-ableist oracy, and translanguaging into oracy. We offer a linguistic justice take on oracy which seeks to push the conversation in new directions, whilst also representing a practical tool for schools who are seeking to sustain linguistic diversity and engage in interconnected social justice struggles.