Source/event date: 15 October 2026
Published and reviewed: 19 October 2026
Scope: England
Education Secretary Lucy Powell has announced that oracy will receive equal status with reading and writing as a new strand of England’s revised English curriculum.
In her speech to the Confederation of School Trusts, Powell explicitly connected the change to the rise of artificial intelligence. She said speaking, listening and communicating would become a core part of education from primary school through to GCSE and beyond, in both curriculum content and assessment. The Department for Education will work with Ofqual as the reforms develop.
This is a policy direction, not yet final programme-of-study or assessment detail, and it does not create an immediate new statutory requirement for schools. The eventual curriculum wording and assessment arrangements remain to be published.
For educators, the announcement signals greater emphasis on pupils explaining, questioning and defending ideas aloud. That matters in an AI-shaped environment because a polished written answer may reveal little about whether a pupil understands or owns the reasoning behind it.