Six enrichment units designed to challenge Year 9 students with the big questions that the standard curriculum doesn't always have time for. Each unit runs for six lessons and ends with a substantial piece of student work — a position paper, a creative piece, or a research project.
These enrichment units sit alongside the core curriculum. They are not exam preparation. They exist to give students the space to think carefully about real-world issues, develop their own informed opinions, and practise the skills that matter most beyond school:
Voice 21 defines oracy as learning to talk and through talk — articulating ideas, developing understanding, and engaging with others through planned, structured spoken language. Research by the Education Endowment Foundation shows that oral language interventions deliver an average of six months’ additional progress per year, with the greatest gains for disadvantaged students.
These enrichment units are a strategic opportunity to embed oracy across the curriculum. Every unit already involves debate, discussion, evidence evaluation, and a final piece of student work — activities that naturally exercise all four strands of the Voice 21 Oracy Framework. With minimal adaptation, each unit could scaffold structured talk explicitly:
Framework and research via Voice 21