London Voice is an exciting new oracy project, bringing together creative writing and talk, to help young people develop as writers who have a voice.
Building on the success of our Young Writers Programme, London Voice provides intensive extracurricular creative writing and performance activities, empowering young people to increase confidence, creativity, literacy and oracy skills.
A pilot of the project ran in 2024/25 and worked with six schools in Greater London. All six schools are taking part in the second year of the project in 2025/26 and have the opportunity to continue as a London Voice school for up to three years. London Voice schools have formed a supportive network of teachers passionate about developing students’ social and emotional skills through oracy.
London Voice 2024/25
In the pilot year, each of the six London Voice schools completed 16 weeks of creative writing workshops with a professional Writer-in-Residence. In addition, each cohort also took part in a performance skills workshop with writer Yomi Sode and an audio-recording workshop with writer, performer and podcaster Talia Randall – an opportunity to learn new technical and presentation skills. Schools also came together for London Voice Connect, a performance-focused event at UCL East.
The inaugural year culminated in the launch of First Story’s first podcast. Released on National Writing Day 2025, First Story Presents: London Voice is available on all major podcast platforms. You can also listen to the series below.
Teachers and writers came together in July to reflect on the first year of London Voice at the Teacher Evaluation Day. Evaluation of the project has been supported by The Open University and Oracy Cambridge
For further information about London Voice, please contact Alice Frecknall, London Programme and Partnerships Manager, at alice.frecknall@firststory.org.uk.
London Voice is generously funded by the St Paul’s Schools Foundation and supported by The Mercers’ Company. This helps keep affordable the contribution fee paid by each participating school. London Voice is being developed in conversation with the Open University and evaluated in consultation with Oracy Cambridge.
