After a busy term honing their presentational skills in preparation for the English Speaking Board (ESB) Award, Year 6 pupils are celebrating a clean sweep as every pupil in the year has achieved their Level 1 Award in Speech (Grade 1), with over half the cohort attaining a Distinction.
The award is designed to develop pupils’ presentational skills and build confidence in public speaking, reading, listening and responding. One of the aims of the ESB is to ensure that ‘children possess the oracy and English language skills they need to achieve their aspirations’.
Pupils spent the term preparing for four sections in preparation for the live final assessment:
Talk – Free Choice, presenting a topic of personal interest, using relevant visual/audio material.
Speaking by Heart, involving each pupil choosing a poem or piece of drama, explaining what it means to them and presenting their memorised choice, sharing the content with the group and the assessor.
Reading Aloud, which meant pupils prepared several pages of a book, from which the assessor will choose an extract to be read aloud. They also introduced the book, explaining its appeal.
Listening and Responding, where the pupils responded to questions from the group and the assessor and participated in a group discussion.
Head of Junior School Marie-Clare Gilfedder Bonnar said: “The purpose of the ESB Speech award is to develop clarity of communication and an ability to express thoughts simply, sincerely and persuasively, skills which are essential and prized throughout life at school and beyond, whatever career pathway you choose. This experience has given our Year 6 pupils some fantastic grounding in developing their oracy skills, and despite a few nerves on the day the children enjoyed every moment of the assessments, both preparation and delivery, and it was wonderful seeing their pride in receiving their certificates.”
