The Blackfen School Public Speaking Competition
The aim of the Power Up! Speak Up! public speaking competition is to help students develop the knowledge, skills and confidence to speak in public. Over
three lessons, students will learn how to speak with power in public. They will put this into practice by taking part in a public speaking competition. Each
student will make a speech in class, and the top two students from each class will take part in a grand final! Each speech will be one minute long, and will be
made without notes!
Learning Outcomes:
 Deliver and present with confidence and impact
 Master the art of speaking without notes
 Give and receive feedback
 Understand the secrets of successful public speaking
 Prepare a speech and source information
 Understand the importance of structured arguments
Overview:
Lesson 1:
To learn how to CONNECT with your audience when you make a speech.
Lesson 2:
To learn how to CONSTRUCT a great speech and how to build great CONTENT into your speech.
Lesson 3:
To make a great speech in a class COMPETITION and give great feedback to your peers.
NB It’s a little hard to know how much progress students will make in Lesson 1 & 2. It may be necessary to give them one more lesson in which they spend
more time honing their speech – focusing on ‘hooking’ their audience, using props, humour and stories, varying their pace, using body language, involving the
audience etc. This project doesn’t HAVE to be limited to three lessons, and I’d much rather they all make real progress on public speaking rather than rushing
to finish the project in 3 lessons.
Lesson 1: CONNECTION!
Learning Outcome
To learn how to
CONNECT with your
audience when you
make a speech.
Learning Steps
CONNECT:
When students have settled, introduce the Speak Up! Competition: a public speaking competition to teach you how
to be a great speaker… and to find the best speaker in Blackfen!
Give an overview of the competition: over the next three lessons, students will learn how to make a great speech. In
particular they will learn the 3Cs of public speaking:
 Connection
 Construction
 Content
They will then use these skills to prepare and make an outstanding one minute speech to their class. The top two
speakers – voted by the class – will go through to the final. For each class there will be two prizes – best speaker
and most improved speaker. In the final there will be 1st, 2nd, 3rd place prizes.
The reason we are doing this project is that whatever you do in life, you will at some point have to speak in public,
and in many jobs you have to do it all the time – teaching, journalism, politics, police, community work, youth work,
lawyer, campaigner etc. It’s a most vital skill, but most adults are terrified of it!
The Great Speech:
Show this video of a great speaker (or choose any others that you think might work, like an Obama speech), and
ask students to think what makes a great speaker / speech. You can put this link into Youtube, or use the video file
in the shared area.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc4HGQHgeFE&feature=related
Ask students to discuss their views of what makes a great speaker in pairs, and then get feedback from students
and collate them.
ACTIVATE:
Explain that you can have the best speech in the world written down on paper, but if you can’t CONNECT with your
audience, it will have no impact.
To CONNECT you have to:
 Use your body – eyes, hands and movement
 Vary your volume – every body must be able to hear you, but you don’t always have to shout
 Vary your speed – faster, slower and use the ‘power of the pause’
 Show your energy, passion and humour!
Play the video again, and ask students to put up their hand when they spot the speaker using one of the above
skills.
Resources
PowerPoint
Youtube
access
DEMONSTRATE:
In pairs ask students to prepare a 30 second speech to their partner on the following topic: The person I most
admire
They must make the speech WITHOUT notes, but they must:
 Use their body (they will need to stand up if there’s space!
 Vary their volume
 Vary their speed
 Show energy, passion and humour!
Give them around 10 minutes to draft some ideas then give a 30 second speech yourself to model what you want
them to do. Then give them around 5 minutes to practice their speech in pairs. Each must take a turn, and then give
each other feedback.
CONSOLIDATE:
Ask for volunteers to share their 30 second speech with the class. Feedback using What Went Well / Even Better If,
but only in terms of the success criteria for CONNECTION. At this stage, don’t focus on any other aspects of making
a speech.
Lesson 2: CONSTRUCTION & CONTENT
Learning Outcome
To learn how to
CONSTRUCT a great
speech.
Learning Steps
CONNECT:
Ask students to remind you about the things you need to do to CONNECT with an audience. Explain that today
they are going to learn to second and third skills of making a great speech: CONSTRUCTION and CONTENT.
To learn how to build
great CONTENT into
your speech.
Show students the video of the winning speech from last year’s Jack Petchey Speak Out! Competition, and point
out how the speaker has used; Connection, Construction and Content:
http://www.speakoutchallenge.com/pages/videoandaudio/
ACTIVATE:
Introduce the next two key skills of a great speech:
CONSTRUCTION: explain that a great speech has a clear structure – you can’t just ramble on! Hand out the
Speech Builder sheet, and talk through the key points on it.
CONTENT: explain that their competition speech can be on any topic they want. It could be their favourite school
subject, a sport, hobby, other interest, career/dream job, their proudest achievement, a social issue they want to
change, something they feel is unfair in society, or they could build on their ‘who do you most admire’ speech from
last lesson.
The important thing is that they speak about a topic they know about and care about. They should use stories,
facts, examples, humour, props or audience participation to strengthen their content.
Use a selection of videos from this page to illustrate the key points as you think appropriate. These could include:
‘hooking’ their audience, using props, humour and stories, varying their pace, using body language, involving the
audience, concluding their speech.
http://www.speakoutchallenge.com/pages/newtipsandtechniques/tipsfromstudents/
Then summarise the success criteria for the speech, using slides 4 – 6 on the PowerPoint.
DEMONSTRATE:
Ask students to now start to draft their speeches by using the Speech Construction sheet. It’s really important they
don’t write their speech out word for word. They are NOT allowed to use any notes when they make their speech,
so what they need is a draft structure, and then begin to practice and memorise it.
CONSOLIDATE:
Depending on the time left, either ask students to practice their speech in pairs and give each other feedback,
and/or ask for volunteers to practice making their speech in front of the class.
Resources
Use of the
Internet
Jack Petchey
Speech Builder
sheet
HOMEWORK:
To practice, practice and practice your speech for next lesson’s class competition.
NB It’s a little hard to know how much progress students will make in Lesson 1 & 2. It may be necessary to give them one more lesson in which they spend
more time honing their speech – focusing on ‘hooking’ their audience, using props, humour and stories, varying their pace, using body language, involving the
audience etc. This project doesn’t HAVE to be limited to three lessons, and I’d much rather they all make real progress on public speaking rather than rushing
to finish the project in 3 lessons. They could, for example, spend the first half of Lesson 3 honing their speeches. Then some of them could start giving their
final speech in the second half of the Lesson 3, and the rest could finish in Lesson 4.
Lesson 3: COMPETITION
Learning Outcome
To make a great
speech in a class
COMPETITION and
give great feedback to
your peers.
Learning Steps
CONNECT & ACTIVATE:
Remind students of the key skills they need to demonstrate in their speech (Connection, Construction and
Content). Give them a little time for a final run through of their speech.
DEMONSTRATE:
Each student will make their competition speech. Remember – one minute long and no notes!
After each speech get a little feedback using What Went Well / Even Better If. Then all other students will use the
Score Sheet to give each speaker a score.
Once everyone has made their speech, have a class vote on the best two speakers – this could be done by a
show of hands, or post-it voting etc. These two students will go forward to the final. There is also a class prize for
Most Improved Speaker, which you could decide who wins.
CONSOLIDATE:
If there is time, give each student a post-it and ask them to write down the most important thing they’ve learned
about public speaking. They should stick this up on the board as they leave the classroom.
Resources
Post-its
Peer
Assessment
Score Card
Class prize for
top 2 speakers
ad Most
Improved
Speaker