The Speechmaking Project brings school together to provide a platform for pupils to develop and celebrate their skills as writers and orators. After an initial training session, teachers support their pupils to analyse famous speeches from history, politics and culture, and then they teach them how to craft an effective speech. Children rehearse the performative elements of speechmaking and then all schools come together for a local celebration, at which pupils from all schools share their learning. 

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The initial training session can be a half-day or a full-day depending on schools' requirements. In this training, we look at and analyse key features of speeches, explore different purposes for speechmaking and we experiment with speech writing. The training - especially the longer one - also covers the presentational elements of speechmaking, such as voice projection, posture, body language and face. It can be attended by up to three members of staff from each school.

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The Celebration Event, at which all schools come back together, provides a brilliant purpose and motivation to children's work back in school.  Each school puts forward a small number of speakers to showcase their oracy, and they are supported by classmates and families in the audience. In this way, the event is lively, supportive and focused solely on respecting and celebrating the voices of the children and young people taking part.

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The project would be organised through a Lead School. The Lead School would organise the participation of local schools, and would be responsible for sourcing a suitable venue. The cost to OtherWise is that of paying for facilitation of the training and hosting of the event; training is led by Jonny Walker, and hosting could be done by Jonny or Adisa.

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You can see an example below from the Elmhurst Teaching School Alliance (before OtherWise existed as a vehicle for this kind of project across the UK and internationally).

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