Practise addressing a live audience with purpose. Try each before revealing; the prompts are our own original material.
1Write the opening of a speech to your year group persuading them to volunteer for a community clean-up day.
Show plan, model opening & checklist
Plan: Hook the audience directly, name the cause, and signal your call to action. Use spoken rhythms and direct address.
Model opening: Look out of the window on your way home today and count the crisp packets in the hedge. Now picture that hedge green again, because that is one Saturday morning away.
Checklist:
- Direct address to a live audience
- Strong, purposeful hook
- Spoken rhythm, not essay prose
- Clear sense of the call to come
2Write the opening of a speech to parents and teachers arguing that weekend homework should be reduced.
Show plan, model opening & checklist
Plan: Acknowledge the audience's likely views, then state your position confidently with a relatable example.
Tried these practice tasks? A teacher can mark your child's attempt and explain the next step in a paid one-hour trial.
Model opening: Good evening. I know that to many of you homework means dedication, and I am not here to argue against effort. I am here to argue about when that effort does the most good.
Checklist:
- Acknowledges the audience's likely stance
- Confident, respectful tone
- Position clear early
- Rhetoric suited to speaking aloud
3Write the closing of a speech thanking volunteers at the end of a school charity week.
Show plan, model opening & checklist
Plan: Shift to a reflective, grateful tone; gather the week into a memorable final image or line.
Model opening: So when you go home tonight, tired and a little hoarse, remember this: everything we raised this week began with one of you simply saying yes.
Checklist:
- Recognisably a closing, not an opening
- Warm, reflective register
- Memorable final image or line
- Speaks to the audience directly
See the worked annotated model response for directed writing: speech, or the method in our directed writing: speech skills guide.