High School Oracy Highly Commended Again

For the third time in four years the standards of oracy at The Bishop’s Stortford High School have been rewarded by the English Speaking Union. In a competition open to hundreds of schools all over the country, the London Road school is one of only six to receive a Highly Commended certificate in the ESU Oracy Culture Award. Oracy education develops students’ skills and confidence in communication, particularly with regards to speaking and listening.

As in 2021, the school’s Sixth Form debaters represented the East of England at Finals Day of the ESU Mace, losing to the eventual winners in the semi-finals and two members of the team also qualified for Finals’ Day at Cambridge University. In addition, two teams from Years 9 and 10 reached the top 50 out of an initial entry of over 500 schools from 8 countries in the International Competition for Young Debaters.

Debating coach, retired teacher Tony Fraser, commented, “It was really good to get back to face to face competition and to have no fewer than 36 students representing the school in debating or public speaking competitions. I was also pleased to hear that two former students are now competing at university level, for Oxford and Exeter Universities respectively”.

Headteacher, Dale Reeve, added, “It’s a great honour to receive this Oracy Award from the ESU; my thanks and congratulations go to all involved. They present with great confidence and clarity, which is exactly how we are encouraging all our students to communicate. Our staff provide lots of extra-curricular debating and public speaking opportunities, to complement the excellent work that goes on in the classroom. With mobile phones and social media platforms now playing such a major part in the lives of young people, it’s so important to keep developing the quality of their spoken language.”

Photo Captions: Georgi Petkov, Toby Ford & Tom Millar- ESU Mace semi-final

Alec Sneddon, Kashan Johar, J J Sathan & James Frans

ICYD Finals at the Cambridge Union