Nine Lower Sixth students achieved exceptional results recently in their Grade 8, Level 3 English Speaking Board examination. For the live examination, students must prepare three well-researched, rehearsed, and timed speeches, performances, and discussions and deliver them successfully in the presence of an examiner. It truly is a group effort as students are also marked on their response to intensive questioning within the presentations. It is a challenging, complex task and one which the current Lower Sixth cohort, who have all prepared for these examinations in Core English, met with high success.
Students must deliver:
- a thoroughly researched ‘Newspaper Discussion,’ drawing on controversial topics in the news and leading a discussion;
- a persuasive or informative speech on a topic of their choice;
- and a dramatic reading and analysis of a chosen literary extract or speech.
Overall, this strong set of students achieved an outstanding six Distinctions and three Merit Plus grades – the two highest achievable grades on the exams.
They should be commended for their exceptional and, to quote the examiner, ‘stimulating and intellectual’ performances and discussion!
A list of all topics from the students is below:
Alice Lowe
- ESB 1: Should more pressure be placed on paramedics or community response to combat the mental health crisis?
- ESB 2: The 14-day embryo rule
- ESB 3: Caged Bird, Maya Angelou
Kirsten Head
- ESB 1: To what extent are companies cults?
- ESB 2: Why we must legalise marijuana
- ESB 3: Speech To The Troops At Tilbury, Queen Elizabeth I
Laura Galanty
- ESB 1: Texas abortion legislation
- ESB 2: The Death Penalty
- ESB 3: Dirge Without Music, Edna St Vincent Millay
Poppy Tilling
- ESB 1: Theories of the Voynich Manuscript
- ESB 2: The US Gun Laws
- ESB 3: Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Sasha Mikheev
- ESB 1: Should there be a second Brexit referendum?
- ESB 2: Teenage Mental Health Care access since the COVID-19 pandemic
- ESB 3: We Choose To Go To The Moon, John F. Kennedy
George Curtis
- ESB 1: The “Ban Drill” Debate
- ESB 2: The Abolition of Private Education.
- ESB 3: The Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln
Hugo Collingridge
- ESB 1: The private spaceflight debate
- ESB 2: The ongoing refugee crisis
- ESB 3: We Shall Fight On The Beaches, Winston Churchill
Charmaine Lee
- ESB 1: Is Animal Testing in Medicine Research Necessary?
- ESB 2: Should the Benin Bronzes be returned to Nigeria?
- ESB 3: The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
Chris Lusala
- ESB 1: Are the Grammys Racist?
- ESB 2: Obligatory school skirts for girls – An Ongoing Debate
- ESB 3: Extract from The Prelude, William Wordsworth
