English Language Paper 2 Q5 - Speech

‘Education is not just about which school you go to, or what qualifications you gain; it is also about what you learn from your experiences outside of school.’

Write a speech for your school or college Leavers’ Day to explain what you think makes a good education.

Fellow Students,

After almost two decades of education, we have finally reached the end of our schooling experience – throughout this odyssey of highs and lows, persevering through long, arduous nights of studying to experiencing the enchantment of residential trips across the globe, I have never stopped to ask myself, was this worth it? Until now. Could I consider this to be a proper education? Have I changed, developed, and am I leaving this school as a better person? These are vital questions we must ask ourselves as we leave the hallowed halls of our school and leave to enter the daunting prospect of the ‘real world.’

Most importantly, we must consider what truly makes a good education, was it the five, consecutive lessons in a day? Or was it the intermingling with other classmates, the afterschool extracurriculars, or the perseverance we upheld when studying for our exams? After considering this carefully, I realized that school had given me the ingenuity of picking out some sort of learning from every experience within school, whether it be inside or outside the classroom.

I urge you to look at education as a largely, fluid and dynamic process. In every instance there is some education, some enlightenment to be gained – paradoxically, that is what a good education teaches you to do. There is no fixed concept of a ‘good education,’ for it is what you make, out of what you have, that makes all the difference.

I’m not going to stand here and delude you by saying our education system is perfect, and that it is all in the eye in the beholder. That’s wrong. I’m a strong believer in that there are things that need to be done, in that schools are killing creativity, and there is a strong issue of certain hierarchies in subjects that serve certain political and socioeconomic agendas.

Now our entire education system is predicated on the idea of academic ability, which has really come to dominate our view of intelligence, because the universities designed the system in their image. If you think of it, the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance. And the consequence is that many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they’re not capable, because the thing they were good at school wasn’t valued or was stigmatized. And I think we can’t afford to go on that way.

The foundation to a good education system relies on it nurturing the potential in every student, albeit laying the groundwork for a few general life skills. There’s no denying we need great doctors, lawyers and engineers, but we must also reconcile our students with their creative, artistic sides. It relies on providing our students with the footing to have the confidence to change the world. We must celebrate the gift of human imagination and take every step we can to educate our entire beings to change flawed school systems. But most of all, our job is to make something of what we have been given, which is the privilege to receive a proper education at the hands of our dedicated teachers, and supportive classmates.

Thank you.

Please give this a mark out of 40! Give some feedback, would really appreciate it :smile:

Hi, i'm going to do my english language paper 2 on thursday and ive practiced the same question as you wrote about. Mine is nowhere as nearly good as yours (your speech is absolutely stunning by the way) and I was wondering if I could receive some feedback and constructive criticism on my speech. For my mocks in march I got a grade 6 in english language, so any feedback would be really useful (and also how I could improve my vocabulary and writing technique).

It is an irrefutable fact that the majority of students in the UK perceive education as something monotonous, dull and uninteresting; the endless stream of homework that piles up day after day is undeniably one of the most significant contributors to this notorious reputation. Alternatively, we have students, some in this very own school, who are crumbling under the immense pressure of preserving their academic reputation, burdened with exam after exam and worn out with worry as they believe that education is the most defining factor and accurate measure of their intelligence.

With my complete honest opinion, it is not.

Many people, when asked to picture the idea of “education” envision something like a skilled teacher, a graduate holding their recently attained degree or a classroom full of bright children; this is, in fact, what 89% of people in South-Eastern London believe, according to a recent survey famously conducted by the University of Oxford. What I think several fail to realise is that behind these graduates, behind these skilled, professional teachers lies an admirable, human being that has worked incessantly with profound determination to attain such accolades. These skills - determination, perseverance, resilience and hard work - cannot be taught in a classroom, so how ridiculous is it that a student’s entire character and intelligence is ultimately defined by a single sheet of paper?

Of course, the students who achieve soaring grades and pass with flying colours have instilled years of hard work into academics and exams, but so have millions of students across the globe who are systemically unrecognized because they lack the natural, genetically-determined ability to memorize significant amounts of information. Why ostracize these students that have learnt equally as much and worked equally as hard? Should we, as a society, truly determine a person’s value based on accolades and numbers rather than the plethora of qualities they have accumulated throughout life's journey?

Parents, students, teachers, remember that the grades on those sheets or the statistics on that computer do not define a student's character. Education is beyond something that can be contained within the classroom; it is alive, present secretly, within every opportunity of the living world. Every hardship, every struggle, every success and every failure is an opportunity to learn. Let us recognise that education should not be recognized as being contained within the captivity of the classroom, but rather be praised as an integral and intrinsic part of the society in which we should strive to uphold. Let us open the doors of the classroom, and appreciate the beauty of education in all its glory.

Reply 4

AnotherAnomaly

Hi - thank you so much for your kind comments on my speech. I really appreciate it. I read through your speech and I think you should really give yourself more credit - this was a lovely speech and it would receive a lot of credit if you were able to reproduce something like this in an exam.

My key feedback would be to more clearly analyse the question from several viewpoints as this is something the examiners consider when assessing how 'compelling' your answer is - I can't quite remember what mnemonic my English teacher gave me but it took into consideration social, economical, artistic, historical, environmental, political, ethical, health, cultural, psychological etc. etc - doing this not only makes your speech more comprehensive but signals to the examiner you've got a clear structure as dividing your speech into an 'ethical' paragraph to a more 'political' paragraph can display a more logical flow.

Your use of vocabulary is very fluent and extensive and I'd recommend keeping this up in the real exam as this is something the examiners take note of heavily and is one of the key determiners of your mark (i.e. how sophisticated it is.) Before the exam, I'd look at some key, general phrases such as 'paradigm shift'/'civic responsibility'/'conscience pricking' etc etc. Also, they credit varied punctuation and techniques so whilst this can seem tedious - make sure you have a mental/physical list of persuasive techniques (rhetorical questions, lists etc. - you can find these online) that you tick off whilst you're writing so that you can get all the marks.

Insert a counter argument to show you are considering the title critically and then quash this by inserting a more valid opinion - i.e., counter the counter arguments to what you are asserting.

Extra: if you have time, watch TED talks and read articles on predicted topics/in general because they really broaden your understanding of the world and help you form critical opinions that the examiners will be impressed by. Obviously, you can still get a great mark without this - but this helped me a lot in my final exam where the topic was on the Environment as I had lots to say anyway because of my pre-existing knowledge about the global conferences, conflicts and opinions that major political voices held. This is NOT to say you can't write a high level essay on a topic you're not familiar with but it really enriched my worldview and my writing in general and made revision for English Language a lot less difficult/boring. I would really recommend acquainting yourself with a couple of TED talks here and there before your exam.

Overall, fabulous article! Keep up the revision as it has obviously been very effective - I'm certain you can bag a top grade if you keep at it.