We are delighted to announce the appointment of previous ESB Teacher, Assessor, Moderator and Trustee, Kate Forrester as our new Honorary Vice-President.

Kate has demonstrated her ongoing commitment to ESB over the years and will join ESB’s Honorary President, Merriel Halsall-Williams in ensuring that ESB founders, Christabel Burniston and Jocelyn Bell’s vision is kept alive.

Says Kate, “It’s an honour to be invited to be Honorary Vice- President of English Speaking Board following in the footsteps of three such influential women, Christabel Burniston, Jocelyn Bell and Merriel Halsall-Williams.”

Kate’s extensive ESB experience covers many different learners as she explains:

“On taking up a post at Plymouth College of Technology in 1969, I was responsible for preparing a range of students from Dockyard workers to Police and Merchant Navy Cadets, to Retail workers and student nurses for ESB assessments. Subsequently, in every school and college I taught, I entered learners ranging from very young children to adults.

“My first outing as a trainee assessor was with Christabel Burniston, daunting! In those days reports were handwritten and at the end of the day, before I had a chance to check what I’d written or the marks I’d awarded, Christabel gathered them and I next saw them with comments and corrections made by Jo Bell!

“Years later I became a Moderator, chaired the Moderating Panel, worked on syllabus development and was a Trustee. Fortunate to assess in this country and overseas, most notable in the Far East, it was always a privilege to be invited into schools and colleges to listen to, support and encourage learners to share their work.

“Through ESB I have learned a great deal and made wonderful friends; I hope I can be of help and support as ESB approaches its 70^th anniversary and on into the future.”

ESB’s Chief Executive, Tina Renshaw, says:

I would like to congratulate Kate on her appointment as Honorary Vice-President. As Kate highlights, 2023 is our 70^th anniversary year and we have a number of events planned where we will look back on – and forward to – the impact of the skills, outcomes and experiences of ESB qualifications.

As part of the celebrations, we launched our 70/70 campaign, which aims to find and financially support centres where their learners, children, young people or community members face disadvantage and would be supported in their aspirations if they could achieve an ESB qualification.

A message from our Chief Executive

Dear Centres,

Welcome back! I hope you enjoyed your summer break and are ready for an exciting and successful year ahead.

ESB’s commitment to empower all learners – especially those individuals who need it the most – to develop the key speaking and listening skills they need to achieve their aspirations, is at the forefront of our work.

To ensure that our assessments remain accessible and beneficial to your learners, I would like to include you in some of the exciting initiatives that we have been busy working on.

New and improved resources

ESB is determined to provide continual support to teachers, helping them to fulfil the potential of all their learners.

With this in mind, we will shortly be launching new speech resources including ready-to-teach PowerPoints with accompanying Learner Workbooks for the following qualifications:

1. ESB Entry Level Awards in Speech (Entry 1, 2 and 3)
2. ESB Level 3 Certificate in Speech (Grade 8)

We will also be refreshing and improving our resources for our Speech Pathways qualifications to make them more accessible to centres.

Gap Analysis Tool

We are delighted to let you know that we are in the process of designing a tool to enable centres to identify where they already cover the skills required to succeed in our Speech qualifications, (and to meet the requirements of the National Curriculum where they are linked to our Speech qualifications), and then to identify where they could create further opportunities to embed them. 

We are particularly excited about the chance for this tool to be used to explore where our qualifications can fit into subject areas outside of English and Drama.

ESB’s impact on closing the disadvantage gap reports

This half term, centres who receive funding through ESB’s Christabel Burniston Fund, will have access to an individual impact report on how ESB qualifications are helping them to close the disadvantage gap experienced by their learners. The reports will highlight the extent to which a focus on oracy using external assessment has a quantifiable impact on learners’ knowledge, skills and personal and social development. The reports will use data provided by schools and learners such as:

• Learner Pre and Post Assessment Data

• Teacher Baseline Assessment Data

• Qualitative Data collected from questionnaires.

*An Annual national report on ESB’s impact on closing the disadvantage gap is also coming later this term so keep an eye out for this!

It’s time to celebrate – 2023 marks the 70^th Anniversary of ESB!

As we approach ESB’s 70th anniversary in 2023, we are thrilled to reveal that we are currently in the initial stages of planning events and activities to celebrate this special milestone.

The celebratory events will provide a fantastic opportunity for all members of the ESB family – both past and present learners, centres, assessors, and staff – to all get together and recognise their achievements, and to share their memories of their ESB experience.

We would love to include you in our celebrations. Please keep an eye out for more information about these events over the next few months.

Launch of ‘Your Milestone’ Competition

Break the ice with your new September intake by encouraging them to take part in ESB’s ‘Your Milestone’ Competition!

Designed to hone your learners’ communication skills in a fun environment, learners will have the opportunity to showcase their skills and talent by creating and delivering a spoken piece (in the form of a speech/poem/rap/piece of drama/story) about an important milestone in their life.

Full details on how to enter will be released shortly. If you have any questions about this in the meantime, please email ESB’s Communications Officer, Cassie Anderson, at cassie.anderson@esbuk.org.

And finally, we are always looking at ways to support you whilst you embark on your ESB oracy and English language journeys. We give financial support to organisations where children, young people and/or adults face disadvantage and enable them access to our assessments. We try and keep the cost of our assessments at a reasonable price and we will never turn a centre away who can’t afford them. We encourage you to get in touch today and find out whether your centre is eligible for funding through the Christabel Burniston Fund.

If you have any questions about how to book your assessments, please click here or speak to a member of our Customer Experience team at customer@esbuk.org.

Together, we can continue to raise the achievement of our learners.

Best wishes,

Tina Renshaw,
Chief Executive of ESB International

We want to give you and your learners a heads up by providing some key information about ESB’s Your Milestone Competition before you break for summer.

What better way to celebrate our own special milestone – our 70th anniversary in 2023 – than by giving our learners the opportunity to showcase their skills and talent! 

Designed to hone your learners’ communication skills in a fun and competitive environment, September 2022 will see the launch of ESB’s Your Milestone Competition.

The competition is open to all Speech and ESOL learners and we encourage them to enter and to get involved! It is not necessary for learners to have completed their assessments prior to entering.

Learners will simply need to create and deliver a spoken piece (in the form of a speech/poem/rap/piece of drama/story) about an important milestone in their life. This could be a particular achievement they are proud of, a time they used their voice to make a positive impact, or starting life in a new place. The spoken piece should last no longer than 3 minutes.

Learners can submit their entry from one of the following six categories:

1. Speech (KS1&2)
2. Speech (KS3)
3. Speech (KS4&5)
4. Speech SEND
5. ESOL Entry Level
6. ESOL Level 1 & 2

The competition will be a great way to gain recognition and social media exposure for your centre as we will be featuring winners’ videos across all our media channels, including our Website, Twitter and LinkedIn.  

In addition to sharing and marketing your centres’ achievements on our digital networks, we will also be awarding a £50.00 voucher for 1st prize winners and £25.00 voucher for 2nd prize winners within each category. All learners who receive a Highly Commended Award will also receive a certificate highlighting their accomplishment.

Centres whose learners are awarded the first prize will also have the additional bonus of receiving a £40.00 voucher. 

The winning entry will be assessed on the delivery and presentation, and will be the one that reaches the heart of the listener the most. We are looking for that little bit of magic!

All learners can put their thinking hats on over the Summer and what better way to break the ice with your new intake in September.

Full details on how to enter will be released early September. Watch this space!