English Speaking Board (International) Ltd. (ESB) Is delighted to announce that author Meena Kumari Wood has agreed to become a Patron of the organisation.
The news comes as ESB, an award-winning Awarding Organisation with over 70 years of expertise in offering Oracy and English Language qualifications, looks to expand on the number and diversity of its Patrons. Meena joins as a Patron in the year that the organisation was named as Awarding Organisation of the Year, by the Federation of Awarding Bodies. The award recognised and applauded that as a not-for-profit business, ESB also promotes a thriving Outreach Programme which helps learners facing disadvantage.
Consultant, trainer, author, Honorary Fellow in Educational Leadership (Univ. Birmingham), Board Member of Chartered College of Teaching and former HMI (Ofsted), Principal Secondary Academy Principal Adult College and LA Education Adviser, Meena is passionate for ALL young people to succeed in education. She is author of the inspirational book, “Secondary Curriculum Transformed: Enabling All to Achieve”, which highlights the excellent work that ESB does.
ESB’s CEO Tina Renshaw, says:
We are delighted that Meena is joining ESB as our Patron. We have been endeavouring to find new patrons to better represent the reach of our many accredited qualifications that we offer. I hope our new Patrons will help to raise our profile and assist us with our philanthropic and fund-raising to support and grow our Outreach Programme.
“With her educational and literary background, Meena will particularly focus on our Oracy work with schools, colleges and third sector organisations. This has become even more relevant with the new Labour Government pledging to prioritise Oracy as a crucial part of a child’s education and to ensure that all young people have access to the opportunities they deserve.
“Oracy is about learning through talk and learning to talk. The power of spoken language is transformative and larger than developing communicative competence and access to knowledge.
“In addition to Oracy as ‘learning through talk’ there is transformative power in applying speaking and listening to real-life situations and simulated experiences. ESB’s accredited assessments provide such experiences. We give learners communication-rich opportunities and a platform on which their voice and their passions are not only heard but valued, delivering confidence and agency.
“Meena will help ESB establish itself as a thought leader, with our unique contribution of offering accredited qualifications in the Oracy space in government-funded primary, secondary and post 16 education and in the independent sector. I look forward to her getting involved with our centres to see first-hand their challenges and achievements that they encounter with their ESB learners’ oracy journeys”.
Says Meena:
It is an honour to be a Patron of ESB and I greatly value this opportunity to champion its sterling work. I strongly believe that structured learning for all children and young people to develop their oracy skills should be embedded across the curriculum. These form the foundations for strong reading and writing skills and lead to an inclusive curriculum.
In her enlightening book, “Secondary Curriculum Transformed: Enabling All to Achieve”, Meena says: “It is clear that disadvantaged children are the ones most in need of public speaking skills, especially those from homes, where there is not much talk. As we have seen in a world where entrepreneurial skills and communication skills are paramount, all our students must have the confidence and the ability to articulate their opinions; these are attributes that last a lifetime.”
Connecting this thought to what ESB offers, she adds: “The ‘Connect, Inform, Perform and Employability’ Pathways in ESB assessments contain specific oracy skills for each context. ‘Connect’ allows students to develop their literacy and analytical skills, through a biographical talk, a chosen poem or drama piece and includes being able to respond to audience questions. ‘Inform’ can be focused on a KS3 topic in any subject. Students may give a personal interest talk, review a news piece and give a persuasive speech, within a political, economic, environmental or social context. ‘Perform’ allows students to unlock their creativity through the performance of a self-composition or performance of an established work. ‘Employability’ supports those who wish to deepen their understanding of a career and to prepare for the job market”.
Tina adds:
Meena joins our other new Patron Disability Rights and Race Equality Champion and award-winning social entrepreneur Dr Kush Kanodia. Kush’s phenomenal work in creating systematic change for the inclusion of disabled people is a perfect fit for our work in giving more learners with significant learning needs the chance to find their voice and empowering them to achieve with our ambitious and inclusive Oracy qualifications.
Kush was recently awarded the Campaigner of the Year Award 2024 by the prestigious Sheila McKechnie Foundation in recognition of his significant contribution to social change through campaigning and advocacy. He has just returned from Paris to attend the Paralympics’ Blind Football Final and the Closing Ceremony, having been a Torch Bearer for the Paralympic Games in London 2012.
If you would like to learn more about ESB’s confidence-boosting Oracy and English language qualifications, please get in touch with a member of our Business Strategy Team at business@esbuk.org. We would love to hear from you.
