ESU Public Speaking Competition

The ESU Public Speaking Competition comes from the English-Speaking Union, an educational charity founded in 1918 by Sir Evelyn Wrench with a long-standing mission of improving communication and understanding across cultures and countries. The ESU’s work now includes school competitions, oracy resources, teacher development and international exchange. That institutional background explains why this competition places so much emphasis on listening, cooperation and constructive dialogue rather than treating public speaking as performance alone. For students aged 13–16 in Years 9–11, the competition is one of the largest school public-speaking programmes in England and Wales. The format is distinctive: each team includes a speaker, a questioner and a chairperson, and students from different schools can be paired in the roles. The ESU describes the competition as involving more than 300 teams, while its 2026 national final followed more than 90 heats and involved over 1,500 young people. Those figures help explain its significance: students are practising oracy in a real social setting, not just delivering a speech to a familiar classroom. The competition also has a meaningful progression route. The Best Speaker from the England and Wales competition may represent the country at the ESU’s International Public Speaking Competition, where national winners from around the world meet in London. ESU has described former participants going on to careers in international relations, and the organisation’s judges and educators repeatedly frame the experience around confidence, critical thinking and the ability to engage with difficult public issues. We rate the ESU Public Speaking Competition at Intermediate Level. The school-based entry route and accessible age range make it a realistic starting point, but the combination of topic choice, timing, teamwork, questioning and live response requires more than confident delivery. It is especially useful for students considering law, politics, humanities, business, media or leadership, and for students whose next step is not simply “speak louder” but learn to think more clearly in front of other people.