Your school is holding an assembly on the theme of preparation. Write a speech to be given to students in your own year group, persuading them that preparin...

Notes for examiners

A 45 mark transactional writing task, 27 marks for AO4 and 18 for AO5. The purpose is to persuade listeners that careful preparation is worth more than courage alone. The audience is students of the writer's own age, sitting in a school assembly, which means a listening audience that cannot re-read and will not sit still for abstraction. The form is a speech: direct address, a clear line of argument, spoken rhythms and a memorable ending. Spoken features are expected, and their absence is a form failure however good the prose is.

The strongest scripts recognise that the proposition is counterintuitive. Bravery is admired and preparation is dull, so the speech must earn its case rather than assert it. That is done by conceding the appeal of courage at the start, then showing that what looked like bravery was in fact preparation that had already been done. Weak scripts either attack bravery, which loses the room, or write an essay with the word friends inserted at intervals. The example may be personal, historical or invented; examiners do not check it, but it must be developed rather than named.

What a strong response does with each bullet

• What people usually admire and why. Open with a hook that grants the appeal of bravery: the story everybody tells, the photograph on the wall, the person who ran towards the trouble. Agreeing with the audience first is what buys permission to disagree later.
• An example of preparation making the difference. One developed example, given in narrative detail, with the preparation made visible: the drill repeated until it was automatic, the route walked the day before, the spare key cut months earlier. The turn of the speech is the moment the audience realises the calm came from the rehearsal.
• What happens when preparation is missing. A short, concrete counter-example rather than a list of disasters. Understatement is more effective than catastrophe with this audience, who are quick to spot exaggeration.
• What you want your listeners to do. A specific call to action addressed to these listeners in this term: one hour on a timetable, one bag packed the night before, one revision plan written down. General appeals to be more prepared are the commonest way the ending is wasted.
• Any other points you wish to make. Anticipate the obvious objection, that preparation is boring, and answer it honestly. Use rhetorical devices with control: tripling, contrast, rhetorical questions, deliberate repetition of a single phrase. Punctuation should imply the pauses.

Assessment: AO4, 27 marks, purpose, audience, form, tone and register

• Level 1, 1 to 5 marks. Limited awareness of the listening audience. Little sense of speech form, an unstable register, and an argument that is barely more than a statement of opinion.
• Level 2, 6 to 11 marks. Some awareness of audience and purpose. A few spoken features appear, usually a greeting and a closing thank you, but the register drifts towards written prose and the argument does not develop. The move from Level 1 is a recognisable position being argued.
• Level 3, 12 to 17 marks. Clear address to the audience with recognisable speech conventions and a suitable tone. The argument is signposted, the example is present, and rhetorical devices are used. The move from Level 2 is that the speech now sounds as though it is being delivered to people rather than read out.
• Level 4, 18 to 22 marks. A convincing spoken voice, with well judged rhetorical devices and material chosen to move this audience. The concession to bravery is handled with confidence and the objection is answered. The move from Level 3 is that the rhetoric is doing argumentative work instead of decorating a point already made.
• Level 5, 23 to 27 marks. Assured and compelling. The speech is shaped for delivery, with pace and pause controlled, rhetoric held in reserve for the moments that need it, and a register sustained from the first line to the last. The move from Level 4 is a redefinition the audience accepts, for instance that preparation is itself a form of courage.

Assessment: AO5, 18 marks, organisation, paragraphing, vocabulary, sentence variety and technical accuracy

• Level 1, 1 to 3 marks. Little structure. Vocabulary is basic and errors are frequent enough to obscure meaning.
• Level 2, 4 to 7 marks. Some structure and paragraphing. Vocabulary is simple and errors are noticeable, though meaning is usually clear.
• Level 3, 8 to 11 marks. Clear organisation with linked sections. Vocabulary is generally appropriate and errors do not impede meaning. The move from Level 2 is that the sections are ordered so the argument builds.
• Level 4, 12 to 15 marks. Well organised and coherently paragraphed. Vocabulary is precise, sentence forms are varied and accuracy is good. The move from Level 3 is punctuation used to control delivery, with commas and full stops placed where a speaker would breathe.
• Level 5, 16 to 18 marks. Fluently structured and controlled. Vocabulary is ambitious and exact, sentence variety is purposeful, and accuracy is high. The move from Level 4 is that the sentence patterns are audibly designed, with balanced clauses and a final sentence short enough to be remembered.

Examination takeaway

Test every paragraph by reading it in your head as though standing up. If a sentence cannot be said in one breath, it belongs to an essay and not to a speech. Then check that your final sentence asks these listeners for one thing they could do this week, because a speech that ends in general advice ends nowhere.