Jo Watkins with her students
‘The most important thing for me was to see how much value they saw in themselves’
The ESU team sat down recently with Jo Watkins, Second in English Curriculum Area at St John The Baptist Church in Wales School in Aberdare. A comprehensive school in the Valleys, in South Wales, it hadn’t historically had much of a culture of debating, public speaking or performance, with a small debate club and no drama department or drama studio to speak of.
But in autumn 2024, prompted by a small group of keen students, Jo decided to sign up the school for not one or two, but all three of the ESU’s competitions (Schools’ Mace Debating, Public Speaking and Performing Shakespeare), despite having never done them before. The prospect of competing with other schools immediately had a galvanising effect on the students: ‘We started off with a mock debate, which they were quite miffed they didn’t win,’ says Jo, ‘but then they were just so determined to do well the second time – which they did.’ And the students kept on winning – their determination driving them through to the regional finals of all three of the competitions!
Through the various heats, Jo saw her students’ oracy skills flourish, most particularly in ‘Listening & Response’ (one of the ESU’s Four Key Skill Sets) and she believes this will benefit them hugely in the future: ‘One of the most impressive things that I that I saw pupils do was how they got involved in the questioning. It’s such an important skill – for their future education, at university or whatever they decide to do.’ More immediately, the skills and knowledge learned in the competitions are clearly supporting students in their academic studies too: ‘Now, when we’re talking about writing a speech in English lessons, we’re using a lot of the strategies and terminology from the debating competition – persuasive devices, rebuttals and the like, which I think is quite interesting.’
Not only do the ESU competitions help to develop students’ skills, they also provide a unique opportunity to connect with other students and adults who they wouldn’t usually have met – and it’s these experiences that Jo has valued most for her students. ‘They loved going to Howell’s School [one of Wales’s top independent schools] – they got on so well with everyone and it was so pleasing to see that they weren’t in any way intimidated. It’s given them a far wider circle of friends.’
‘I think the most important thing for me was to see how much value they saw in themselves,’ she continues. ‘To see that they could hold their own and in fact win in that sort of environment – I don’t think you can underestimate the impact that that has on your self-esteem and confidence. It’s going to make a huge difference to them at their university interviews, both being able to say that they’ve got through these competitions, and also in how confidently they can speak.’
Jo attributes some of the success this year to the support provided by the ESU competitions team and the resources provided: ‘It was really easy to run. Everything’s on the website. The handbooks [ESU teacher and student guides to each competition] are excellent, and the videos are really good as well, particularly for the Shakespeare, which we weren’t very familiar with.’
Jo has delivered some amazing outcomes for her students in her first year of entering the ESU’s three oracy competitions. When asked what she would say to a teacher considering participating for the first time (who maybe hasn’t had a lot of debate or public speaking experience themselves), her reflections were:
‘I would say that it’s a lot easier than it seems at first sight. As soon as you go to the first competition, you say, oh, this is fairly easy, fairly easy to run, fairly easy to organise. The competitions created a sense of pride in the school and a sense of community. They were brilliant.’
Huge congratulations to Jo and all the students at Aberdare for an amazing first year in the ESU competitions – we can’t wait to see what you achieve in 2025/2026!
