Ready speeches, short and long

How these speeches are written

Every speech here was written by us for speaking, not for reading. That means short sentences, plain words and a clear shape: a greeting, two or three points, and a closing line that lands. We have avoided the borrowed quotations and heavy phrases that make school speeches sound alike. Where a speech mentions history, it keeps to a few well-known facts.

Short or full?

The short version is about 70 to 100 words and takes under a minute: right for a morning assembly, a class activity or when many people are speaking. The full version is about 280 to 350 words and takes two and a half to three minutes: right for a main speech at a function. If you are given five minutes, do not stretch the speech with filler. Add one real story of your own instead.

Three things to do with any ready speech

1. Replace every bracket. Names, class, school, years: a speech with a blank left in it is worse than no speech.
2. Add one true detail. A teacher's habit, a friend's joke, your father's scooter. Real details are what an audience remembers.
3. Say it aloud three times. Change any sentence your tongue trips on. It is your speech now.

Need to host instead of speak? See the anchoring scripts. Writing your own from scratch? Follow how to write a speech.

For written school essays, which are a different thing, our neighbour site Essays has topics in three lengths. For letters and applications, see Formats.