Taking the Armada Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I and her Tilbury speech as the starting point and inspiration, this project supports teachers and pupils to use heritage, particularly paintings and portraits, to inspire public speaking and develop oracy skills across the curriculum at key stages 3 and 4.
The young people who originally worked on the project identified the following themes within the portrait as being relevant and reflective of their generation: gender, power, patriarchy, feminism, image, identity and colonialism. The resources created as part of this project leave a lasting legacy for all schools in using heritage and creativity to support pupils’ oracy skills.
The schools involved identified how using creative approaches within oracy enabled their pupils to develop a deeper understanding around heritage and abstract concepts to make twenty-first century connections to the portrait. Using the portrait as a stimulus created meaningful and authentic opportunities to help their pupils command an audience, find their voice around a range of themes and reflect critically on their ideas and outcomes. Above all, their ability to speak out and their confidence levels increased greatly.