Parent Zone / Speaking exams
Guide 02
How speaking exams work, and why they come first
The speaking exam is worth a quarter of the GCSE, it is usually sat in April before any other paper, and it is the one that keeps children awake. Here is exactly what happens in the room.
The short version
- It is conducted by a teacher at your child's school and recorded.
- The recording is sent away and marked by an examiner appointed by the exam board, not by the teacher in the room.
- The whole thing lasts about seven to nine minutes at Foundation and ten to twelve at Higher.
The specific order of tasks and the exact timings depend on the exam board. Your child's school will tell you which board they follow, and every board publishes sample tasks free on its website.
The speaking window usually opens in April, weeks before the written papers. Many families plan revision around the main exam timetable and are caught out. Ask your child's teacher for the speaking date in February, not May.
Reading aloud
Your child is given a short printed passage in French or Spanish and reads it out loud. It is short: roughly thirty-five words at Foundation and fifty at Higher. Then the card is taken away and the teacher asks two straightforward questions in the language, linked to what the passage was about.
This task is newer than the exams most parents remember. It is testing whether a child can turn written letters into the right sounds, which is a specific and teachable skill. French spelling in particular does not behave like English spelling, and a child who has never read aloud at home will find this the hardest minute of the exam.
What helps at home: ask your child to read anything in the language out loud to you two or three times a week. A paragraph from their book, a sentence builder, the back of a jar of Nutella. You do not need to be able to judge it. Regular reading aloud does the work by itself, and their teacher can correct the sounds.
Role play
A short scripted situation: booking a room, reporting a lost bag, ordering in a restaurant, sorting something out at a sports centre. Your child gets a card with prompts in English and has to produce the language for each one. One of the prompts always requires them to ask a question rather than answer one, and that is the item most often dropped.
This is the most predictable task in the whole GCSE. The situations are formal, the language is limited, and the question forms recycle. It rewards preparation more than talent.
What helps at home: nothing sophisticated. Read the English prompts off a practice card and let your child produce the language. You are checking they say something for every prompt, especially the one where they have to ask.
The photo task, then conversation
Your child describes a photograph, then answers questions about it, then moves into a longer conversation on the wider topic. This last part carries the most marks and it is the least scripted.
The conversation is where a child either has things to say or does not. Examiners are looking for opinions with reasons, and for more than one time frame: something that happened, something that usually happens, something that will or would happen. A child who only ever speaks in the present tense has a ceiling on their mark no matter how accurate they are.
What helps at home: ask your child, in English, what they would say about their town, their family, their weekend, their plans after school. If they have nothing to say in English, they certainly have nothing to say in Spanish. Content first, language second.
A child who says a lot with a few errors usually outscores a child who says very little perfectly.
What examiners are actually rewarding
Marks come from a combination of things, and they are not all about accuracy:
- Communication. Did the message get across. Length and relevance matter here.
- Range. Different tenses, opinions with reasons, connectives, a bit of variety rather than the same five phrases.
- Accuracy. Verb endings, agreements, word order.
- Sound and fluency. Pronunciation and intonation, and whether the thing moves along rather than stopping dead.
The practical consequence: if your child's instinct is to keep quiet in case they get it wrong, that instinct is costing them marks and is worth naming directly.
Ask your child a question in English about their life, then ask them to answer it in French or Spanish and to keep talking for thirty seconds. Time it on your phone. Thirty seconds feels enormous the first time and normal by the fourth.
Nerves, and what to say about them
This exam frightens children more than any other, for a reason that is worth understanding. It is live, it is recorded, and there is no crossing out. A child who is fine in a written paper can be genuinely distressed by this one.
Three things that help, and one that does not.
- Rehearse the recording, not just the answers. Have your child record themselves on a phone. The first recording is always horrible to listen to. By the fifth, the microphone has stopped mattering, which is most of the battle.
- Give them a rescue phrase. Every child should be able to say "could you repeat that please" and "let me think" in the language. Being able to fill a silence with something is worth more than any single item of vocabulary.
- Remind them who is in the room. It is usually their own teacher, who wants them to do well and can repeat a question, normally twice.
- Do not tell them it does not matter. They know it does, and it stops the conversation. Something like "it is one part of one subject, and you have prepared for it" is both true and useful.
If your child is younger than GCSE
Nothing here is wasted on a Year 7 or a Year 8. Schools assess speaking long before GCSE, and the habits that decide a speaking grade at sixteen are built at eleven: reading out loud without embarrassment, having an opinion, being willing to say something imperfect rather than nothing.
The single most useful thing you can do for a younger child is to be an interested audience. Ask them to teach you three words at dinner. Let them correct your pronunciation, which they will enjoy far too much.
Common questions
Does my child's own teacher decide the grade?
No. The teacher conducts and records the test. The recording goes to the exam board and is marked by a trained examiner. This surprises a lot of parents and reassures most of them.
Can they retake it if it goes badly?
Not within the same series. Speaking is sat once, in the board's window, and there is no separate resit for that paper alone. This is why the preparation window matters so much.
What is the difference between Foundation and Higher?
Foundation is shorter, the passages and tasks are simpler, and the grades available are capped, typically at grade 5. Higher is longer and expects more complex language and more time frames. Schools decide the tier, usually late in Year 11, and will discuss it with you.
My child has anxiety or an access arrangement. What is available?
Access arrangements do apply to speaking tests, including things like extra preparation time or a familiar room. These are arranged through the school's exams officer or SENDCo and need to be in place well before the window opens, so raise it early rather than in April.
Where can I see a real example of the tasks?
Every exam board publishes sample assessment materials free on its website, including candidate cards and mark schemes. Ask the school which board and tier your child is entered for, then search for that board's sample speaking materials.