Teachers' Day Welcome Speech and Vote of Thanks 2026

Teachers' Day Welcome Speech and Vote of Thanks in English

A Teachers' Day programme has two small speeches that hold the whole thing together. The welcome speech at the start tells everyone what the morning is for and makes the guests feel expected. The vote of thanks at the end names everyone who made the morning happen and closes the programme properly, so it finishes instead of simply stopping. Both are short, and both are formulaic — which is good news if one of them has just landed on you three days before the function.

If that is you, this page has both speeches written out in full. Teachers' Day 2026 falls on Saturday, 5 September — the 138th birth anniversary of Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, and the 65th Teachers' Day India has observed since 1962. Below you will find a full 2-minute welcome speech and a full 2-minute vote of thanks, both with blanks to fill in, plus 1-minute and 30-second versions for when the programme is running behind.

There is one thing about Teachers' Day that makes these two speeches different from every other function you will speak at. The people you are welcoming are the people the day is about. On Independence Day your teachers organise the programme; on 5 September the programme is for them, and where a school follows the usual pattern the students run the stage. Your greeting order changes because of that, and so does your vote of thanks.

This guide is about the bookends only. The main honour-your-teachers speech is a separate piece, and we have that in our Teachers' Day speech in English guide, in 1-minute and 3-minute versions.

What Is the Difference Between a Welcome Speech and a Vote of Thanks?

A welcome speech greets people who have just arrived and tells them what is about to happen. A vote of thanks acknowledges work that is now finished and signals that the programme is ending. One faces forward, the other faces back, and that shows up in the tense. The welcome speech lives in the future: "you are about to see", "our students have prepared", "this morning you will hear". The vote of thanks lives in the past: "we have just watched", "you gave us your Saturday", "the Class 9 girls rehearsed for three weeks". Mix them up and you end up thanking people in the welcome and welcoming them in the thanks, so the two speeches say the same thing twice and neither does its own job.

The other difference is when you write them. A welcome speech can be finished a week early, because it needs only names, designations and the date. A vote of thanks should be finalised during the programme itself, because it has blanks in it that only the morning can fill — a phrase from the chief guest, the item that got the biggest laugh.

Where Do These Two Speeches Come in a Teachers' Day Programme?

Running orders vary by school, so check the printed programme with your teacher-in-charge. One workable indoor Teachers' Day order looks like this.

The anchor introduces you before both speeches, so you do not need to introduce yourself at length. The linking lines that carry the programme from one item to the next are a separate script, covered in our Teachers' Day anchoring script.

Whom Do You Greet First on an Indian School Stage?

The greeting order is the part of a welcome speech least worth improvising on stage. Use this, top down, and skip anyone who is not present rather than reading out an empty title.

1. Chief guest — first, always, if there is one. Public office, seniority, being an alumnus of the school: none of it changes the position. The chief guest is greeted first because they are the guest.
2. Principal — first if there is no chief guest.
3. Vice-Principal or Headmistress — only if they are on the stage or in the front row.
4. Teachers — on Teachers' Day, say clearly that they are the guests of honour.
5. Non-teaching staff — the office, lab assistants, librarian, housekeeping and ground staff — followed by parents, if they have been invited.
6. Fellow students — last, and warmly. "My dear friends" is enough.

Which Ordering Slips Should You Fix on the Card?

Five slips come straight out of that order, and every one of them is easier to fix on the card than on stage.

• Putting your Principal before the chief guest. Your Principal is the head of your school, not the head of that morning's guest list. The chief guest goes first.
• Skipping the Vice-Principal when they are sitting on stage. If a chair on the dais has a name on it, that name belongs in your greeting.
• Welcoming teachers among the organisers. Where the students planned the programme, thanking your teachers for "arranging this morning" credits them for the one job they were deliberately kept out of.
• Naming three teachers out of nine. Either name every class teacher or name none of them. Name three and the other six are audibly missing from a list you have just read out.
• Ending the vote of thanks on somebody's name. Close on the meaning line and the wish, so the last thing the hall hears is about the day rather than about a person.

If your chief guest is a retired teacher, a former Principal, or an alumnus with a designation you are unsure how to say, the full introduction is the anchor's job, not yours — see how to introduce a chief guest for that.

How Do I Write a Teachers' Day Welcome Speech?

Build it in five blocks, in this order. Each block is one or two sentences.

1. Greeting, in the order above.
2. Self-introduction, one line only — name and class.
3. The occasion, naming the date and why 5 September.
4. The welcome proper, where you actually say the word "welcome" to each group.
5. The handover, telling the hall what is coming next.

Block three is where a Teachers' Day welcome earns its keep. You have one clean, verifiable line available: Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was born on 5 September 1888, taught for years before entering public life, served as India's first Vice-President (1952–1962) and then its second President (1962–1967), and when his students wanted to celebrate his birthday he asked that the day be kept for teachers instead. That is the widely-told account, and it is enough. Do not invent dialogue for him, and do not stretch it into a biography — you have two minutes.

Two things to leave out. Skip the dictionary definition of "teacher" — you have two minutes, and a definition spends fifteen seconds of them without saying a word about your school. And do not list the chief guest's achievements; that belongs in the anchor's introduction, just before the guest speaks.

Full Teachers' Day Welcome Speech (2 Minutes)

About 265 words once the blanks are filled. Fill them in, then read it aloud twice, standing.

Respected chief guest __________, our honourable Principal __________ Sir/Ma'am, respected Vice-Principal, our dear teachers, and my friends.

A very good morning to all of you, and a very happy Teachers' Day.

I am __________ of Class ____, and it is my privilege to welcome you to the Teachers' Day celebration of __________ School, on the fifth of September, 2026.

Today is the 138th birth anniversary of Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan — a philosopher, India's first Vice-President, its second President, and, before any of that, a teacher. When his students wanted to celebrate his birthday, he asked that the day be kept for teachers instead. India has done exactly that since 1962, which makes this the 65th Teachers' Day.

On behalf of every student here, I extend a warm welcome to our chief guest, __________, who has taken a morning out of a full week to spend it with us. Sir/Ma'am, thank you for being here.

I welcome our respected Principal, __________, who agreed to hand this stage over to the students today, which took some courage.

And now the part that matters most. To our teachers — this is not a programme we are performing for you. It is a thank-you we have been rehearsing for weeks, badly hidden, in corridors you walked past and pretended not to notice. Today you are our guests. Please sit down and let us do the work for once.

This morning you will hear speeches, songs, a dance from every section, and one item we have kept as a surprise.

Welcome, all of you, and a very happy Teachers' Day.

Short Teachers' Day Welcome Speech (1 Minute)

About 115 words, for when the programme is already behind schedule.

Respected chief guest __________, honourable Principal, respected teachers, and my dear friends — a very good morning, and a very happy Teachers' Day.

I am __________ of Class ____, and I welcome you all to the Teachers' Day celebration of __________ School.

Today, the fifth of September, is the birth anniversary of Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, who asked that his birthday be kept for teachers rather than for himself.

A warm welcome to our chief guest, __________, for giving us this morning.

I welcome our Principal, and I welcome our teachers, who are our guests of honour today.

Everything you are about to see — the speeches, the songs, the performances — was prepared by your students.

Welcome, and happy Teachers' Day.

How Do I Write a Teachers' Day Vote of Thanks?

A vote of thanks is a list that has to sound like a person wrote it. Four blocks.

1. An opening line that signals the programme is ending.
2. The thanks, in order, with one specific detail attached to at least three of them.
3. One line of meaning that ties back to the day.
4. The close — a wish, and then stop.

The detail is the whole game. "Thank you to our chief guest" is a roll call. "Thank you to our chief guest, who told us that a teacher's real salary is paid twenty years later" is a vote of thanks. You cannot write that line in advance, which is why this speech is finished during the programme and not the night before.

Carry a small card and a pen and sit where you can see the stage. While the chief guest speaks, write down one phrase they used; during the cultural items, note the one that made the teachers laugh. Those two notes fill the two detail blanks in the closing speech below. There is a trap specific to Teachers' Day, though. At other school functions you thank the teachers for the work behind the programme. Here that work was the students', and the teachers were kept out of it on purpose. So thank them for the year, not for the morning — and thank your Principal and the non-teaching staff for the morning instead.

Full Teachers' Day Vote of Thanks (2 Minutes)

About 265 words once the blanks are filled.

Respected chief guest, honourable Principal, our dear teachers, and my friends.

As our Teachers' Day celebration comes to a close, I have been given the job of saying thank you — which today is a long list, and a happy one.

First, our sincere thanks to our chief guest, __________. Sir/Ma'am, what you said about __________ is the kind of line we will repeat to each other on the way home. Thank you for spending a Saturday morning in a hall full of school students.

Thank you to our respected Principal, __________, for giving the students a stage, a microphone and a full morning, and for trusting us with all three.

To our teachers — thank you is a strange thing to say today, because today is the thank-you. You gave up your periods so that we could stand here. You have been correcting our lines and our pronunciation all week without once letting on that you knew what we were planning. __________ Ma'am/Sir, your face during __________ was the best thing that happened this morning.

Thank you to our non-teaching staff — the office, the lab assistants, the librarian, and the housekeeping team who set this hall up before any of us arrived and who will put it back together after we leave.

Thank you to everyone who performed, especially the __________ of Class ____.

And thank you to all of you, for sitting through a long morning and actually listening.

Dr. Radhakrishnan asked the country for one day. Our teachers give us the other three hundred and sixty-four.

Happy Teachers' Day, and thank you all.

Short Teachers' Day Vote of Thanks (30 Seconds)

About 80 words, for when the programme has badly overrun.

As our Teachers' Day celebration comes to an end, thank you to our chief guest __________ for spending this morning with us, and to our Principal for handing the stage to the students. To our teachers — today is the thank-you, and we hope it reached you. Thank you to our non-teaching staff, to everyone who performed, and to all of you for listening. Dr. Radhakrishnan asked the country for one day. You give us the rest. Happy Teachers' Day.

Whom Do You Thank, and in What Order?

Use this order unless your school has its own convention, and skip anyone who was not there rather than inventing a mention.

Two more things. Do not thank the same person twice in two different roles, which happens when a senior teacher is also the programme co-ordinator. And keep the list moving — nine names at four seconds each is thirty-six seconds, close to a third of a two-minute speech, spent before you have said anything.

What If You Have to Give Both Speeches?

It is easier than it sounds — the two speeches sit an hour or two apart, with several other speakers in between. What you have to manage is the repetition, because the same greeting, the same story and the same closing line would otherwise go into the hall twice.

• Carry two separate cards, clearly labelled. Not one card with both sides used. On stage, a card you have to turn over is a card you will fumble.
• Change the salutation. If the welcome opened with the full roll call, let the vote of thanks open shorter, or skip the roll call and begin with "As this morning comes to a close…". Running the identical six-name greeting twice puts the same forty words into the morning at nine o'clock and again at eleven.
• Do not re-tell the Radhakrishnan story. You used it at nine o'clock, and it does not improve on a second telling at eleven.
• Between the two, your job is note-taking. Sit where you can see the stage, keep the card and pen out, and collect the two details that will make the closing speech specific.
• Slow the second speech down slightly. The hall has already heard your voice for two minutes, so you are not introducing yourself any more. Drop the volume a touch and take the pauses longer.
• Never say "as I mentioned in my welcome speech". If it is worth saying twice, say it fresh.

Keep the two together under five minutes of stage time. That is the number to hold in your head.

Phrase Bank

Swap these in so the speech sounds like you wrote it.

Welcome openings

• "A very good morning, and a very happy Teachers' Day to every teacher in this hall."
• "On behalf of the students of __________ School, welcome to our Teachers' Day celebration."
• "Today the roles are reversed, and I have never been happier about a timetable change."

Welcoming the chief guest

• "Sir/Ma'am, your presence this morning means a great deal to every student here."
• "Thank you for accepting our invitation, and a very warm welcome to you."

Welcoming the teachers

• "To our teachers — today you are the guests, and we are the ones who have been rehearsing."
• "Respected teachers, for the next two hours the only thing we would like you to do is sit down."

Thanks openings

• "Every celebration ends with gratitude, and this one has a particularly long list."
• "A morning like this looks effortless only because a lot of people worked on it quietly."

Closing lines

• "Dr. Radhakrishnan asked the country for one day. Our teachers give us the rest of the year."
• "We will forget a lot of what we were taught. We will not forget who taught us."
• "Happy Teachers' Day, and thank you once again from all of us."

Delivery Tips That Matter on the Day

• Say the chief guest's name and designation aloud ten times before you go on. Names are the one thing on your card you cannot improvise around.
• Check every name and spelling with your class teacher. There is no graceful way to fix a surname halfway through saying it.
• Write in large letters on a card, not on a phone. A screen that dims mid-sentence, hall lights and a shaky hand are a bad combination. Stand a hand's width from the microphone, and if it squeals, wait and start the sentence again.
• Look up at the end of each block. Five blocks, five moments of eye contact, and each time your eyes come back to the start of a line instead of the middle of one.
• Deliberately slow down by a quarter. If your practice run at home takes two minutes, aim for two and a half on stage.
• Rehearse aloud, standing, twice. Reading it silently prepares your eyes, not your mouth.

If the assembly is bilingual, a Hindi close on an English speech works well; our Teachers' Day speech in Hindi and English has lines you can lift for the last two sentences. And if a younger sibling has been given the welcome instead, the shorter, simpler versions are in Teachers' Day speech for kids.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should a Teachers' Day welcome speech be?

About two minutes, or 260 to 280 words. A welcome speech is a doorway, not a room. If the programme is already running late, use the 1-minute version above — it keeps the full greeting order and drops only the elaboration, which is exactly what you want to lose under time pressure.

Who gives the vote of thanks on Teachers' Day?

Give it to a senior student — head boy, head girl, a Class 11 or 12 student, or the student co-ordinator of the programme. Whoever it is should have sat through the whole event, because the lines that work are the ones about what actually happened on that stage.

Do I welcome the teachers or thank them in the welcome speech?

Welcome them. Thanking belongs at the end, and doing it twice weakens both. In the welcome you can say why they are being honoured today — one sentence — but keep the gratitude itself for the vote of thanks, or for the main Teachers' Day speech if a separate student is giving one.

What if our programme has no chief guest?

Then your Principal is greeted first, and the structure is otherwise unchanged. Do not invent a guest to fill the slot, and do not promote a senior teacher into the chief guest's position in your greeting unless the school has actually designated them as one. Say "our honourable Principal" first and move on.

Should I name individual teachers in the vote of thanks?

Either name all the class teachers or name none of them. Name four out of ten and the other six have just been left out in public. The safe pattern is a group thank-you plus one specific moment — "the staff room's dance item" — which credits people without turning into a list.

What if I forget a name on stage?

Do not stop and apologise at length. Say "and to everyone who made this morning possible" and keep going. A pause you fill is shorter than a pause you explain. This is also why the card matters — it gives you somewhere to look that is not the ceiling.

Bringing It Together

The welcome speech and the vote of thanks are the bookends of your Teachers' Day programme. Neither has to be clever; both have to be correct, warm and short. Fill in the blanks in the versions above, check every name and designation with your teacher-in-charge, and carry a written card in large letters. During the programme, note one phrase from the chief guest and one performance that made the front row laugh, then work both into the vote of thanks. That single habit is what turns a list of names into a speech.

If you are handling more of the programme than these two pieces, the Teachers' Day anchoring script covers every link from the prayer to the close. For general-purpose versions you can reuse at any function, see our welcome speech in English and vote of thanks speech in English guides.

Then do the part that no amount of editing on paper can replace: say it out loud. Read either speech into TalkDrill's free Read Aloud practice — no login needed — and you will hear your pace and your pronunciation before the hall does.

Happy Teachers' Day, and speak slowly.