By Mrs Lincoln (English and Psychology Teacher)
On Thursday 4th June, we held our annual Year 9 Public Speaking competition. Part of the Year 9 curriculum in English involves studying speeches throughout the year, looking at what makes an effective speech and how to use a range of rhetorical devices to create an engaging argument. Every student then prepares a speech on a topic of their choice, which they deliver in front of their English class. Following this, two students from each class are nominated to go forward to the competition in the summer term, delivering their speech in front of the rest of their year group and two judges.
The ten students that took part this year (Evie, Ruqayya, Aura, Winnie, Varsha, Freya, Frances, Anesi, Moukthika and Jenna) did amazingly well and made the judges’ (Mrs Gibson and Mr Marks) job very difficult! We had a wide-ranging selection of topics, such as the importance of failing, healthcare in the USA and why schools should replace traditional exams. It was also very interesting to hear two speeches on AI from different perspectives, with Frances arguing passionately against the use of AI in art whilst Jenna discussed the benefits of AI’s use in decision-making in critical fields.
After some careful deliberation, the winner was announced as Jenna as a result of her well-structured argument and clear reasoning. The two runners-up were Freya (who talked about knife crime) and Ruqayya (who discussed the banning of opioids and anti-depressants in medicine).
This is one of the English department’s favourite events of the year; it is always lovely to see our students articulate themselves so well and develop their confidence in speaking in front of an audience, skills that will become ever more important in today’s society. For the first time this year, Year 7 also attended and watched the event. Speaking to Year 7 students afterwards, it was great to hear how much they had enjoyed the event and how it had inspired them to think ahead to their own speech topics in the coming years.
