Year 9 Public Speaking Competition 2019

The last week of half term saw our Year 9 students take part in what has become an annual event here at Fearnhill School – the Public Speaking Competition.

As a key life skill (in addition to being an important component of GCSE English Language), it is really important that our students are able to articulate their ideas in a structured, eloquent, and entertaining way.  Being able to capture an audience’s attention and hold it is no mean feat – and there are many adults who would find the prospect of speaking publicly in front of their peers a daunting one – but our students did us proud.

It was a tough job narrowing down our semi-finalists to just six for the final, with the final itself being a very close call.  In the end, the casting vote was given by Maegan Willson, the winner of last year’s competition, and the prize fell to George Christy with his speech about Brexit. The other finalists (Spencer Gordon, Mattie Loftus, Macie Martin, Louis Smith, Megan Colderwood) wowed the judges with their speeches on: global warming; confidence issues; the idea that English is a useless subject (very persuasive, but not enough to persuade the English Department!); problems surrounding periods; and annoying cinema-goers (it should be noted that Spencer’s speech on this last topic was particularly hilarious – I think we have a future stand-up comedian at Fearnhill!).

A special award was presented to Sana Khir Alddin in recognition of the fact that, despite only having arrived at Fearnhill, with English as an additional language, she nevertheless wrote and presented a wonderfully moving speech about the issues she faced when she left her home country to come to the UK.

Congratulations to all our wonderful semi-finalists (Betsie-May Barnes, Holly Smith, Caitlin Dawson, Ray Del Greco, Emily Maving, Daniel Lambley) who entertained us on a range of topics from ideas about ‘perfection’ to the unequal and unfair distribution of wealth.

We look forward to welcoming George Christy onto the judges’ panel in 2020.

Miss A Corbishley

Second in English