News
English Speaking Union Competition Winner
25th January 2008We entered two teams of our Year 10 and Year 11 pupils in the English Speaking Union Public Speaking Competition at Queen's College, Taunton. This is a highly regarded event for senior pupils which attracts only the most confident and accomplished of speakers. After a five minute talk the Speaker is subjected to four minutes of hard questioning - one might almost say cross-examination - by a member of another team, and is then questioned for a further four minutes by both young and adult members of the audience. The format is similar to that of Prime Minister's Question Time - and equally daunting for the participants! Although only one of our pupils had taken part in this competition before they all showed great courage and remarkable assurance, putting on an accomplished performance against more experienced teams from Queen's College, Taunton School, King's School Taunton, Millfield and Ansford. We are very proud of all of them. The star of the evening was Emily Mangles who spoke on the erosion of civil liberties in modern Britain. Not everyone would regard this as the most obviously entertaining of subjects, but Emily engaged the audience with an amusing and thought-provoking speech delivered with great verve and élan. She showed equal style, spirit and confidence in the face of a barrage of questions. The audience were clearly impressed and so, as it turned out, were the judges. She won the prize for the Best Speaker of the Competition. Congratulations, Emily!
Emily Mangles (centre) with her prize for being Best Speaker with other team competitors from the event: left to right Alla Angus, Jacob Lisle, Laurence Zanelli and Magenta Cousins.
