Bridmore Public Speaking Competition
On Tuesday we hosted the Bridmore Public Speaking competition; it is the culmination of all the work we have done on public speaking in the second half of the term and it is very much an integral part of the English Department's curriculum.
Every child in years 3 to 8 was asked to prepare a 3 to 5 minute speech on a subject of their choosing; Years 3 to 6 were speaking to inform and Year 7 and 8 were speaking to persuade. Plenty of time was given over to research during Strive and several English lessons, both at school and online, were spent writing drafts (done on Google Classroom this year!) and practising speeches.
Over the course of the last week there have been ‘heats’, where all the children were given the opportunity to perform in front of their class. As English teachers, we were all so impressed by the quality of their work, both in terms of the content of their speeches and their delivery – it is a fabulous skill to learn at such a young age and they all spoke confidently and with the utmost clarity. It was incredibly difficult to choose just two or three finalists from each form, as so many of them deserved a place in the last round.
The final was split into two – as usual – with the Junior competition (Years 3-6) happening first, followed by the Senior competition. Once again, we decided to allow the staff to judge – there were 18 members of staff judging the Junior Final and 27 for the Senior one. This year, Mrs. Blomfield very kindly – and quite brilliantly – gave each of the finalists some feedback on their performance at the end of each final.
All the finalists were absolutely superb and, once again, it was incredibly difficult to split them – the Junior winner beating his closest rival by just one point!
The winners were as follows:
Junior Overall Winner: Hugo Sharrocks
Senior Overall Winner: Xander Sharrocks
…very much a family affair this year!
It was, as always, a brilliant competition: enormous fun, hugely entertaining and, undoubtedly, of great benefit to all.
