Year Ten pupils have, over the past month, enjoyed a feast of public speaking as part of our annual workshops through the Speakers’ Trust. This year we also hosted the Sutton Regional Final for Jack Petchey’s Speak Out Challenge at Wilson’s on Monday, 4 March.

Year Ten students all enjoyed an intensive training day focused on building their public speaking skills just before half-term. Each form worked with a skilled trainer to build their confidence in delivering a speech to their peers. As ever, the facilitators were very impressed by our pupils’ behaviour and confidence and selected one winner from each form group to make it through to the assembly final, which was held on 29 February.

Our finalists—Yasser, Jamie, Savir, Neil, Arnav and Shankar—delivered their compelling speeches to their peers and were judged by Mr Cady and Mrs Fletcher. In truth, all could have represented Wilson’s with aplomb at the Regional Final. Our chosen finalists were Neil, for his speech on resilience, and Jamie, for his talk on walking in the outdoors.

On the day of the final, winners from eleven other local schools arrived at Wilson’s for a scintillating evening of public speaking, hosted by Mr Lissimore. They were treated to musical entertainment thanks to Mr Kramer and his jazz musicians and enjoyed the up-to-date surroundings of the Britton Centre. Jamie and Neil represented Wilson’s with pride, and Neil was awarded third place for his very engaging speech. Sophia, from Wallington High School for Girls, was chosen as the winner from the Sutton area.

Well done to all of our participants in the Speak Out Challenge, and a particular thank you to those Year Ten students who volunteered to help at the Final, without whose support the event would have run much less smoothly.