On Friday 7th March, the eagerly awaited Public Speaking Competition Finals took place at Spencer House. Our adjudicator this year was Ms Maria Von Weissenberg, Drama teacher and House Mistress at Downe House. It was wonderful to welcome her to the school, and not only was she a fantastic judge, but also gave the girls some really interesting and useful tips on how to improve their confidence in public speaking and hone their presentation skills. All the finalists did exceptionally well, and after much debate and consideration the results were as follows:
Year 4 Winner: Zehna Malik, with her talk on “Bethany Hamilton”
Year 4 Runner-Up: Anais de Unger, with her talk on “If I were Headmistress…”
Year 5 Winner: Kasia Brown, with her talk on “Laughing”
Year 5 Runner-Up: Freddie Parkes, with her talk on “Football”
Year 6 Winner: Lauren Cleaver, with her talk on “The Sort of World I would like to Live in”.
Year 6 Runner-Up: Alexandra Abbate, with her talk on “The Sort of World I would like to Live in”.
Here is an account of the day, written by the Year 6 Winner, Lauren Cleaver and Year 6 Runner-Up, Alexandra Abbate:
Today was the sort of day that you were either looking forward to or dreading; it was the public speaking competition finals! There were six students in each year group competing to be the winner of their year. There was a variety of speech topics varying from ‘laughter’ to ‘skiing’, but Year 6 had a different task on their hands. Their challenge was to create a speech with the title ‘the sort of world I would like to live in’, then perform it to the whole of Spencer House after only twenty minutes to write and prepare it. The hardest encounter for all of the finalists was to face the judges who were Mrs Pepper, Miss Gay and the drama teacher from Downe House. When everybody had finished their speeches everyone was extremely happy for those who won but still congratulated all of the contestants which was thoughtful and appreciated. Before finding out the results we had a long, nervous wait in the playground while our hearts thudded vigorously. All in all it was a fascinating morning for everybody, especially knowing that everyone was on your side and wanted everyone to do well.
Winners 
Finalists
Addressing the Speakers
