Year 10’s Richard Bai has reached the regional round of a London-wide schools speaking competition.
Richard, who spoke about the power of reading, won the QE round, which was contested after Year 10 boys had learned some public-speaking skills during a Jack Petchey “Speak Out” Challenge! workshop run at the School led by a visiting speaker.
The other finalists were: Sarvesh Sabale, speaking about allergies and how to support those with them; Dillan Shah, speaking about video game addiction, and Om Deshpande, who spoke about practice versus procrastination.
Richard goes on to the Barnet Regional Final at Copthall School. After that, the semi-final takes place at the Speakers Trust’s offices in central London on 20th May, before the grand final at the Cambridge Theatre in London’s West End on 1st July 2019.
The challenge, which is a programme run by Speakers Trust and funded by the Jack Petchey Foundation, aims to give people the skills, confidence and desire to speak in public. It is open to schools across London and Essex. Speakers Trust is the UK’s leading public speaking and communication skills training charity, while the foundation was set up by businessman and philanthropist Sir Jack Petchey, who is still working at the age of 93.
The workshop at the School centred on how to be an effective public speaker. In the subsequent competition, the boys spoke on a subject close to their heart.
Supervising the workshop were Head of Year 10 Simon Walker and Extra-curricular Enrichment Tutor Keith Bugler, both of whom said they were delighted by how well the boys had risen to the challenge.