By Maya M, Year 11

After successfully getting through the first round of the ESU Churchill Public Speaking Competition on November 27th, Isabella, Roma and I were excited to begin preparing for the second round, which happened on February 7th.

Each team of three had one chair (Isabella), one questioner (Roma) and one speaker (me). The chair and questioner were paired with a speaker from another school, whilst I was paired with another chair and questioner from a different school. After a brief meeting, in which we shared the details of our speech so that the chair could prepare their introduction, the competition began! Each chair began with a brief introduction, which highlighted the main points of the speech, why the speaker chose it and their stance on the topic. Then, the speaker gave a five minute speech, mine was on the topic ‘Fiction can teach us more than Fact.’ Finally, the questioner asked questions about the speech, and then the chair summed up and passed back to the ESU.

We really enjoyed being able to learn and improve our public speaking skills, and the competition definitely helped improve our confidence levels. Writing a speech also taught us how to structure an argument and we would definitely recommend taking part in an ESU competition in the future!