Our Intermediate Public Speaking team of Nikita, Gabrielle and Saanvi (Lower IV) travelled to Luton with their parents to compete in the Central and East England Finals of the Rotary Youth Speaks Debate competition on the first Saturday of the Easter holiday.

There were four schools in our section and at the interval, it seemed clear to me that there were two schools in the running to win – Sheringham High School and The Abbey. However, we had to wait until after the best Chair and Speakers had been announced at the end of the afternoon before discovering which team had won. Nikita was awarded the best Chair and when Sheringham was named in second place, we were pretty sure we were the overall winners. Each team member was given a trophy and Amazon voucher, and Nikita had a separate one for her excellent performance as Chair. There was also a trophy for the school too!

As always, I was very proud of our students and it was fantastic to see the excitement of their parents as the results were announced. The team’s presentation on ‘Is Rivalry Beneficial?’ was excellent and at last our timing was perfect (exactly 15 minutes). Since the top two schools were very close but Sheringham ran over time, the changes we made to avoid time penalties may well have made the difference!

The team will now travel to Norwich for the National Final on Sunday, 21st April.

Ms Quant