Following on from their win in the local round, our Upper IV Public Speaking team gave an outstanding performance to come first in the District Final. There was some very strong competition from other schools in Berkshire and Oxfordshire and their presentation had to be perfect – which it was!

Their chosen topic was a quotation from Margaret Mead, ‘Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.’

‘I thoroughly enjoyed taking part in the Rotary Youth Speaks competition again and working with Nikita and Saanvi. This year opposition at both rounds was a lot stronger than last year, which made it all the more surprising and wonderful that we were able to pull through and win. There were times that it seemed like we might not win but standing up to collect our certificates was an exhilarating feeling and I felt so proud to represent the school with such a talented team.’
Gabrielle

‘At the final, the tension was high and being surrounded by many strong teams made me feel honoured to even be there. We wouldn’t have won without the huge support from Ms Quant, Dr Cuthbertson and our peers in UIV and LV who gave us practice questions during our Public Speaking and Debate Club.’
Saanvi

After a lot of hard work and excellent competition from other schools and our fellow Abbey teams in the first round, we were met by some fierce competition in the Final. Although we had to go first, I think we all did our best, outperforming even our own expectations! It was once again an excellent experience.’
Nikita

Unfortunately, the Rotary Club is not running Regional and National Finals this year, but our team should be so proud of reaching the Nationals last year and coming back to win the District Final this year.

Ms Quant and Dr Cuthbertson