Confident Speakers Reach Round Two

Teams from the Girls’ Division took part in two longstanding ESU (English Speaking Union) competitions this week, impressing the judges at both events.

The Churchill Public Speaking Competition is open to students in Years 9 to 11. Five schools took part over Zoom, with students from across the full age-range competing in this first round. Bolton School put forward two teams of Year 9 students, who had been coached for several weeks beforehand by English teacher Mrs Ahmed.

Both teams were split. Team A’s Amelia O’Neill spoke on the topic of ‘Superheroes are real and all around us’, while Team B’s Simra Naslin spoke about the Martin Luther King Jr quote, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere’. Their teammates Maryam Sirajudin and Kate Wilson (Team A) and Isabelle Culf and Hameedah Lawal (Team B) worked with teams from other schools, fulfilling the roles of chairperson and questioner.

There was a high standard across the competition, and Bolton School’s Team A were delighted to be one of two teams selected for the next round of the competition.

Miss Talbot, the Girls’ Division Director of Theatre Studies, Speech and Drama, said: ‘The students demonstrated a readiness to put their best selves forwards and were a credit to the school from start to finish. Mrs Ahmed and I were very proud them.’

The Mace Debating Competition is open to Years 11 to 13. This event was the regional final, comprising six teams from five schools, and was hosted by Bolton School in the Leverhulme Suite after school. A group of seven Bolton School Year 11 students took part, including Emily Rostron, who was the evening’s timekeeper.

For the A Team, Zainab Jiva, Nikita Dontula and Anamika Vardhan proposed the motion, ‘This House Believes in the Implementation of the Four Day School Week’. They demonstrated a good understanding of their roles in the debate to offer comprehensive, often dynamic arguments. The B Team consisted of Lily Coupe, Lily Ma and Sofia Macari. These students entered as a “swing team” which meant that they could not be considered for the next round. However, this did not deter them from doing their best and they more than held their own against a very experienced team from Cartmel College.

Three teams on the night were chosen to go through to the next round of the competition, with the Bolton School A Team being the youngest.

Congratulations to all those who took part in these two prestigious ESU competitions.