In the last round our Year 10/11 Public Speaking teams won the branch heat of the prestigious English Speaking Union public speaking competition at Churcher's College, beating teams from Churcher's and St Philip Howard.  Tommy Hodson, speaking on the topic of whether patriotism is destructive to international relations, also won an individual award for 'Outstanding Personality' and George Gibbens, whose speech argued that capital punishment should not be re-introduced to the UK, won the award for 'Best Speaker' in his first attempt at a public speaking competition. Dougal Artingstall and Joe Occleshaw provided some thought-provoking questions in their role as official questioners and Monty Hodson and Ed Gordon-Thompson kept everything in order as chairmen.

The competition follows a challenging format, which entails the chairman and questioner not knowing until thirty minutes beforehand which speaker they will be partnered with from another school.  As always, the standard this year was very high.  Tommy can rest smugly in the knowledge that he officially has an 'outstanding personality'.