Oracy Update

The summer term ended with more heated debate and accomplished public speaking.

Each year we co-host the GDST debating competition, bringing together state schools and sister schools from across the Girls’ Day School Trust. This year’s competition was held at Putney, where Hailey and Bella in Year 9 emerged triumphant in their age category: undefeated in all four debates, gold final winners, and best and second best speakers. Amelie and Asantewaa in Year 10 narrowly lost the gold final in their age category, yet topped the individual speaker leaderboard, whilst Nina in Year 10 and Edith in Year 9 won their silver final.

The final full week of term was a dedicated speaking and listening week, with students taking part in oracy-focused form-time activities, as well as our annual public speaking competition.  Each summer, after exams season, students shift from writing to speaking in English lessons. Each student in Years 7 to 10 delivers a speech to their classmates on a topic of their choice; this year’s ranged from Pasta to Pastafarianism, from The Death of Original Theatre to How to Make a Movie. Finalists selected from the class rounds then spoke to their whole year group and members of the English department in an impressive display of South Hampstead commitment, creativity and aspiration. The competition was stiff but the following students and speeches emerged victorious:

• Year 7 Winner: Isra — The Villain We Got Wrong
  Runner-Up: Ottavia — Australia
• Year 8 Winner: Amelia — Perfectionism
  Runner-Up: Sapphire — Why Cringe is a Good Thing
• Year 9 Winner: Hailey — The Great Chain of Being
  Runner-Up: Imogen — Pretty Privilege in Animals
• Year 10: Winner: Asantewaa — Raw Milk
  Runner-Up: Decca — Should We Judge the Past?

At the start of the holidays, we look forward to welcoming over 200 state school novice debaters for our end of year finale, the Bingham Debating competition – the biggest state school debating competition in the country, which aims to widen participation, is supported by our keen pupil debaters who volunteer as guest judges.

As we end another brilliant year of promoting oracy, both at South Hampstead and beyond, we were thrilled to win this year’s Education Choices Award for Developing Student Voice.