Following recent local success, a trio of Royal High School year 10’s Katie Stubbs, Marigold Whitaker and Imogen Rafferty, travelled to Taunton to represent Bath in the postponed English Speaking Union Regional Finals.
Competing against teams a year older, the girls were commended for their strong public speaking and placed runners-up overall. Katie was awarded ‘Best Speaker in the South West’, an impressive accolade and, speaking passionately about the hot topic of organ donation, Katie’s powerful speech engaged the audience with humour whilst raising pertinent questions over whether organ donation should be an opt-in or opt-out service.
A superb accolade for school, it comes hot on the heels of year 11 student, Ashley Ulaikere, who was a National finalist in the highly acclaimed Chrystall Prize this week speaking on the topic of ‘Has Feminism Gone Too Far?’ Heavy weight journalist judges in the form of James Coomarasamy (BBC foreign correspondent and presenter of ‘The World Tonight’ on R4), Jane Garvey (presenter of R4’s ‘Woman’s Hour’) and Stephen Sackur (presenter of HARDtalk on the World Service and BBC World News judged the competition.
The Royal High School has a comprehensive provision for girls to develop their confidence through public speaking; running two debating societies and a weekly literary lunch as well as incorporating university-style hustings into the school’s leadership elections.