On the evening of Tuesday 1st February, students from SMS attended a public speaking competition. Students spent the last 4 weeks preparing their speeches with the help of Ms Coutts. This was the first in-person public speaking competition for our students in 2022. They were competing against 8 other schools (55 competitors) from all over London. The eight competing students from SMS had prepared speeches ranging from artificial intelligence and the meat industry all the way to a humorous speech on why we should hate water. South Hampstead High School was hosting and we had two separate rounds of debating throughout the evening.
Some of my favourite speeches that I got to watch were Olivia’s speech on ‘Problems caused by the meat industry’, and Nikoo’s ‘Einstein said time was relative’. The final consisted of 5 participants who won both their rounds. They presented their speeches to the audience, and in the end two of the speeches tied: ‘The Flaws of Perfectionism’; and ‘Academic Validation: advantageous or detrimental’. I had a very enjoyable evening being able to attend, and well done to everyone who participated for all speaking so eloquently on such interesting topics! Thanks to Ms Coutts for helping us prepare, Mr V and Ms Mcandrew for escorting us on the trip.
Marlena Yr11
