Private School News

On Saturday 26th April three 15 year-old girls from Howell’s School, Llandaff, represented Wales in the UK Finals of the English Speaking Union’s Public Speaking Competition. Over 500 schools from across the UK have battled through local and regional qualifying rounds since the beginning of the year and the 9 regional finalists gathered in Westminster in London on the 26th, on a glorious sunny day, to contest the UK Final.

Sidi Bai (Chairperson), Katie James (Speaker) and Emily Davies (Questioner), all Year 10 pupils at Howell’s, performed exceptionally well on the day. The standard of presentation was very high and several of the teams included much older competitors.
Katie James was awarded the Best Speaker prize, having spoken against the motion that “There is too much surveillance in the UK today”. Katie will now go forward to represent the UK in the ESU’s International Public Speaking Competition in 2009.

Katie’s exceptional achievement this year is even more remarkable given that it follows her success last year when she won the Best Speaker prize at the UK Finals of the Rotary Youth Speaks Public Speaking Competition, at the age of 14, when her subject was: “Should parents always tell the truth to their children?” After this year’s success, Katie commented, “I was so overwhelmed when they announced that I’d won the ‘best speaker prize’ and am honoured to have achieved this award. It was a fantastic opportunity and experience for all the schools competing on Saturday and I feel that the three of us did our school and Wales proud!”