Carr Hill’s public speaking team is celebrating becoming the first state school team to reach the BPW Northwest finals in 10 years.
Sixth Formers Ayse Akgol, Kieran Wyatt and Tash Gardner, who make up the team, were crowned the champions of the Fylde and Wyre heat in December and will go on to compete in the regional final against a host of other schools and colleges on 1st March 2014.
The champions choose to create a speech about specific phobias for their presentation. The team selected this topic as they thought it would be both interesting and engaging for their audience. They focused on unusual phobias and questioned if some phobias have been created and fuelled by society, rather than an individual developing a genuine fear of something.
The students all had their own role within the team. Ayse delivered the speech whilst Kieran was the chairperson and responsible for introducing the speech and closing it and Tash’s role, expression of thanks, involved focusing on the key points following the speech, commenting on and answering questions from the judges.
Ayse feels that being a part of the speaking team has helped developed her confidence. She said: “Since joining the public speaking team I no longer get nervous when delivering presentations or speaking in class. I am a much more self-assured public speaker thanks to joining the team.”
The club has even helped Tash to overcome a fear. She said: “I hated speaking in public and wanted to do something about it. The public speaking team has helped a lot and I feel much better about speaking in public now.”
The team are still considering their topic for the final, next year, and may choose to develop their phobia speech or deliver a speech on a completely different topic. All three pupils will work together to structure the speech and decide on the key points to be discussed.
The team believe the reason behind their success was lots of research and hard work. Kieran said: “We knew the speech inside out ahead of the competition as we had practiced a lot. Being so well prepared was definitely what enabled us to deliver the speech with confidence and resulted in us being crowned the winners.”
Everyone at Carr Hill wishes Ayse, Tash and Kieran the best of luck for the regional final next year.
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CARR HILL STUDENTS HAVE A LOT TO SPEAK ABOUT
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