Two Pate’s teams competed in the Regional Final of the ESU Public Speaking competition on Thursday 18th March. This was the first time that two teams from the school had got through and both performed exceptionally well - a great job was done by James Clark, Ben Collishaw and Ash Shah (Pate’s Team One) and Dhruthi Harish, Arywen Morris and Jannah Hameed (Pate’s Team Two), all Year 11.

Ash gave a powerful speech on the controversial subject that “We have a moral duty to disobey unjust laws”, while Jannah presented a sophisticated analysis of her opinion that “Banksy is our greatest living artist.”

In the end, Team Two went through to the National Final with Jannah being awarded Joint Best Speaker. Given the challenges faced by the teams – a teacher shielding, computers without Zoom, the competition starting too early – they were both absolutely magnificent as were their devoted Sixth Form student coaches, Eleanor Stiles, Bethan Avery and Laura Brophy. El and Bethan won the National Final two years ago, so let’s hope we can repeat this achievement at the end of April!  We wish them the best of luck and our thanks go to Mrs Reid for her support of the teams and ongoing championing of public speaking at Pate's.

Just to remind you, the teams got through to the Regional Final by performing brilliantly in the heats. Team One's Ash spoke on the idea that "Freedom is over-rated" and Team Two's Jannah spoke on "There is a terror in knowing what the world is about” which is a quote from David Bowie. Team 1 won the round and Team 2 were runners up.