On Monday the 20th of March, the regional final of the Jack Petchey Speak Out Challenge was held at Darrick Wood School in Bromley.
Charles Darwin representative, Ella Shaw, gave me more than a few details of the event:
Question: What is the Speak Out challenge about?
Answer: Teenagers getting the opportunity to speak publicly about an issue or personal experience that they are passionate about. It’s about testing yourself, getting out of your comfort zone and achieving what you thought was impossible.
Question: What was your topic of choice?
Answer: I spoke about being proud of your origins and background- and used my grandad as an example. He grew up in East London and is a true cockney lad. In fact, I even confused a few people with slang such as ‘chicken curry’ and ‘Joanna’ which mean worry and piano (pian-ah). Confusing, right?
Question: How did you prepare for the speech?
Answer: I drafted, redrafted and redrafted some more on my own at home and also had lunchtime sessions with my English teacher. He helped me with my delivery since I lacked confidence in that area. Prior to the actual evening itself, there was a two hour work shop which included us practicing with other competitors. The Speak Out organisers and previous Grand Final winner were also kind enough to offer last minute tips and pointers.
Question: Do you think the event helped you in any way?
Answer: I think it massively improved my confidence and opinion on public speaking. Before, I would have never imagined to stand before a crowd of 100 people including my English teacher Mr McPhun who helped me edit my speech script.
Question: Did you take anything away from the evening aside the new skills?
Answer: I bonded with a lot of other candidates and made a few friends- I talk regularly with them including the winner of the night, Jude Neanor. We mainly bonded by being huge English nerds and surprisingly, there was no hard feelings about who won. We all rooted and supported each other.
Question: Would you suggest for Jack Petchey foundation to expand the age group of participants to more than just Year 10? Why?
Answer: Yes, because I think public speaking should be an earlier accessible workshop. It is a very important life skill in all career paths and I think it would be beneficial for people to be introduced earlier at a more outgoing and influential age such as earlier secondary.
Ella’s speech left the audience in tears of laughter with her witty banter and confusing phrases. But by the end of her three-minute slot, Ella was able to sever these laughs and turn those happy tears into ones of sadness with her hard-hitting realistic life stories.
Mr McPhun had only one thing to say on the event in class the next day- “Personally, Ella should have won. Not at all biased…”
Ciara Fleming
