Erin's Junior Speaks Experience

My Junior Speaks Competition Experience

When I was chosen to become a member of the Junior Speaks 2019 team, I was thrilled that I was given that opportunity. The preparation for the competition was exciting but nerve wracking when we had to perform it to a bigger audience than just our team members. Three days before the competition, we performed our speech in front of Key Stage 2 and received a lot of support for the big day.

When the competition day arrived, we came to school ready for one of the final times we would perform our speech. The journey was fun to get to Our Lady’s School in Aspull. Once we went into the school we sat down and read the programme to see the other school’s speech topics. We sat quietly and listened to the speeches and pondered their topics and the key points in their speech. Once they called myself, Tillie, Martha, Emile and Josh to the stage, the nerves kicked in but we knew we were ready for anything. Martha and Tillie delivered their lines perfectly and The Questioner raised the question ‘What is the main cause of gender inequality in sport?’ Martha answered to the best of her ability, which in my opinion was amazing! During the break, we ate toast and made friends with some of the other team members from varied schools. Almost immediately after the break, the judges came back with the results and Martha achieved ‘Overall Best Speaker’. Then the big moment came……. The winner of the Peter Hodinott Shield 2019 was…….. St Wilfrid’s C of E Primary Academy!!!

The first Thursday in November was the day were we dined at the Owls Standish. The girls took Mrs Fletcher’s car while we travelled down the road; with the boys in Miss Diamond’s car. We were then escorted to the upstairs dining hall, where we met the rest of the Rotary Club. From that club, a lady informed us about the afternoon plan and how to behave when making a toast to the Queen. The first serving of food was a vegetable soup that was lovely and it was a good starter for the afternoon. In between the courses, we had a chance to speak about our school and year with the Rotary Club members. Turkey and stuffing was the following option for the main courses served with roast potatoes that went so well with Martha that she ate two trays of them! The trays weren’t small! A toast was held to honour our Queen, this is when we lifted our glasses full of water then had a drink and sat down. We had a choice of what we would like to have for dessert. On one hand, we could have had a marmalade cake with custard (which is what Tillie had, although she wasn’t very fond of it) or the ice-cream which was very yummy and really helped me calm my nerves for what we were going to do a few moments later.  Gwyneth called the Speaks Team to the stage to present our speech to the Rotary Club and we took the stage with confidence.

 Josh announced our team yet forgot to do the ceremonial ringing of the bell that they do to begin the meetings. Tillie stood up proudly to enlighten the audience on our topic of ‘Gender Inequality’, as you already know. It felt like a memory replaying in my brain over and over again as we re-enacted our big win to the Rotary Club meeting, at the Owls. As quick as a flash of lightning, it was over and Gwyneth announced that she had a special treat coming. A man had once been called to an official Rotary Club meeting and underneath his shirt he had a superhero Rotarian outfit.  After many goodbyes, we left the Owls to return to school at about 2:30pm in the afternoon.

Returning to school was funny because Martha thought that I saw a man ripping his shirt when I was really just describing the badge to Mrs Fletcher! Entering our classroom was funny as all the class were asking what we were eating there!!!

All in all I would recommend anyone to try to become part of Junior Speaks as it is an amazing opportunity.

Visit our 'Junior Speaks' page to read the speech and see competition photographs.

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St Wilfrid's Church of England Primary Academy
Rectory Lane, Standish, Wigan, WN6 0XB

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