Youth Speaks. Our Journey by George

‘On the 27th January 2022, 3 Redhill Teams entered the Youth Speaks Competition held at Pedmore High School. Youth Speaks is a national debate competition, and the purpose of this article is to document the process and events which took place for our teams.

Part I – The Process.

This was the most difficult, but rewarding, element of the entire process. We were task to write our speeches, collate opinions and facts before finally perfecting the art of public speaking.

The first step was, once being placed in a team by Mrs. Parker, choosing our topic. I was part of one of the intermediate teams with Jasmine (Year 9) and Bea (Year 7); we chose the topic of education. As a group, we decided to question the quality of education students receive in secondary school – utilising points which agree and disagree. Other topics from Redhill included: “Was COVID manufactured?” and “Is our data safe?”.

Once the topics were chosen, we allocated roles within the team of “Chairperson”, “For” and “Against”. This meant that we could tailor our speeches to fit our roles. We collated our information, took advice from peers and team members and then started drafting our presentations. There are several tones we could have chosen – I went for humorous (which I hope appealed to the audience), whereas Bea and Jasmine opted for a factual approach. We could have also chosen: informal, friendly or emotional. All of these were delightfully demonstrated by our lovely candidates. We were so grateful, also, for the support from teachers (Mrs. Parker, Miss Bradburn and Miss Jones) who gave pointer on how we could improve our speeches.

Part II – The Night.

In all honesty, it was nerve-racking. I was worried in the build up to the event, but, once we were on stage, it was one of the best experiences of my life. I highly recommend Youth Speaks to anyone who has a passion for a particular topic or subject as it gave us the outlet to portray our views to an audience. Also, there are snacks – which is a bonus! As chairperson, my job was not to debate but to introduce my fellow team and address questions at the end which opened and closed the discussion. The debaters had a much more difficult job: having to find facts which correlated to their opinions before then presenting to the audience which consisted of the Stourbridge Rotary Club and other schools in the local area. It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience and I commend all the other schools as well as the teams at Redhill.’

The teams included:

Sufyan, Lewis and Noel (Year 10)

Leo, Imogen and Alex (Year 7 and 9) with special mention to Luke (Year 7)

Bea, George and Jasmine (Year 7,8 and 9).

Message from the teachers:

We are incredibly proud of the teams, they represented Redhill fantastically and presented their different ideas very well.