On Thursday 10 October we welcomed OA Daniel Painter (Denson '11) as our guest adjudicator for the annual Senior House Public Speaking Competition. This involved one speaker from each House in Years 10-13 presenting to a full audience in the Hall including students and staff. As always the variety of topics covered was extremely wide-ranging with the usual sprinkle of Political insight, Emotional self-help and some detailed Historical knowledge to boot!

The competition falls naturally into two halves; Year 10 and 11 speakers presenting to a Year 10 audience, quickly followed after break by Year 12 and 13 speakers presenting to a Year 12 audience. Following a keenly contested first half, Paterson led the way with Louis Ajuied (Pa10) and his offering on the ever topical subject; ‘Regulation of Social Media; Violation of Free Speech or Essential Tool for Public Safety’, and Neel Varia (Pa11) with an interesting piece; ‘The Manipulation of Colour in Marketing’.

However as we moved into the second half it was all still to play (or speak) for. Seb Jimenez (Pa12) kept the purple Paterson flag flying, picking up the ‘Speaker of the Day’ award for his speech; ‘Is Comparison the Thief of Joy?’ but it was the dark (blue) horse of Ridley House who powered through and stole the overall Senior competition win thanks to Khizr Hussain (R12); ‘Be Confident’ and Anthony Unugboke (R13) with a very thought-provoking piece entitled; ‘Freedom: Our exodus’.

Daniel did a fantastic job as our guest adjudicator and remarked on the overall high quality delivery from all the speakers, many of whom braved the audience with no visible notes or prompts whatsoever, and the consistent thought-provoking nature of the subject matter presented across the competition. He also offered more detailed feedback to individual speakers in an after-event clinic in the Boardroom alongside the obligatory reward of biscuits and squash.

Ridley may have taken the Senior win, but the overall House Public Speaking Competition is not fully completed until the Junior event in the Summer term. Ridley sit at the top of the tree for now, but can they stay there?

We are incredibly grateful to Daniel and our other dedicated Old Aylesburians who kindly return to support the School in events such as this one or through the Inspirational Speakers programme. Please get in touch with us at development@ags.bucks.sch.uk if you would also like to be involved, we would love to hear from you.