Huge congratulations to a team of our Year 8 students who won the Meridian Rotary Youth Speaks public speaking competition on Tuesday 23rd November. Isla Gladman, Terri-Jo Munday and Nina Barnert-Kalisz delivered a barnstorming 15-minute performance debating the motion ‘We Should Boycott China’. As the youngest students in the competition, they beat four older teams (including Sixth Form teams) from Worth, Sackville and Imberhorne schools, and will now go on to represent Imberhorne in the next round of the competition in February 2022.

According to the chairman of the judging panel, Rex Whittaker, the girls won the closely contested competition because of their ‘all-round team effort’. He said: ‘The girls worked together consistently strongly. They chose a controversial and topical subject, and they made thought-provoking and well-argued points on both sides.’

Imberhorne’s Year 10 team of Tia Gandhi, Risha Panda and Brandon Blacker were also highly commended, with Mr Whittaker commenting that ‘watching Tia Gandhi was like being addressed by a barrister in a courtroom – she was incredibly impressive.’ Both teams were coached by our High Achieving Coordinator and English Teacher, Mrs J Hughes who we are immensely grateful to for providing our students with these opportunities beyond the classroom and school day.

Also on the judging panel were Helen Farren from Estcots School and James Baldwin, President of the East Grinstead Society. The event took place at St Swithun’s Church, East Grinstead. We would like to thank Meridian Rotary and Worth School’s Daniele Lloyd for organising this fantastic competition.  We would also like to thank our fantastic brotherly duo Thomas and Ben Poole who provided a fantastic musical interlude at the event.