Education: Earlier School Public Speaking Competitions

The Trust’s Public Speaking competitions began in 2012, the year which celebrated York 800.  The first competition in November 2012 at the York Council Chamber in the Guildhall was for secondary schools.  The winners, Meg Falcus and Emel Kucuk of Manor School, are pictured below.  They chose to speak on “The Past has made York what it is today”.
Due to the success of the secondary school event, in July 2013 the first competition for primary schools was held, in the York Merchant Adventurers’ Hall.  That competition is pictured below. The two 2013 young winning speakers were from Lord Deramore’s School, Heslington, who spoke about King Richard III, Duke of Gloucester.

Since then there has been some filming of the events (by John Phillips).  Participating schools are sent a DVD with the talks given by alll the speakers.
Here is a one minute clip from the November 2014 secondary school competition, with winner Dougie Buchanan, whose speaking partner was unable to come, at the last minute. (A fuller film is on the main public speaking competition page.)

In July 2014, the winning pair of the primary school competition in the Merchant Adventurers Hall were Lorien Birch and Josephine Lewis of Naburn School, which gains an elegant trophy for the year. They spoke on “what they liked best
about York”, and they repeated their talk at the Trust AGM in October
2014. Lord Deramore’s school came second and St Wilfrid’s third – out of
eleven competing schools.
Here is a film of that competition (8 minutes). 

Here is a film of the November 2013 Public speaking competition, held in the Council Chamber.
Georgia Lawrence and James de Planta of St Olave’s School were presented
with the winning prize by the Lord Mayor; Huntington School were second
and Joseph Rowntree School third. Here is a link to the York Press report and picture about that competition.

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