Youth Speaks 2021-22

On Tuesday 23rd November, Sunbury Manor entered the Youth Speaks Intermediate Competition.

Youth Speaks is a Youth Debate competition organised by the Rotary Club, with teams having to argue, between themselves, for and against a topic they feel strongly about.  In the lead up to the competition, the team worked incredibly hard, giving up most lunchtimes to rehearse their arguments.

On the night, there were three other teams present as well as members of the Rotary Club, three judges and The Mayor of Spelthorne – quite an intimidating audience for Lisa Fernandes, Harmony Murray and Rebekah Cloake to face!  They definitely set a high standard for other teams to follow! Lisa (the chairperson) was engaging and successfully controlled the debate between Rebekah (the proposer) and Harmony (the opposer) who shared very different ideas about our current education system. Both Harmony and Rebekah spoke with such passion that it was difficult to pick a side of the argument to agree with!  It was brilliant to see Lisa, Harmony and Rebekah’s hard work rewarded, The Sunbury Manor Team were outstanding and beat KS4 teams from Thamesmead, Mathew Arnold and Halliford Boys to win the first round of Youth Speaks. Rebekah also won best proposer. They absolutely did us proud!  

As winners, they are through to the next round of the competition.