English-Speaking Union Success!

Congratulations to Balshaw's senior public speaking teams who BOTH got through to the semi-finals of the English-Speaking Union Churchill Public Speaking Competition yesterday evening (Tuesday 4th February).

They travelled to Bolton School for this round and it was likened to "Hogwarts" by Milly in her introduction! Teams were from as far afield as Lancaster Royal Grammar, Bolton School and North Halifax Grammar Schools. 

Milly and May excelled as Chair and Questioner of Balshaw's Team B and Isabel wowed ESU judges with her speech about Social Media Becoming a Global Super-weapon (rather than a space for cute cat memes).

Sam was amazing as Chair for Balshaw's Team A with the usual impressive performance from Ewan as Questioner.

Team A speaker Clarisse chose the drip painting Full Fathom Five by Jackson Pollock as the topic for her speech which was an entirely new direction for ESU, introducing just an image and giving the speaker free reign to produce a speech inspired by this and this was executed fabulously by Clarisse. 

Full Fathom Five (1947) image of the painting below:

We look forward to new topics and speeches for the next round.

Chair of Governors, Keith Woodcock, accompanied students with Oracy Co-ordinator Dr Breen and he was very impressed with our teams' performances and super proud of the results, as you can see in the photograph above!