Once again Biddulph Rotary has organised the ‘Youth Speaks’ Competition for teams of young speakers from Biddulph schools. The event was held at the Victoria Community Centre on Monday 19th November with 7 teams of three speakers taking part, representing James Bateman School, Our Lady of Grace School and Biddulph High School and woodhouse School. The subjects chosen by the teams were diverse and challenging, varying from ‘Social Media has a negative effect on teenagers', and ‘Homework should be banned, to ‘Tattoos’.

The panel of judges consisted of David Fletcher, a County Court Judge, Mrs Hilda Sheldon, and Sahra Haydon, Clerk to Biddulph Town Council. In announcing the prize-winners David Fletcher commented on the extremely high standard achieved by all the teams in both the presentation of their topics and the underlying research that had been done, and mentioned that the levels achieved did credit to the teachers and parents who had helped and encouraged the participants.



The junior prize-winners were a team from Our Lady of Grace School, consisting of Madeline Burnham, Toby Cooper and Matthew Leadbetter, whose topic was ‘Tattoos'.

The senior prize-winners were a team from James Bateman School, consisting of Reeme Yates, Maddison Corbet and Molly Ambrose whose topic was ‘Social Media has a negative effect on teenagers'. They were presented with the Jack Lund Memorial Trophy.

The second place prize was presented to the ‘Biddulph High School’ team, consisting of Kieron Bronti, Emily Sanderson and Callum Harrop, who spoke about ‘Body Image’.



The Prizes for the best individual performance was presented to Emily Sanderson the main speaker from Biddulph High School, who spoke about 'Body Image'. The prize for best Chairperson went to Madeline Burnham, from Our Lady of Grace School and The Prize for best ‘Vote of Thanks’ was awarded to Molly Ambrose from James Bateman School.



Martin Gravestock, President of Biddulph Rotary, thanked Rotn. Jim Tiffney, who had done most of the work in organising the evening. In particular he thanked the young people who had taken part, their teachers, and the panel of judges. He went on to say that it was very encouraging to see young people achieving such a high standard in an event like this, which showed that there are plenty of young people spending their time in useful and rewarding activities.

He then presented 'thank you' bouquets to the teachers, Francesca Brodie from Woodhouse, Ellie Healey from Our Lady of Grace, Louise Frost from Jas. Bateman and to Mrs Pippa Banerji. He also presented the Judges with ‘Thank You’ bottles of wine.

The three teams who will go through to the District Competition on 22nd January, 2018, are Biddulph High School, Woodhouse School and James Bateman.

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