By community correspondent Gaby Mills

As well as being the day before half term for Surbiton High girls, the 12th February was also the day of their annual Public Speaking Competition. This year’s competition, however, was slightly different – instead of competing in classes, the girls fought in houses.

The competition featured an extremely varied range of topics: from “The Devastating Effect of Destroying the Rainforests” to “We Should Vote at 16; “Size Zero Models” to “The X Factor”; and “Smoking should be Banned” to “Shreddies or Wholemeal Toast”.

Two groups of year 10 girls also provided the interval entertainment, speaking about the importance of individuality and the deadly dangers of the biscuit; finally, a sixth former talked about the diversity of names. Although all three of these speeches were of a very high standard, they were only performed during the interval and were therefore unable to be considered as winners.

It took the esteemed judges – Mrs. Stead (Head of English at Surbiton High) and special guest judge Dr. Laura Peters (Head of English at the University of Roehampton) – a good twenty minutes to come to a conclusion, but the winners were finally decided: the best Chair went to Fonteyn; the best Vote of Thanks went to Nightingale; the best speech went to Teresa (for the hilarious “Shreddies or Wholemeal Toast” debate); and the overall winners were Pankhurst.

It was a wonderful competition and truly allowed the girls to show off their oratorical skills to a large audience, which impressed everyone.