An account of how students from two different schools prepared and delivered their speech for this year’s challenge.

Written by students from The Crypt School, Gloucester and Carre’s Grammar School, Lincolnshire.

Sapphire and Sanj worked as a team to write and research the speech. This is their experience…

Being involved with the Great Debate enabled us to develop a passion for parts of History outside of the classroom. As part of the process, we visited the National Waterways Museum in Gloucester Quays where the staff provided us with interesting details regarding our chosen topic of Gloucester Docks and its early foundations within British History – something which we hadn’t considered very much previously. The writing process challenged us significantly given we needed to produce a concise and detailed speech in 6-7 weeks and at times we felt nervous. Researching and analysing new knowledge to make convincing points was a mixture of interesting and difficult at first, this is because we had to persuade the audience of the importance of Gloucester Docks, beyond it being a well-known tourist destination in Gloucester. However, the constructive feedback we received each time whilst working alongside our teacher benefited us greatly, as we were able to develop a sophisticated speech in a short amount of time. We learnt to manage our time efficiently by breaking down the overall process; allocating specific tasks for the three of us to do each week leading up to the finished product (which included drafts and practise runs in class) to help make the overall commitments far more manageable. Overall, this experience was a great way to develop both teamwork and perseverance which can be applied to many opportunities beyond secondary school. We highly recommend any future participants to really engage with their chosen topics outside of the classroom as it will ultimately contribute to a rewarding and enjoyable experience.    

In terms of writing the debate, the advice that we would give to future participants is to absolutely get involved in this opportunity as it increased our enjoyment of History, and has made us want to contribute to similar historical opportunities. However, the most important advice that we would probably give is to plan your speech early and very carefully, whilst also working on and gaining constructive feedback because this can really help to improve the development of your speech massively. 

Lucy, delivered the speech in the debate. Lucy says…

One of the best things about this experience was how it helped me develop an interest in local history, which I’d largely neglected previously. The thought of actually performing the speech was terrifying at first and I was definitely nervous doing it but the atmosphere made it feel less like a competition and more like a gathering of like-minded people with similar passions making it much easier to stand in front of them and talk. Everyone there, the staff and the other speakers, made it a much more enjoyable and fun experience as they were all so welcoming and friendly. I’m still in contact with a few of the other speakers! It was an experience that helped me develop my passions, my research ability and my public speaking skills that I would definitely recommend. My main advice would be to start researching as early as possible and ensure you have a range of sources that aren’t just from online, whether that’s from museums or archives, and practice the speech in timed conditions to an audience to get a feel of what the speech will be like. Do it to family, friends and teachers that are helping you, they can all provide advice on the content or your presentation skills and those practices helped us refine our speech to how it was.

Hannah, who gave a speech in the debate…

I really enjoyed researching my Great Debate speech, although it did take me a while to decide what my topic was going to be. I hadn’t really thought very much about local history having a global impact and when I started researching my topic, I was amazed at how a person from my local town had such an enormous impact on global history. I also realised that their actions are seen in a very different way today and that studying local history can show us how ideas about events in history have changed over time. It was really interesting having to do research beyond just the internet and I got to use local library records as well as census data and other archives.

After we had all researched our own questions and written our speech we had a heat at school and the best five went through to the Great Debate local heat. This was exciting but also very nerve wracking as I didn’t really know what to expect. However, there was nothing to worry about. Our heat was held at Lincoln University and we started with a talk from one of the lecturers, Dr Jonathan Fitzgibbon who spoke about Remembering and Forgetting the British Civil Wars, which was really useful as we are studying this for A level. After the lecture we got a chance to have a drink and biscuits before the speeches started. There were some excellent speeches from GCSE and A level students and we learned a lot about Lincolnshire’s impact on global history. Everyone listened so carefully and we got some really positive feedback.

I am very proud of myself for taking part and have I learned a lot about local history, researching history and how to write and make a speech. I have also been able to use my experience on application letters.

It was also really useful to go and visit a university. As our heat was in a university, we got to make our speeches in one of the lecture theatres but also got a chance to have a bit of a look around the university and it made me think that I would like to go to university after my A levels. I would really recommend taking part in the Great Debate!