VLT Oracy Competition 2025

On Tuesday 8th July, 2025, Ms Rickards from the RHS English Department led some of our students to the annual VLT Year 7 Oracy Competition - with our students shining on the day. 

After applying through their tutors, three of our ambitious Year 7 students travelled to Ryefield Primary School to partake in the competition for Year 5-7s. Each student chose their own topic to write about, crafted a captivating speech, and performed it confidently on the day.

Megan's speech achieved very high marks, and was awarded ‘Highly Commended’. She spoke about the importance of the past, in order to pave a safe path to our future, and explained multiple highly researched moments in history where we did, or should have, learnt from our forebear’s mistakes. Nixie’s speech on equality in sport had much support from the audience, and Syeda’s comedically written speech about the power of writing got everyone laughing.

The independence and confidence of the students from all schools was fantastic, and our students matched this skill wonderfully, contributing to a wholly successful event. They really were admirable in this way, and we are all very proud of their efforts and talents.

Nixie, Year 7, told us: “I have a fear of speaking in public but I wanted to overcome this and I did. I’m proud of myself for doing this.”

Meanwhile, Megan, Year 7, said: “It was really fun hearing everyone’s speeches and exciting to meet people from different schools too. It was a fun trip and I learnt a lot!”

Well done to all three of the students for taking part and thank you to Ms Rickards for accompanying them to the event.