On Monday 20 December 2011 the school finals of the speech contest in 3rd year bilingual classes were held in the cafeteria of the Hermann Wesselink College. The subject this year was the Future.

The finalists from the third-year groups Michel van Nieuwkerk and Maartje Jongejans from V3A, Shalini Bisram and Aida Danesh from V3B, Victor van Dijen en Tessa Kos from V3C were fiercely competing to win this contest.

The atmosphere was tense and full of expectation as Aida started off. The audience, consisting of all the other students from the finalists' classes, showed involvement and listened intently. They proved to be as supportive as we hoped they would be. Not only did the contestants have to give a nearly flawless speech in front of 75 fellow students but they were also judged by a jury and they had to answer questions put to them by a panel of experts consisting of Mrs Lykles (teacher of English) and Amrita Vyas (former bilingual student and now studying medicine in Amsterdam).
The jury consisted of Mr Liefaard (headmaster), Mark Hannay (former bilingual student and now studying classics in Oxford) and Mr Thompson (teacher and speech coach) as well as the panel of experts.

While the audience enjoyed listening to great music provided by the band Captain Orthegon and refreshed themselves with some soft drinks, the jury took their leave to decide on the winners. In the end they agreed that although all the speakers showed excellent quality and dedication to their chosen subject, the speeches of Shalini was the most engaging and convincing. Maartje was chosen to be the runner-up. The two winners of the contest are going to represent our school in the regional rounds of the Junior Speech Contest.

I would like to thank Mrs Catharina Payne for organizing this afternoon.

Mrs M. Smits

Coordinator bilingual education