This year, we hosted the Newbury & District Agricultural Society Debate Competition. In the first round, Year 12 students, Lucas, Heidi and Aaron, presented on the topic of Veganism, alongside King's Academy Prospect and Kennet School.

After sailing through the first round, our team were put through to the final with Kennet School. This time the topic was Organic Farming. As we await the final outcome, Heidi has written a brilliant article about her experiences and the challenges she faced in preparing for this competition...

What am I doing?

You may be reading this, with raised brows, wondering where the uplifting article that gushes about this wonderful experience is. And to clear these questions, you need to know something about me as a person. I am generally very socially anxious, with about as many public speaking skills as an intoxicated pigeon. Obviously, I’m exaggerating, but you get the point. I struggle with most things that involve speaking to more than, let’s say, three people. So how did I find myself speaking in the final of a debate competition?

We had gotten ourselves through to the final of the debate, my teammates gleeful, our teachers proud, and me generally lost to how I had even gotten the words out of my mouth to begin with. So, preparation for the final began. The final! Even the word alone gave me anxious shivers, but I shook it out of my mind. We had over a month to prepare, and realistically, I was speaking for five minutes, if that. We would be fine. I would be fine. 

Two weeks before the event, I was really putting that statement up for careful consideration. I was not fine, and I had to speak publicly again in front of a lot of very educated, and most likely confident, people. Great. I would be a laughing stock. I banished that thought out of my mind for the time being, as we began one of our practices. I stood up, sped through all of my words as fast as possible, before collapsing back to my seat in relief. After my teammates also spoke, much more collected and dignified than I could’ve ever been, we looked to Mrs Oxner and Mr Taylor for feedback. They both looked at each other, before looking at me and saying-

“Slow. Down.”

What? Slow down? But I was speaking normally! Then I remembered the semi-final practices, and the feedback from then, and sighed in defeat. My teammates received their feedback, almost the opposite of mine- they had to cut theirs down, as they had gone over the six minute mark. I think I barely broke three. But then, Lucas had a suggestion that I genuinely believe turned the tide for us.

“How about we look at each other's?” he suggested. “I’ll look at Aaron’s, and he can look at mine, and we can both look at Heidi’s to offer new suggestions, and cut ours down.” 

Everyone agreed readily, and so I sent mine off to the group-chat (aptly named ‘Debatably the Best Team’) and Aaron and Lucas emailed theirs to me. In all honesty, I didn’t have much to offer to improve theirs, apart from spell check, as they both sounded really good already, and I didn’t want to mess it up. But they both edited each other’s, and they both offered suggestions for mine which I immediately jumped on. Perfect! The next week, we took our edited speeches and eagerly read them out, to which we received very approving nods. I was yet again told to slow down, and Mr Taylor offered me some advice. He told me about a band (whose name I cannot remember for the life of me- sorry!) where their lead singer could only go on stage if they all chanted ‘I am cool!’ and recommended that I do the same before going up to speak. 

And let me tell you, I took that advice. I was about to be so cool, Antarctica would be intimidated by me. My team also took every opportunity to remind me too- when we practised, when we were sending frantic messages back and forth; Mr Taylor also reminded me when he walked past me in the corridor. In a moment of non-cynical sincerity, I was very grateful for these reminders.

And suddenly it was the 6th of March, and I was sweating in English Language, my final lesson of the day. Time passed in a blur, and I numbly went over to the main hall, meeting my teammates and our two friends who had come to support us. Our chant of ‘I am cool’ had transformed into ‘I am lukewarm’, reflecting our nerves. Despite the beautiful sunny day, and the win of the coin toss meaning we would speak first, I was envisioning the worst. But I turned up my ‘Confidence Mix’ on Spotify, and kept breathing, pacing back and forth. Mrs Hickman had come over to support us, and we were pretty much as ready as we would ever be. And then, we received some news that shifted all three of us off-course.

Kennet School, our opposition, would not be coming. What? As my friend so eloquently put afterwards, “how are you supposed to debate empty air”? I looked down at my flashcards, noting the lines that were welcoming Kennet School and thanking them, and my stomach dropped like a stone. We were asked if we still wanted to speak and agreed, and before I could take another breath, we were ushered over to our table, ready to begin. 

I saw the green card raise, I stood up, hands quivering, heart pounding, a single spotlight on me-

Okay, no, that is not what happened. I stood up with probably less than ten people watching us in the main hall, with all the lights on, no spotlight featured. But that’s how it felt. All eyes on me, as I opened my mouth and began to speak. I could barely make eye contact, too busy trying to speak at a relatively normal pace. Towards the end of my first sentence, I completely ran out of oxygen, and had to take a deep breath. I was fine, I am cool, I am cool. I began my next sentence, the words ‘Welcome Kennet School’ suddenly seeming bright and bold. My mind working fast for once, I cut that out as my eyes flickered over it. Crisis averted! I finished my introduction with only one small stumble, before sitting down to listen to Lucas. He was fantastic. His jokes landed, his over dramatic movements were perfectly executed, and his words all flowed together. He revealed to us after that he had actually mixed up the order of his cards, but neither of us noticed. He had kept going, cool, calm and collected. Aaron then spoke- he was as steady as always. His subtle pokes at Lucas and carefully inserted jokes went down a treat, and he was flawlessly eloquent, like in practise. 

It was my turn to speak again, and before I got up, I noticed the orange card, meaning we had a minute left, get fiddled with. Okay. I’m fine. I got up, said my words as slowly as my panicked mind could handle, once again cutting a full sentence just before I said it, as well as changing an entire sentence due to the aforementioned lack of Kennet School. And before I reached the end of my summary, the red card got lifted, meaning our 15 minutes were up. Instead of unsheathing my fantastic Eminem impression, I kept reading as normally as I could, before thanking the audience and sitting down. It was over. 

We then had the waiting time of around 20 minutes, while the judges prepared feedback and gave us a score, which meant time to scoff as many brownies as my diabetes would let me. I also indulged in a cup of tea. We all had a few chats, swapping some recipes, before the judges emerged and we sat back down, ready for feedback. One of the judges mentioned how well we acted on feedback- mine specifically was to be more welcoming, as well as shine a better light on us as people, which I’m glad got noticed- I definitely made sure to act on that feedback in my speech. My feedback for this specific debate mentioned eye contact, which was a problem I recognised while speaking, and our general feedback was about ordering our arguments to be more impactful. We thanked them again, and just like that, the final was done. Our teachers showered us in praise, telling us it was our best go, which I can agree with. And then, we went home.

I think this was an experience that was very fulfilling for me. I can’t speak for my teammates, but for me, this was exposure that I needed. My confidence generally, as well as my confidence as a public speaker, are not the greatest and this helped encourage me out of my shell. While I would still class myself as a reclusive snail, at least I’m on the path to be perhaps a slug instead.

Disgusting analogies aside, I did actually ask my teammates to give some insight on how they were feeling, just so you don’t have to keep reading about how panicked I was. I’m sure it got old after the third paragraph.

Lucas got back to me first- here’s what he said. 

“Being a rarely spoken issue, I felt a duty to invoke passion from my speech,” he also said. “A benefit of speaking on an issue that most aren't overly sentimental to is I felt freedom to use humour and creativity in my speech.”

“I've been nervous in the past about public speaking, but the more I thought of this as a performance, with jokes and suspense and perhaps some melodrama, the more comfortable I became with it.” He is very involved in Drama at school- currently, he is playing the lead role of Willy Wonka in our school’s production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

“I would absolutely do it again!” he told me. “What I learnt from my final ‘performance’ was that I spoke best not by reciting my flashcards word for word, but by speaking in my own tone, with my own accumulated knowledge. This way I felt a connection with the audience which I was, and still am, very proud of.”

Aaron got back to me next, and here are his thoughts on this experience. 

“For me, the debate competition was a fantastic experience. I've always, with autism, struggled with how I come across to people when I'm speaking- quite often, things I say get interpreted very differently to how I had intended or imagined,” he said. 

“I’ve often worried that being a perfectionist, I come across as arrogant and blunt and only accept things my way. This competition helped me to articulate my thoughts more clearly in a way that an audience could understand and connect with, even if they didn't necessarily agree with me.”

He summarised his thoughts by saying this: 

“The competition made me feel happy, confident, listened to, understood, knowledgeable, wise and a little nervous but extremely proud of what we did. Regardless of how the result turns out, it's been a very fulfilling experience and I would recommend it to anyone who feels like they have a voice but are struggling to share it. I would absolutely do it again if given the opportunity, it feels like it's all over so quickly!”

I would like to thank The Newbury & District Agricultural Society and my own school, Little Heath School for giving Aaron, Lucas and I the opportunity to do this. All three of us are incredibly grateful, and it’s been unlike anything I’ve ever done. I would also like to thank Kennet School and King’s Academy Prospect for being fantastic opponents. I write this before the results release, and honestly, I don’t mind what they are. I’m just happy I did something new and different.

Heidi
Year 12 Student