TBSHS Students Speak Out

November always sees TBSHS students taking part in the Rotary Club’s local “Youth Speaks” competition. In the Senior contest, we fielded two teams, as did Bishop’s Stortford College and Herts & Essex, with St. Mary’s School entering one. Our Sixth Form team was drawn to speak fifth, addressing “Sinister Discrimination”. Chairing the presentation, India Purton (Year 13) took charge of the meeting immediately, speaking in a welcome but authoritative manner. She explained that as “sinister” is the Latin for “on the left side”, the topic referred to the difficulties faced by left-handed people. She also introduced the other two team members, entertaining the audience with amusing anecdotes about them and generally got the team off to a very good start.

After a powerful opening, Robert Gor (Year 12) told us how at least 10% of the population are born left-handed. In his opinion, most of the discrimination that they suffer is unintentional, but often expensive or even dangerous, as items such as fabric scissors or power tools designed for left-handers cost substantially more than those for ‘normal’ use. He finished with a rousing plea for left-handedness to be regarded as a legally protected characteristic under the Equality Act. Robert used no notes at all during his well-structured, informative six-minute speech, which he delivered with barely a stumble, a real tour de force.

 India, Robert & Catherine 

Proposing the Vote of Thanks, Catherine Clune revealed that she was aiming to defeat the school that she had represented last year. In an assured performance, Catherine rightly praised Robert for his research and the range of topics that he covered. In addition, she made an excellent job of commenting on his answer to a question from the audience regarding activities in which left-handers flourish and added a further example based on her experience as an accomplished cricketer.

The Sixth Form team was followed into the fray by the Year 10 TBSHS team with their “Teen’s Guide to the Future”, introduced by Chairman Sam Jurd. He welcomed the audience confidently, introducing main speaker Bede Pinches with warm praise, but was rather less complimentary to the third team member Thomas Leung. In his speech, Bede referred to past predictions and the coronavirus pandemic to remind the audience how unpredictable the future can be, before offering his views on the near future and his hopes for the world in five years’ time. When asked by a Rotary member whether he thought that the future was in the hands of the youth alone, or if older generations had an equal influence, Bede replied that, while the fate of humanity lies in the hands of us all, young people will be most affected by what we do. In his Vote of Thanks, Thomas remarked upon the very diplomatic nature of this response and applauded Bede’s thoughtful and wide-ranging speech. He added a few of his own interesting views about the future to round off a very pleasing team performance.