Strathearn Team Win University Competition
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On Tuesday 2nd February 2010 a team of girls from Strathearn School were declared the winners in a Public Speaking Competition held in Queen’s University Belfast. The competition was organised by the Queen’s Women Graduates association in conjunction with the Irish Federation of University Women, with similar competitions taking place in University College Galway, Dublin University (Trinity College) and University College Dublin. The winners from each of these competitions will compete on Saturday, 6th March in UCD for the Irish Final.


The competition is for girls under the age of fifteen. Each school enters a team of 3 girls who have prepared in advance 6 set topics. On the day of the competition each girl selects 2 unseen aspects of her topics and then proceeds to prepare a speech lasting between 2 and 3 minutes. An adjudication is then made with awards being made to the Best Speaker, the Best Team and the Runner-up team. The winning team and the Best Speaker go on to compete at the Final.

This years topics were:
The Teenage years, Relationships, Leisure, Education, Environment, and Health & Fitness. 

After much careful deliberation the adjudicators declared the Strathearn School team consisting of Jasmine Mc Crory, Lucy Webb, and Olivia Storey, to be the winners. A team from Belfast Royal Academy were the runners-up while the award for the Best Speaker was made to Lucy Webb from Strathearn. The winning speeches were “Teenage magazines don’t represent me”, The World’s health is none of my business” and “The person who has most influenced my life” 

The competition combines advance classroom preparation of general topics with on-the-spot planning for impromptu speaking on a specific relevant subject. It is a cross-border and cross community competition which developed from one started in Galway in 1990. The Queen’s Women Graduates have been organising this annual event ever since. 

Last Updated 23rd March 2010