Today Our Lady's played host to this years Rotary Club Junior Speaks Competition open to all Wigan Primary schools. We were joined by St Mary & St John, Aspull Church School, and St Wilfred's. After an enjoyable morning listening to team finalists from all 4 schools deliver passionate speeches, sparking debate and questions from the floor and at times bringing tears from those listening and judging the pupils, Our Lady's were crowned champions for 2018.

Our Lady's teaching staff felt so strongly about the quality and topic choices made by the pupils in Year 6 they just could not choose a single entry but in fact entered 3 teams into the competition!

The teams were named "Skin Deep" who covered the topic of Body Image in todays society, the "Rainbows" whose speaker Meg presented an empowering speech on Racism, and team "Patience" whose speaker Izzy delivered a moving speech on Stuttering and how it won't silence her.

The overall winners of the competition were team "Skin Deep" comprising of Chairperson Dante, Vote of Thanks Maddox and Reserve Ruth, with their speaker Isabel who (everyone agreed) delivered her inspiring speech in a professional and confident manner. Individual certificates were given to Izzy for the best Speaker on the day and Callum for best Vote of Thanks. Aspull Church team was awarded Best Chairperson and St Mary& St John's were awarded Best Reserve.

All the children have worked so hard to learn their speeches and roles for the competition and their attitude throughout has been exceptional. The winning team will now go on to present their speech to Wigan Rotary Club members after a celebratory meal at the Owls in November and also a visit to the Mayors Parlour to deliver their speech once again.