JBH Speech Competition 2025

The JBH Speech Competition is an impressive annual display of oratorical talent from five shortlisted senior students as each year they tackle the challenge of presenting ‘the best’ speech to a panel of esteemed judges. Our 2025 panel included three former JBH winners, Kemi Spence (2024), Anna Burnett (1998) and Simon McCoy (1994),  and a former member of LP staff and previous JBH competition organiser, John Woodings.

The topics are chosen to be provocative but should also be authentically delivered so it is important that the speaker is able to display passion for their subject as well as exceptional rhetoric. Contestants speak for four minutes, are heckled by a vocally combative crowd for eight minutes during which they can respond, and then sum up for a further three minutes.

Winner of this year’s event, Eva, whose speech was entitled ‘Stop Having Children’ was ecstatic about her success: “I feel really excited, I am really delighted that all the hard work paid off! It was a really fun experience! I actually really enjoyed it; I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I was going to!”

The judges were blown away by all the competitors but particularly by Eva’s efforts, saying: “That was a really well researched speech almost sound bite like in terms of issues that affect both women and children and the responsibilities that women have within the family. When it came to the heckling what was particularly impressive you not only countered the arguments but you backed them up with factual data which was particularly powerful in something like this.”

Maiya, whose delivery of ‘Stop funding anti-racist campaigns’ earned her second place, reflected: “I did not feel calm or collected, some of those heckles threw me off so badly; I was not expecting so few heckles but the ones that were were good; they had researched it and that was terrifying! If you were thinking about doing it I would say 100% do it!  It was so worth it, it’s genuinely really fun and I think I’ve learnt a lot from just the 14 minutes I stood up there.”

Harry, who came third arguing ‘Performance enhancing drugs should be legalised in sports’ commented: “I was a little bit nervous but I feel good now it’s done and it felt good to be up there, especially with the heckling. Obviously, there were some hard questions but I feel like I was well prepared. None of the questions stumped me too much; I feel like I responded well. It’s obviously nerve wrecking but it’s quite a good thing to do!”

Fellow contestant Taylor was pleased to have some out the other side: “In my opinion it went quite well. I didn’t expect to win, I’ve just enjoyed the whole thing and it’s a good experience for me to train my public speaking and my performance under pressure.”

Assistant Head, Teaching and Learning, Jenny Powlesland, who organised and compered the event noted: “It’s one of the best years that I can remember. The standard of the speeches and the intellectual and really engaging way that the audience participated in the debate and heckling was just super. And can I just say, everyone had a topic that was really worth discussing.”

The audience were equally enthusiastic about the speeches and the opportunity to engage with such an academically interesting evening. Quaker Governor, Leon Spence, explained, “I found it less aggressive than last year and some very interesting questions from the audience.” Luke Walters, Head, attending his very first JBH, commented, “That was remarkable, intellectually stimulating, captivating, really, really impressive, and the students had such control in what they were talking about. Their control of language, their control of the audience in some cases. There were some really impressive pieces, I loved it!”

You can see more photos from the evening on our online gallery.