The Great Debate

In 1915 Charles Evans, Head of Leighton Park wrote “It is a strong desire of my own that Leighton Park should train its sons to be able to speak in public with courage, power and modesty”.

103 years later, the competitors in the JBH Speech Competition showed how the school’s sons and daughters, are similarly equipped to speak in public.

One of Leighton Park’s greatest traditions, the Jonathan Backhouse Hodgkin Speech Competition first took place in 1914. Founded by the school’s Chair of Governors, a passionate believer in the need for young people to be able to speak confidently in public, JB Hodgkin was determined to develop the students’ skills of “thinking on their feet”.  The guidelines that he laid down for the competition – talking for three minutes uninterrupted, withstand eight minutes of heckling whilst continuing and then sum up in a further three minutes – emphasise the need for conciseness, clear enunciation, earnestness, simplicity and lucidity, presence of mind and sympathy with the audience.

None afraid to tackle controversial subjects, Lower Sixth students Millie, Shaun, Joe and Upper Sixth student Josh spoke articulately and passionately, facing the traditional barrage of heckling with aplomb.

Members of the whole community from students, staff and Old Leightonians, filled their way into Main Hall, with silence falling as Jonathan Porter-Hughes, English teacher and JBH Co-ordinator, took to the stand to welcome everyone to the 2018 JBH Competition. After explaining the night’s proceedings and enlightening the audience on the background of the competition, Jonathan welcomed the first speaker, Shaun, to the stand with his argument, “Why the burqa and niqab should be banned in the UK”.

The protests started slowly at first but before long Shaun was finding it difficult to finish answering one heckler before another shout from the audience challenged him. Conceding to some of counter-arguments thrown at him, Shuan managed to gather his thoughts and present a strong summary before concluding his argument.

Next up on the stand was Millie, with her debate, “We need to change the way we give aid”. Hecklers were much slower to attack Millie’s argument, and she remained calm as she was presented with some difficult protests, acknowledging their point of view and then justifying her argument and her terms. Her position remained strong and focused as the bell rang to signal the end of the argument.

Josh confidently took to the stand after Millie, presenting his opening thoughts very clearly and eloquently. As the sea of faces sat stoney faced before him, a few nerves began to surface and as the bell rang to signal the beginning of the heckling, the audience were quick to take advantage, bombarding Josh’s argument with their protests and disapproval as they tried to negate his argument “The Vicious Villainy of Veganism”. Facing the most challenging heckling of the night, Josh did well to uphold his argument.

Joe faced the dissenting crowd next, delivering his argument with conviction and assurance “Brexit voters should not be stereotyped as racist”. A few hecklers began to shake the foundations of his argument, but Joe remained strong in ensuring he answered each point directly and clearly and even managed to bag a few laughs from the crowd as he described the commotion from the crowd as “JBH kerfuffle”. Summarising his final points the JBH debates were concluded and the judges departed the Hall as they deliberated the winner.

Including members of the Senior Leadership Team and two Old Leightonian judges, both former winners and siblings, Gabriella and Louis Patel, it was announced that Joe would be this year’s JBH winner due to his skilful argument, delivery and handling of the heckling. Congratulations to all the participants on their courage and tenacity in publicly speaking to a vocal and feisty crowd.