The 57th Upjohn Declamation, the School’s major public speaking event of the year, took place on Saturday 4 February. The attentive audience of 6th formers and staff were treated to four fantastic speeches on a variety of topics ranging from thinking for oneself, how fashion changes the world, dyspraxia and fan service in the film industry, posing a real challenge for Mr Townsend and Dr Strange in looking to determine the overall winner. 
 

Ellie D began proceedings by highlighting how fashion changes the world. She highlighted how individuals were able to capture the zeitgeist of the times and reflect it in their clothing designs, such as Mary Quant with the mini-skirt and Vivenne Westwood in channelling the punk movement. Moving onto more recent trends in clothing, Ellie commented how it requires around 8,000 gallons of water to make a pair of jeans, a worrying statistic that should make us all a little more conscious when shopping for new clothes. 

In our second speech, Elle F highlighted how our personal choices and decisions can be heavily influenced by individuals around us. Highlighting a personal example of her father’s work with cars in convincing her to choose Physics at A Level, Elle then moved onto highlighting Plato’s allegory of the cave, and called on us to be more aware of external influences when thinking about our choices. 
 

Our third speaker, Alex P, had chosen a very personal topic for his speech in highlighting his experiences with dyspraxia. After giving us an outline of how dyspraxia affects him, he noted how at times his peers had struggled to understand the full extent of the condition. Commenting that while around 10% of the UK population have dyslexia, and around 5% of the population have dyspraxia, Alex noted that when examining the prison population of the UK, this rises to over 50%, strongly suggesting that a greater awareness and understanding of dyspraxia would help in tackling misconceptions around the condition. 
 

Owen W brought proceedings to a close with his speech examining how fan service can affect the quality of films. Choosing two examples, Spider-Man: No Way Home and Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Owen contrasted efforts to please the fans in both films, and noted that while No Way Home produced an extremely positive response from audiences, The Last Jedi struggled due to fans disagreeing with how Luke Skywalker was depicted. 
 

Given the eclectic mix of subjects, and the excellent public speaking ability of all the competitors, the decision of choosing the winner was incredibly difficult. In delivering his closing remarks Mr Townsend thanked all the participants, noting that while it is difficult to speak to a large audience, it is even more challenging when that audience consists of your peers.

Overall, both Mr Townsend and Dr Strange agreed that, due to the passion and rhetoric employed, combined with an excellent understanding of supporting evidence, Alex P was adjudged of the 2023 Upjohn Declamation.

Congratulations to Alex, but congratulations and many thanks to all the competitors for their willingness to share their ideas and thoughts with their peer group. The passion they showed for their subjects was an exciting and engaging reminder of the joys of learning and intellectual curiosity, and issued all of us with a challenge to incorporate that drive and determination into our studies.