Freddy Takes Second Place At Catenians Midlands Public Speaking
01 Apr
Upper Sixth Former, Freddie Hadley, is celebrating after finishing in second place at this year’s Midlands regional round of the 2025 Catenian Association's Public Speaking Competition for students from Catholic schools.
This year’s contest took place at Newman University on Thursday 27 March with speakers from 24 schools taking part. Freddie spoke with tremendous flair, impressing the judges with his speech on the topic of ‘Should the monarchy be abolished?
Competitors were marked by the judging panel on a variety of criteria from content, delivery, elocution and appearance and finishing second overall was a fantastic achievement for Freddie who was up against strong competition.
Freddie’s success was down to teamwork and preparation as a group of Sixth Formers had worked together to prepare for the event. Supporting Freddie were Jayden Carr, Raphi Kane, Roxy Glenn and Nika Handjani. They all worked together to help Freddie get ready for the competition. Jayden wrote the speech and the team had met once a week across the last term to research, write up, refine and rehearse.
Teacher of English, David Leach, commented, “All the competitors gave incredible performances, so Freddie’s second place finish is something that we are very proud of. It was fantastic to see so many schools competing. With such a broad range of topics covered, it really was a challenging and thought-provoking session.”