‘Vincent Van Gigabyte’ speech is a success

The students finished runners-up in the district senior heat at the Richard Taunton 6th Form College, Southampton, on Saturday.

Chairman Oliver Connolly, vote of thanks Max Guilbert and speaker Joseph Tom edged out Portsmouth High School to finish second of the six teams while Romsey School were the overall winners.

The 15-year-olds created their speech – ‘Vincent Van Gigabyte?’ – around the argument that video games would be considered the great art form of the 21st century and that computer programmers would be known as the century’s great artists.

‘The judges took quite a lot of convincing but told the boys that they had never thought of video games in this positive light before they heard the speeches,’ said Elizabeth College head of English faculty and team coach, Magnus Buchanan.

‘It was a big achievement for the boys as they had to compete against teams of Year 12 students in the senior category but are still only in Year 10.’

Max said the other teams had been excellent and so his team were just really pleased to get through while Oliver said: ‘It was a great opportunity to progress our public speaking and increase our confidence for the future. We’re really enjoying it.’

Joseph said: ‘I honestly couldn’t believe it at first because I’d been surprised when we won in Guernsey. To get through this round is amazing for us and extremely exciting.’

The boys had help from a sixth form mentor, Adam Le Poidevin, who gave them advice on how to improve their argument. Their parents also hosted extra practices for them at the weekend to make sure that they were totally ready for what lay ahead. They will now compete in the regional heat at Queen’s College, Taunton, on Saturday 30 March.

Mr Buchanan said they were very grateful to law firm Mourant who had agreed to underwrite the cost of travel and accommodation, no matter how many rounds they got through.

The final will be in Nottingham later this year.