A student at Sherborne International has been crowned the Young Speaker of the Year for 2019.
Jimmy was a Year 9 student at the school during the Summer Term of 2019 – and is one of 10 students around the UK to receive the English Speaking Board’s highest commendation of ‘Young Speaker of the Year’.
Each year, the awards recognise the outstanding spoken English skills of the very best that assessors see from candidates who are sitting ESB communication assessments. The 10 winners were selected from 12,000 youngsters who took ESB speech assessments in 2018/19.
When Jimmy took his ESB assessment, his assessor praised his vocally varied interpretation which allowed him to fully capture the mood of his poem, ‘Seasons of the Year’.
At the awards ceremony held at Aintree Racecourse on 16 November 2019, Jimmy was presented with his trophy and certificate.
Jimmy said: “This has been a really special day for me and I really enjoyed performing my poem, particularly in front of my mum who flew especially from China to support me! It was also great to hear all the other Young Speakers at the Showcase.”
ESB’s Chief Executive, Tina Renshaw, commented: “The standard from all candidates put forward for this accolade was very high indeed so Jimmy did extremely well to be selected as an overall winner. Communication skills are at the heart of successful lives and careers and these youngsters demonstrated exceptional abilities to communicate their ideas clearly and confidently.”
Tim Waters, Principal of Sherborne International, said “We are very proud of Jimmy, and of all the hard work he did in order to achieve such a wonderful award – especially as he was being assessed in English, rather than his own language of Chinese. His dedication to his learning at Sherborne International meant that, as well as this award, we were able to help place him with his new school, St Edward’s School in Surrey.”