Twenty pupils and two members of staff from Westcliff High School for Boys travelled to Colchester last month to take part in the Regional Finals of the Have Your Say Languages competition. We are delighted to announce that five of our ten pairs of competitors achieved first place, two pairs were awarded second place, and one pair achieved third place in their category. This is a splendid result for the School, and we are very proud of all our Have Your Say linguists. Seventeen schools took part from the East of England, with around three hundred competitors in total.

Pupils in Years 7 to 9 had to memorise and perform a dialogue, completing the last four lines themselves. There was a further element added in the finals; pupils had to read aloud a new dialogue, which they could prepare for three minutes beforehand.

In Year 10, pupils had to write their own dialogue with a set scenario and using ten key words from a list of fourteen. The further element in the finals required them to complete a separate dialogue under time constraints and to then read aloud the new dialogue before the judges.

Westcliff High School for Boys won the following categories:

Year 7 French – Theo and Ayan

Year 9 Spanish – Solonas and James

Year 9 German – Zach and Hunter

Year 10 Spanish – Edward and Ayaan

Year 10 German – Ishan and Harry

Ian and Nicholas claimed second place in Year 7 Spanish, Shrihan and Krish claimed second place in Year 7 German, whilst Musa and Tide claimed third place in Year 8 French. Yaseen and David competed in the Year 8 French category, and Zebadiyah and Saif competed in the Year 10 French category. Competition was fierce, and all had strong performances.

Regardless of whether our pupils won or not, the School is incredibly proud of all of our competitors. The competition was a wonderful celebration of language learning, it was excellent to see so many pupils from other schools enjoying languages, and it was a pleasure to take part. We look forward to competing again and hopefully to more success in 2027.

With thanks to Mr Shulton and Ms McKeown for accompanying the trip to Colchester and to all the teachers in the Modern Foreign Languages Department for encouraging and inspiring our incredible linguists.