KING S School Ely sixth formers narrowly missed out on a place in the regional round of a nationwide public speaking competition run by the English Speaking Union. Nouri Vergehese, Becky Hill and Jennifer Wightwick chose Am I Bovvered? as the title of t

KING'S School Ely sixth formers narrowly missed out on a place in the regional round of a nationwide public speaking competition run by the English Speaking Union.

Nouri Vergehese, Becky Hill and Jennifer Wightwick chose 'Am I Bovvered?' as the title of their topic - a reference to Lauren, the modern-day schoolgirl constantly troubled by current parlance, one of the characters created by Catherine Tate for her BBC TV show, whose writers include Aschlin Ditta, a former pupil at King's.

Nouri made a five-minute speech about the need to maintain standards of grammar, punctuation and spelling, Jennifer chaired questions from the floor and Becky gave a two-minute summary.

Their teacher, Ruth Crabtree, said: "Public speaking encourages self-confidence, clarity of thought, the importance of listening critically, awareness of important social and political issues and the ability to think on your feet."

The finals of the King's School's own annual inter-house debating competition takes place on Thursday, December 14 when the adjudicator will be Malcolm Moss, MP for North East Cambridgeshire.