International Women’s Day at Chailey School

Students started with a public speaking competition on Tuesday, February 26, with judges including headteacher Helen Kay, and Fliss Gibbons and Kate Natkiel, footballers from the Brighton and Hove women’s team.

Six pairs of year seven students wrote a speech on issues affecting girls around the world, covering topics such as period poverty, forced marriage and street harrassment.

Mrs Kay said: “All the speeches were excellent but the judging panel chose a speech by Amelia Firth and Amy Baker as the winners.

“They wrote a powerful speech about girls’ access to education and really impressed the judges with their meticulous research and passionate delivery.

“They then delivered their speech to the whole school community in assemblies.

“We are proud that we celebrate International Women’s Day every year at Chailey School.”

Students collected period supplies for food banks, and arranged a non-school uniform day to raise money for the charity Bloody Good Period, who distribute period supplies to refugees and asylum seekers.

They also looked at female artists as part of an ongoing protest art study in art lessons, and took part in an activity about feminism, working in pairs to write a speech aiming to convince the judges that their woman should be the Chailey Icon.

Mrs Kay said: “The theme of this year’s women’s day is “balance for better”- working to achieve a better gender balance.

“The BBC recently showed a series of programmes which culminated in a public vote for the twentieth century icon.

“Although some of the nominees were women, none of the finalists were so we decided to choose our icon from a list of female nominees.

“All the girls delivered excellent and convincing speeches and the judges chose two winners. Bella Thwaites and Edi Xavier-Venn were chosen as having delivered the most convincing speech about Virginia Woolf, and Emily Gywnn and Mia Johns represented who the judges decided was the most deserving woman - Tu YouYou.