THREE Colwyn Bay Rydal pupils have made it through to the regional final of the Rotary International Youth Speaks competition.

Eddie Hackman, Morgan Kendall and Richard Wolfendale, pupils at Rydal Penrhos school, competed against the best young debaters in the competition last week.

The contest is designed to encourage speaking and presentation skills in young people.

The judges looked at criteria such as team work, the speaker’s ability to present and develop a topic, and the chairperson’s management of the meeting.

Eddie opened the presentation, as chairperson, posing the question: “Are flags related to politics?”, before Richard took on the role of main speaker and delivered a speech, engaging the audience throughout.

The presentation was concluded by Morgan as the “Vote of Thanks”.

The trio received numerous complimentary comments from the panel of judges and were crowned overall winners of the competition.

They will now compete in the district final taking place in March at Glyndwr University, Wrexham.

Senior School Head Sally Ann Harding, said: “There are few things more important in life than the ability to speak confidently, convincingly and clearly in public.

“Morgan, Kendall and Richard gave an incredibly good account of themselves and they should be very proud, but perhaps more importantly they are just as eloquent in and around the school on a daily basis.

“Hopefully this is the start of great things to come and we wish them the very best of luck in the district final.”