The National Voice Box Competition
In November 2016 the Speech and Language therapy team at Mary Hare ran the Voice box competition at the secondary school. This is a nation-wide joke telling competition set up by the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT), where schools are invited to find their pupils' funniest joke and send it to the RCSLT. A judging panel chooses the best jokes, and shortlists pupils to attend a grand final in London at the Speaker House.
The speech therapy team created a PowerPoint to tell the school about the competition in an assembly, set up a station in the therapy department for pupils to write and post their jokes, and worked on joke telling skills in therapy and English lessons in preparation for the competition. We received over 70 joke entries from a variety of year groups, and following judging by our Principal, Mr Gale, sent off Chloe Burton’s joke as the overall winner from Mary Hare. Her joke, was shortlisted and she was invited along with her Speech Therapist and family to attend the grand final!
On the 29th March, Chloe, Mrs Clements and Mrs Burton travelled up to London to attend the grand finale at the Speakers House in Westminster. We were treated to a lovely lunch with views over the Thames and a tour of Westminster Palace. After lunch the competition took place. 20 children from across the country competed in the final competition. Chloe did extremely well, telling her joke to the audience (a joke that she had written herself!)
What do tennis players drink at Wimbledon? (DEUCE!)
We are very proud that Chloe made the top twenty in the country and that she represented Mary Hare at this prestigious event. She even met her local MP (Jeff Smith) who had popped over from the House of commons to meet her!
Congratulations!
Photo credit: Geoff Wilson