“Words Have Power, Words Are Power, Words Could Be Your Power” Mohammed Qahtani

The Lind Smith Speech competition is a competition for the prep boys. Boys prepare a speech on a topic of their choice. Preliminary rounds are held during English lessons and boys vote for the speech, in their class, that they would most like to hear again. This year the winners of the preliminary rounds were Alex O, Dylan W, Isty C, Joshua P-C, Max H and Yadveer G. We were also delighted to share the competition with some great off-by- heart poems from the Pre-Prep; thank you Patrick M, Rory W, Sameehan S and Karam N. Congratulations Dylan and Sameehan on being overall winners, we look forward to hearing your poem and speech during our prize-giving celebrations.

This year all the speeches reflected the commitment, passion and awareness, of our boys, in the urgency needed to save our Planet. They were inspirational! From endangered animals; eradicating malaria; Tesla cars and the use of green-energy; plastic in our oceans; adopting not shopping for dogs and Alex O’s very clever and topical speech about whether parents should ask their children for permission before posting pictures of them on social media, the boys confidently delivered their messages. It seems Planet Earth has both many eco-warriors in her midst along with being in good hands. A global message from our developing global citizens was heard by us all. Dylan’s speech ‘Let’s Protect our Endangered Species’ was delivered confidently and clearly along with its powerful and hard-hitting message. The adjudicators felt that Dylan’s engaging and interesting speech and his confident delivery made him a clear winner. Congratulations, Dylan! They were also super-impressed with the courage and confidence shown by our Pre-Prep boys and Sameehan’s poem, which he wrote and learnt off-by-heart, earned him the top spot. Well done, Sameehan! We all enjoyed listening to them and certainly learnt a thing or too – in fact we have attached Alex’s O’s speech (with his permission) to this post – well-worth the read, Parents!

Should Parents Ask Their Children’s Permission Before Posting Pictures of Them Online?

Today, I am going to talk about whether or not parents should ask their children’s permission before sharing photographs of them online.

We live in a world where most people use the Internet. In recent years lots of companies, like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter have popped up. These services are all examples of social media.

Social media enables you to post photographs online and this is one of reasons it is so popular. Some people can be clever online, but some people can be quite stupid, like posting pouting photos of themselves all the time. Who would do that and why?

So, why do people post photos online at all? Social media can bring people together who don’t see each other very often. Sharing pictures online is a nice way to show them to family and friends. It’s also a nice way to keep memories to look back on – like that video of you when you were two throwing peas at your Mum because you didn’t want to eat them.

But there are some dangers to social media too. A bit like posting a letter into a post box. Once you’ve posted a picture online it will be out of your control. Someone else can download the picture and put it up on their website and this means your photo could be online forever, even if you don’t want it to be. Privacy settings should keep your picture safe, but there is no guarantee that they will.

So, should parents ask their children’s permission before posting photos of them online? Is it the parent’s job or their children to decide? Parents make decision to look after their children every day, so they should be responsible, but different parents will have different opinions about it. If you were to let the child decide, how old would they have to be?

I believe a child can make a sensible decision at six years old. Before the parents should keep photographs to themselves without posting them, because if an embarrassing photo were to turn up online after the child has grown up it could greatly affect their life, for instance when they’re looking for a job. How would our parents feel if we posted silly pictures of them online?

What do you think?

Alex O