Two Bermudian private schools faced students from around the world during an international public-speaking competition.

Bermuda High School for Girls and Saltus Grammar School had three combined teams that competed in the International Independent Schools Public Speaking Competition.

This year the students went up against 113 competitors during a meet in Vancouver, Canada.

Each pupil competed in three events in two rounds, which included after-dinner speaking, persuasive speaking, interpretive reading, dramatic interpretation, parliamentary debate, cross-ex debate, impromptu speaking and news podcast.

Helena Thomas, from BHS, advanced to the finals in the News Podcast category after coming first in the preliminaries.

Her colleague, Varshini Srinivasan, also from BHS, made it to the finals in the Impromptu Speaking category.

The BHS team of Helena, Varshini and Hannah Taylor finished as the top overseas team, the second year in a row that BHS has received this honour, and were awarded the St John’s Ravenscourt Shield.

Helena was also given the Phil Hansen Award, which is awarded annually to the pupil whom the competitors viewed as the one to best represent the spirit of the competition.

Voted in by their peers, this award goes to the competitor who was friendly, helpful and an overall team player.

The BHS roster was filled out by competitor Vikashni Ragunathan and coached by Jennifer Burland Adams.

Saltus was represented by Catalina Gamero, Christopher Madeiros, Callie Lucas, Lorenzo Pesci and Noah Maranzana and coached by Christianna Dakin.

Both schools will co-host the 2024 International Independent Schools Public Speaking Competition and expect more than 150 pupils and coaches to travel to Bermuda to compete.

• Sponsorship opportunities are available for the competition. For more information, e-mail IISPSC2024@gmail.com