PASSIONATE speeches about the importance of learning a foreign language saw a group of teenagers named winners of a national public speaking competition.

Gorak Rajesh, Charlie Price and Harry Hesketh-Paterson, who are Year 9 pupils at Colchester Royal Grammar School, in Lexden Road, won the intermediate section of the Rotary public speaking competition, Youth Speaks.

Gorak, who is learning French, German and Latin, said: “We were feeling nervous, but we were prepared.

“We were really proud of what we had done. It felt really good.”

This is the first time the school has won the competition.

Gorak added: “It is the last year for our headmaster, so we thought it would be really nice thing for us to win this year.”

Gorak also took the title of best speaker in the competition.

He said: “I thought I had spoken well, so I thought I had a good chance. I was really thrilled when I won.”

They competed in four rounds before reaching the final in which each of the boys had to give a speech and took questions from the floor.