Around the schools
Queenstown Girls’ High School public speakers Nande Dube and Jabu Seti made their school, Komani and the Eastern Cape proud when they took first place at the National Schools Moot Court Competition which was held at the Pretoria High Court.
The competition saw the GHS pupils having to role-play as mini advocates. According to Dube, they were given a hypothetical case which they had to present to fourth-year law students and in the finals they had to present their case to the Constitutional Court.
Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng presided and a retired criminal law judge from the UK, among other people, was also part of the panel.
Seti said they were given their cases in February, but they started to prepare for the competition in July.
According to Seti, they approached law firms in Komani but most firms rejected them. Two law firms, however, helped them. She said she came from a family of lawyers who also assisted them and when they won the provincial trials, they were supposed to receive coaching supplied by the province.
Seti said, “Unlike other schools in the Eastern Cape, we were not given coaches. When we went to Pretoria, we were just two high school pupils who had to pretend to be lawyers, but without training and we knew nothing about law or the constitution.
“The teacher we went with, had a friend who was a fourth-year law student who helped us. I think our winning formula was that we did not sleep. That was our motto – champions never sleep. We went to sleep at midnight, woke up at 3.30am and had breakfast at 8am.”
Dube added that entering the competition without training did not dampen their spirits. On the contrary, they wanted to win the competition even more and this drove them to reach the finals where they broke down in tears when their number was called.
“Thoughts of losing were there. We had not received the same training as the other schools, but we realised while they were out enjoying Pretoria, we were training for nine straight hours. One of our coaches had just landed from a competition in Germany and came straight to coach us,” Dube said.
The girls also said they drew strength from prayer, friends, family and GHS.
Teacher Amanda Miles said when the school heard what the girls had to go through, they were extremely proud.
“It is an incredible achievement. Public speaking is not about who shouts the loudest, it is about critical thinking and these girls have shown great maturity,” Miles said.
GHS
Nande Dube and Jabu Seti, grade 11 pupils at Queenstown Girls’ High School, represented the Eastern Cape at the National Moot Court competition held at the Pretoria High Court. The girls were paired with Ezicungka High School and won against 38 top teams from around the country. Jabu was also awarded best oralist of the competition.
Rebecca Aylesbury, Erin Barraud and Sarah du Plessis from GHS played in the Hangklip High School golf day. Rebecca came third, scoring 39 points after shooting 33 over 18 holes in the individual Stableford competition. Erin scored 33 points to finish tenth in the competition.