#steemitschool Writing A speech

Hello Everyone 

Today I would like to share with you a speech that I wrote 2 days ago as part of my English homework.

My English teacher gave me and the rest of the students in the class a task. The task was to write a speech, directed at the governors of the school, that was either for or against shortening the Christmas holiday to just one week (British Christmas holiday is currently 2 weeks). I decided to write against reducing the Christmas holiday and this was what I wrote.

Hello Everyone, my name is Matthew Young. I am here to speak to you all about the recent talks about reducing the Christmas holidays to just one week. 

I believe that this is a really bad idea. I am disgusted with the ignorance of the school governors. To many people, Christmas is the best time of the year, where many families come together.

Christmas is a time to recharge our bodies from all the hard work we have been doing in and outside of school. If you cut it to just one week, everything will be extremely rushed leaving you no time to sit back and relax. DR Kingston recently did an experiment testing the morale of the students who had two weeks off, against those who had just one week off. The students who had two weeks off were considerably happier and also got much higher grades as well. The average grade for the students, who had 2 weeks off, was 50/60 and the students who had only one week off got an average of 35/60.

Stephen aged 14 said that he spends about 5 days of the Christmas holidays up in Scotland with his nan and grandad - without the extra week off he wouldn't be able to do it. Imagine the disappointment on the grandparent's faces.  Imagine the sadness of the boy who can't see his grandparents at Christmas. Imagine the guilt that has been put on the parents because YOU thought it was a good idea to cut the Christmas holiday. Stephen will not be the only one affected.

Also, if you gave us only 1 week, not only will it affect the students it will also affect the teachers. A lot of teachers use the Christmas period to plan our lessons and mark any work that needs to be marked. The extra week allows them to produce more quality lessons instead of rushed lessons from stressed teachers. I hope that the school governors know that they are not just affecting the students by making this decision.

Also in January the weather can be quite extreme. Ice on the road, ice on the pavement, ice on the cars and it is absolutely freezing. This sort of weather is such a hazard. A local hospital says that in January just over 50% of beds are given to people who have slipped on ice while trying to get to their work place. Do you really believe that we should put kids' safety at risk for one more week of school education? Going back to the risks of extreme weather, I take you back to the first risk of ice on the roads. Jimmy aged 13, was in the back of a car on his way to his local high school when his mother lost control of the car because of ice. The car flipped over.  Fortunately, they both managed to survive the awful crash but sadly Jimmy had to have his leg amputated and is now stuck at home confined to the living room. Imagine if this was YOU.  Imagine if this was someone YOU cared about. Imagine if you knew YOU had caused this.

Reducing the holidays could have a bigger affect than anyone could ever imagine.

Thank you for listening to my side.

(The statistics and stories in this speech are fictional.)

Any constructive criticism is welcome

Thank you for reading 

Matthew