Public Speaking

Earlier this year seven students nominated themselves to participate in public speaking coaching, with the aim of presenting at the Narrabri Eisteddfod.

Halle Emmerson, Elsie Woolford, William Stuart, Lilly Thompson, Jasmine Weekes, Riley Sparrow and Grace Lennox all completed a 6 week course via Zoom through Australian Speaking Schools in Sydney.

Students could choose between the two topics of ‘The person who inspires me most’ and ‘Cities should be for people and not cars’.

All students did a wonderful job writing their speeches and learning how to deliver them to an audience. Lilly Thompson placed first, Riley Sparrow placed second and Grace Lennox placed equal third.

We had our own auditions at school to compete at the Multicultural Perspectives Public Speaking Competition. Lilly Thompson and William Stuart were successful and so began the task of writing a new speech.

They chose the topics, ‘Stronger Together’ and ‘A safe place to call home’ respectively.

On Thursday we travelled to Warialda Public School and competed against students from Moree, Barraba and Warialda. They both delivered their speeches beautifully, displaying everything we’ve been working on and practising.

The topic of the impromptu speech part was ‘A New Idea’. While this was nerve wracking, both students did such a great job presenting their speeches after having just 5 minutes to prepare.

Lilly was awarded a Certificate of Commendation. The adjudicator told us it was a very close call and Lilly only missed out on winning by a “whisker”.

I would like to thank all students and their families for all of the time it took to practice and prepare, and for their commitment to the process.

We have all learnt a lot, received some great feedback and enjoyed ourselves.