A good speech, like a pencil, has to have a point.

Year 7 students spent Term 3 learning to persuade, inform and entertain an audience. Students selected their topic, crafted, and then delivered, a 2-3 minute speech. After classroom and whanau level heats, two speakers from each whanau were selected to compete in the Year 7 Speech competition. 

The judging panel included two past pupils who are currently attending Albany Senior High School - Mackenzie Hill and Jayme Saunders, and we would like to extend our thanks to them for returning to AJHS and supporting our students.

The speech finalists spoke in front of all fifteen of our homeroom classes - an audience of well over 300 people (on our recent Heroes and Villains day). That size of audience would wobble many seasoned adults, but our finalists did themselves proud.

Our speech finalists were:

• Lela Licina - The Negative Influence of Social Media
• Robert Clarke - The Olden Days
• Adam West - Mushrooms
• Emma Lim - Words Matter
• Zoe Gao - Why We Should Protect Endangered Animals
• Sarah Attraqchi - Why Tik Tok Should Be Banned
• Ambra Mazza -The Titanic
• Sarah Hyatt - The Gift of Imperfection

And the winners…

• First place - Sarah Attraqchi from Kiwi, Why Tik Tok Should Be Banned
• Second place - Ambra Mazza from Tui, The Titanic
• Third place - Sarah Hyatt from Makomako, The Gift of Imperfection