Speech Competition
From left: Luke MacDonald, Cecelia Sawyers, Stella Melville, Willow Stevens (winner)
This week, we've had our speech finals, possibly the most simultaneously loved and hated time of the year - for both students and parents! Speeches sometimes get a bad rap for being out of fashion in this modern era and for the stress that that they can produce. Despite this, at Cust School we deliberately choose to focus on writing and presenting a speech every year, from New Entrants, right up to Year 8. Here's why:
Writing skills: Researching, crafting, editing, and re-crafting writing over a period of time, are skills that develop with practice. Contexts that are varied and relevant speed up this progress.
Presentation skills: As adults, we communicate in a variety of ways, depending on the situation. There are times that we need to speak in a formal situation, in front of groups of people - 21sts, weddings, job interviews, etc. This requires us to adapt our style of speech, tone, vocabulary, and body language. If we get these wrong, it can be embarrassing, or offensive!
Confidence: Pushing ourselves outside our comfort zone helps us grow. Although as a parent we naturally want to protect our children from discomfort, when we support them them to face something that they are worried about, their ability to face future challenges is strengthened. Doing hard things (even when it doesn't go as well as we'd like) helps us become resilient and confident. Speeches are a fantastic opportunity for teachers and whanau to actively teach the skills we need as teens and adults to manage nerves and work through difficult situations.
You can see our excellent speech finalists and winners in the attached photographs. Ka pai, tamariki!
