Assistant Principal - Teaching and Learning 

Rotary Speech Competition

This term, our senior Year 6 students have had the opportunity to try out for the Rotary Public Speaking Competition. Students interested in representing Karoo were provided with 'Topics for the 2022 Primary Schools Speech Competition', which included:

Participating schools were required to conduct their own Year 6 competition to establish the two students who would represent Karoo Primary School. All our Year 6 students were given 10-15 minutes to plan an impromptu 30 second speech on 1 of the topics listed above. All students were given the opportunity to work on a speech and students expressing a desire to represent Karoo at the Rotary Competition worked hard over a two-week period (with the support of Mrs Arkley), to further develop their speech, using the guidelines provided to help them.

Students worked on their speeches at home before finally presenting them to a panel of judges (including students, Year 6 teachers and our Learning Specialist and English Leader, Mrs Robyn Harris).  Finally, two students, Jake Walker and Isabelle Gillespie, were selected to represent Karoo.

The competition took place last Monday 8th August at the Performing Arts Centre at Rowville Secondary College (East Campus – Humphreys Way Rowville) and excitingly, Jake placed 1st and Isabelle, runner up!   Jake will now have the opportunity to compete further at a district level and will attend an official Rotary meeting where he will give his speech one more time and be awarded an individual trophy. 

When speaking to Jake about the experience, he commented, “I am proud that I performed it well and said my speech clearly. It feels good to have won and know that I’m brave and could say it in front of an audience.” Jake put a lot of effort into practicing and said that one helpful strategy he used was to “film yourself, because you can hear yourself and see what you are doing wrong and adjust.” Jake says he is “feeling confident and looking forward” to the district event.

For all students, this has been a fabulous learning experience, as they have improved their capacity to plan out an argument, explain their reasoning and do so in front of an audience, in a confident and articulate manner.

Ms Ashley Kuusela