Senior School Reflections

'Speak with Power' Workshop Student Reflections

This week, our Year 5 and 6 students had their second Speak with Power incursion with Ron Thomas. It was fantastic to see the progress our students have made from the first week to the second. They are learning a lot of valuable skills, and we are certainly looking forward to seeing their next round of speeches! Here’s what some of our students have to say about the program…

Maximilian

On the 11th October, we had our second SPEAK WITH POWER incursion with the amazing Mr T. It was an amazing experience for me as it was so much fun to get up there and present our speech. This week, we all gave a speech about ourselves that we had prepared for homework. It was so much fun watching everyone give their speech and learn a little more about our fellow classmates. What was even better is that Mr T chose the two most confident and best prepared speech makers to be the master of ceremonies next week, and that was me, Maximillian and Charlotte! I am so pumped for our next incursion, as I had so much fun this time, and I will surely have a blast next time.

Charlotte

Over the last couple of weeks, we have been doing a public speaking incursion with Mr “CLEAN THE DECK! MAN OVERBOARD!”, Ron Thomas. On Tuesday, we were doing speeches for two minutes about ourselves. We needed an attention grabber, four interesting things about ourselves and a conclusion. Everyone played a different role.  We all had to speak; there were two timers, one person looking for ‘golden moments’ and a person looking for ‘static’, that’s picking up when we said “ um”, “uhh”, or “like”, and not forgetting the MCs, who introduced the person who was about to do a speech.

Pip

‘Speak with Power’ is such a great incursion! I highly recommend it because you get so much more confident, and Ron Thomas is a great teacher, and I can't wait to have two more sessions with him.

‘Speak with Power’ is a great way to learn to make a great speech without all the ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ (which are static). On Tuesday, we delivered speeches about ourselves, and it was really fun to listen to all our peers. I can't wait for next week, and I hope that everybody feels confident!

Callum

So far, the Speak with Power lessons with Mr T have been great; it has helped me with public speaking and how to structure a speech that keeps the audience interested. It helps you become more confident and has helped me build stronger speeches and advance my tone and expressions. Mr T is very engaging and comes up with ways to engage with us, and one of his games that he has introduced to us is ‘ The Pirate Game‘ , where he dresses up like a pirate and yells different things for us to do. If you are too slow to do it, you are out, and we go until there is one winner, so far that has been Maximillian and Cooper. I am really enjoying the program because I learned that if you try to talk to something that is far away, it will help project your voice.

Victor

We will have 4 Speak with Power incursions. The teacher who instructs us is called Ron Thomas. He taught us everything we needed to learn about public speaking. He has taught us so many things that I didn’t know, and it has also helped me understand the difference between a speech and a presentation. l always thought a speech was the same as a presentation, but they're completely different things. I feel like the most important thing that he taught us was the different and amazing techniques to use in our speeches. 

Oscar

On Tuesday, the Year 5s and 6s had their second ‘Speak with Power’ incursion. I thought we all had a good time. Mr T was very nice. My favourite thing was answering a question about my friend’s speech, and I got a lolly! I like going out in front of the whole class to give my speech. It was very fun. I like Mr T. He is a great guy, and I like the activities that we do together.

Xavier

In the ‘Speak with Power’ incursion, a man called Ron Thomas came to talk about making speeches. First, we started off with a pirate game which attracted the audience, which is step one of delivering your speech. Second, we need to project our voice to the end of the room so everyone can hear and also evaluate you on how confidently you talk and speak. A good stance makes the audience engaged instead of just wiggling around and fidgeting. He gave me some feedback on how to improve, and I really appreciated it. 

Alexander

What I really enjoyed about the ‘Speak with Power’ incursion on Tuesday was that it got me prepared for my leadership speech later this year. Mr T gave me so many tips about my speech. He encouraged everyone a lot. I learnt about projection and volume, which was great, and I also learned how to get the audience's attention. 

Benji

“ARR!!! On the deck!” Everyone ran on deck, aka, the floor. We are doing the ‘Speak with Power’ program, and Mr T gives us a lot of power! He likes us calling him Mr T, and he acted like a pirate. After the game, he gave some of us monitor roles. Not everyone gets a role; luckily, I got one, but everyone gets to do their speech.  

Spencer

So far, I have loved doing our speeches; it’s been a really good opportunity to learn and practice public speaking and to become really confident and prepared for our captaincy speeches that we will be doing soon. I hope to learn as much as I can from the incursion. Preparing our speeches, listening to everyone applaud you, and getting good feedback from my classmates has made me so happy.

Ms Clare Smith

Senior Leader