Public Speaking

'Rostrum  Voice of Youth 2022'

On Sunday 29 May, Tom, Roháhn, Daniel, Will and I competed in a public speaking competition at Mount Scopus College in Burwood, representing St Bede’s. We had to prepare a six minute speech about an broad topic such as “Start a Conversation”. I decided to “Start a Conversation” about racism in my speech. We were also up against many highly regarded schools and we did quite well overall. It was a great experience.

Xander 8.2

Rostrum was an entertaining competition in which we could practise our public speaking skills and listen to speeches from other schools. Tomas Polintan 9.2

I signed up for the Rostrum competition to better my public speaking skills and also get a message out about climate change. On the day it was very nerve wracking and in my heat, the standard was set very high by the first two speeches. I got up and spoke, very nervously, but everyone wanted each other do well, so I enjoyed speaking. After that, I was privileged to see some great speeches, ones about climate change, mental health, racism and women’s rights. The whole experience was great fun, but also taught me a lot and I would definitely recommend it to anyone.

William Aufner 8.9

On May 29 the Rostrum team and I went to Mount Scopus Secondary school where we competed to get a chance of getting to the National Finals and winning $200. When the competition began we were put into different heats and different class rooms. My topic was “Start a Conversation”. I choose to “Start a Conversation” about our Indigenous people. I talked about how Indigenous people of Australia have been incarcerated and discriminated for far too long. You speech had to go for 6 minutes and I managed 5:59. Two students out of the heat (if they won their heat) moved onto Semi-Finals. Myself and another student from another school got into the next heat; the Semi Finals. Only 8 juniors were in Semi-Finals. For this you had to repeat your original speech and an impromptu speech for 3 minutes with a 15 minute preparation time. My prepared speech time was right on target with 6:00, but my impromptu on the other hand was 1:54 seconds. Unfortunately I didn’t get into finals but the experience was so much fun and I really appreciate all the hard work and preparation Miss Rizakis did to get us there. Thank you.

Roháhn Marie-Jeanne 8.2 

Rostrum was a great experience and I improved my public speaking skills a lot. It was great to finally read out our speeches which we had spent weeks on. One of the best parts about Rostrum was that we got to hear other people’s speeches too which were interesting and different. The day was lots of fun and I got to know all the members of the St Bede’s public speaking team.

Daniel Athaide 8.4