4 July 2024
On Tuesday 2 July, Lower Sixth students took part in a workshop, run by external experts, designed to increase their skill and confidence in public speaking. The day concluded with a competition, which was won by Keira (pictured with runners up Zoe and Mya), who describes this valuable experience below.
Keira, Lower Sixth
At the start of the day, split into four groups, we participated in activities aimed at improving our confidence when speaking to large groups of people. These included lots of collaborative games and creating our own speeches, which we presented in small focus groups, receiving feedback from other students. We then looked in depth at the form and structure of speeches, learning what makes an engaging and effective speech, as well as the craft of good delivery. Armed with this knowledge, we each wrote a speech of around one and a half minutes’ length, shared it with our group and received really useful feedback from our group leader. After this, the group leaders chose the 12 students they felt had delivered the best speeches to present to the whole year group.
Everyone gave incredibly engaging and well thought out speeches, with topics ranging from mental health to the general perception of cheerleaders in today’s society. I chose to speak about nudge theory, a behavioural economic theory which explains how businesses influence consumer purchases.
I think all of us in the Lower Sixth would agree we left the workshop with increased confidence and lots of valuable information to use in the Upper Sixth and beyond.