The year 5 competitors left to right, Billy Bathgate (runner-up), Ella Sannazzaro (winner), Ivy Walker, Kesler Smith, Elarnia Wu and Alex Presser, with adjudicators Mrs Anne Sanderson, Mrs Vicki Somerville and Mr Abb McAlister.
Last week St Pat’s Primary School hosted the Archdiocesan Western Region Public Speaking finals, where students in grades 3-6 from Catholic schools in the Western Region compete.
The competition is run annually. It starts at class level and students are provided with topics to prepare a 2 or 3 minute speech on.
In years 3 and 4 the speech needs to be 2 minutes, and years 5 and 6 the speech needs to be 3 minutes. The students compete against each other at school level and then two students are chosen to go to the next level, which is an inter-school competition.
Christine Baron, St Patrick’s Primary School Principal explained to the Times more about how the competition works.
“There are 12 schools in the Western Region, and the schools are paired off. Ours is McAuley Catholic College. Then one student is selected from each year level from that level of competition, and they move on to the Western Region finals.”
“It was our turn to host the finals, we share it around the Western Region schools.”
“Each year level has six students representing and they are from across all of the Western Region schools. From that level, a Winner and a Runner Up is chosen to go through to the Archdiocesan Public Speaking competition which is the best out of the Western, Northern and Southern Catholic schools in our Canberra/Goulburn Archdiocese.”
“This final competition will be held at Sacred Heart Central School in Cootamundra on September 12,” Christine said. “The speeches were of a high standard and were well delivered. Many thanks to our adjudicators Mrs Anne Saunderson, Mrs Vicki Somerville and Mr Abb McAlister for volunteering their time to adjudicate the speeches,” Christine said.
The topics for the speeches in last weeks Finals were:
Year 3: If animals could talk, what would they say?
Year 4: A much needed invention
Year 5: What would I do with a time machine
Year 6: What mistakes teach us
– Emily Flint
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