Having clear and confident communicators was one of our three aims on the school development plan for this academic year. Being able to convey your points coherently and cohesively whether written and spoken is an integral part of education and professional life.
With this in mind, Year 5 and 6 had the opportunity to be trained by Deon Newbronner, who runs a company specialising in public speaking and is also a WPS parent. He stressed two important parts to public speaking. Firstly, public speaking is all about purpose, having an intent, giving the audience a message to take away and potentially act upon. Secondly, public speaking is about being you, it is not putting on an act and adopting a persona because it is not a drama piece. The pupils had several workshops throughout the year, learning all about public speaking and having the opportunity to practise how to be themselves in front of an audience.
All the hard work needed to be put into practice and what better way than to have our very own WPS TED talks. The children had to think carefully about what they would like to talk about in a short presentation and prepare to deliver it in front of their peers and parents. There was a huge range of highly interesting and meaningful topics including the salary gap between men and women, human rights, global natural disasters, physical and social advantages of playing a sport and gaming, just to name a few.
The pupils delivered their speeches very well and it is clear that there are some wonderful public speakers in the making.
