Braving the wind and rain, the Year 9 and 10 students gathered together on Tuesday, 15 October to listen to and enjoy the variety of speakers who participated in the Speech Competition. All nervousness left our speakers as they faced the audience to speak on a variety of issues ranging from teenage self-perception to the Palestinian conflict. This year, we introduced Slam or Performance Poetry as well into the competition and had some powerful presentations from students.

Eric Choi gets the Mrs. Devitt Trophy for the top speaker at year 10 closely followed by Prasan Gurunathan with his emotive Slam poem as the runner up.  The Miss Brown Trophy for the top year 9 speaker goes to Lily Moore, with Georgia Williams coming up close as runner up.  Our Principal, Mr Moore, acknowledged the speakers’ efforts by presenting them with gift vouchers, while their Kotuku badges will be presented at assembly.

The judges, Ms. Northwood of Te Atatu Intermediate, and Ms. Nassery, an ex-Rutherfordian and ex-lawyer who is now in education, were kept busy as the quality of the speeches and slam poems were very high.  The audience walked away discussing the merits and challenges of public speaking, which is always a good outcome in an event of this kind.