For many, one of the hardest things that they have to do in life is speak in front of large groups. I know many very successful people who can not handle the thought of getting up and speaking in front of others. What makes this even harder is when the group you are speaking to is a group of your peers.

Today, we saw six Year 7 boys take up this challenge in the finals of our oratory competition. Each boy in Year 7 prepared and were judged on a speech in their English class. Each teacher then chose one representative from their class to go into these finals

I was very luck to be invited to be an adjudicator at this competition and I was accompanied by Mr Ross Tarlinton (Headmaster) and Mr Paul Brooks (Director of Teaching and Learning). In speaking with these men both during the competition and afterwards, we all agreed that the quality of speakers was superb.

Today’s final included the boys doing their prepared speech and then after that being given 1 minute to prepare a 1 minutes impromptu speech. In particular, this second challenge was a huge ask … remember … in front of 150 other boys!

A huge congratulations to all six of the boys who represented their classes. They really did a fabulous job.

There does, however, have to be a winner in such a competition and while it was extremely close between the boys, full credit has to go to Matthew Toomey (Lane Cove) who won the competition for 2012. He spoke about his hobby of cricket in his prepared speech and showed great creativity in his impromptu.

Second place went to Ethan Annesley (Tennyson Point) who spoke about Table Tennis while third place went to Lachlan Champley (Umina Beach) who spoke about the Wests Tigers. These boys were exceptionally good but got pipped at the post by Matthew.

A big congratulations to all the boys in Year 7 who each gave it their best in their clsses.

Photo 1: Alec Mackinnon (North Bondi)

Photo 2: Matthew Toomey (Lane Cove)

Photo 3: Our six finalists, Joe Lawman (Seaforth), Luke Hodgson (Ryde), Matthew Toomey (Lane Cove), Lachlan Champley (Umina Beach), Alec Mackinnon (North Bondi) and Ethan Annesley (Tennyson Point).