05 Jul 2019
Congratulations to both Grace Mahon and Patrice Sivills who competed in State Finals last week for public speaking. Both speakers were impressive and represented their school and region brilliantly.
The 2019 Plain English competition on Friday was Grace’s swan song on a brilliant journey of public speaking over the past 6 years. She has made it through to many state finals across a variety of competitions, clearly reflecting the commitment and determination that Grace has put into developing her skills over time. The hours of preparation and rehearsal can only be truly understood by other public speakers (and their parents), and also the highs and lows of winning and losing.
Its student’s like Grace that motivate others like Patrice to put themselves through the torture of public speaking, and develop the resilience to pick themselves up after a loss, and start all over again, to be excited about a new speech.
This was Patrice’s first state final and I am certain that it won’t be the last. The amount of people who came up to me, to his mother and to Patrice himself to say how impressed they were by his speech was humbling and I am sure a great motivation for Patrice to start thinking about his next great speech!
