Double Speech Win For Saint Kentigern

Success continues for talented speech makers, Sam McLeod (Year 8) from the Boys’ School and Nora Caffery (Year 7) from the Girls’ School. Having both earlier won their categories in the local round of the Auckland Primary Principals’ Association (APPA) Rehu Tai Festival of Oral Language, last night they both went on to jointly win the Auckland competition!

Students at both the Boys’ School and Girls’ School are actively encouraged to be confident public speakers. Oral language covers many facets of our student’s lives and the Rehu Tai festival is a way to embrace and celebrate the diversity of oral language within our community; both culturally and generationally. The event was open to students in Years 5–8 in the four streams of Persuasive Speech, Spoken Word, Flash Talk and Rap. Each stream had its own judging criteria based on speech construction, presentation and delivery, content, language, and vocal inclination.

In last night’s final round, approximately 20 contestants from around Auckland presented their work and the standard was extremely high on a broad range of topics.

Sam was in the Persuasive Speech category and spoke with great emotion about resilience and the need to ‘bounce back’ when faced with challenges. Nora chose the Spoken Word category with her piece entitled, 'Do You Know What You Feel?' Nora, too, had the clarity and emotion to engage the audience.

We were very proud when both Saint Kentigern students were awarded joint First overall. Even more exciting is one of them will be chosen to present their speech at a Ted X event later in November. We will look forward to this amazing opportunity for one of our students!

The Rehu Tai Festival of Oral Language
The Festival began in 2015 in Papakura as a way to celebrate the diversity of oral language within their community. The name Rehu Tai, meaning sea spray, was gifted by local businessman and educator Dean Grace. Rehu Tai, in relation to speech, means if you are talking with passion the spittle from your mouth flies like sea spray!  This is indeed something witnessed on marae where kaumatua speak with this kind of passion while in full delivery of their korero!