Course Overview

Bookings have closed for Term #2 – please register your interest here if you’re interested in joining for Term #3!

Key Features

Runs over 1-hour, 1.5-hour and 2-hour weekly sessions, depending on venue
Designed for all Year 1 students and inexperienced Year 2 students
Focus on developing presentation skills by spending the most time preparing and presenting speeches
Recognises students’ developmental stage and places emphasis on practising speeches and speaking activities rather than theory
Similar structure each week – students begin with an activity, run through a new piece of theory and consolidate with a practical speaking task
High priority is placed on a supportive and nurturing learning environment
Small classes to ensure everyone can practice and receive plenty of feedback

If you’re looking for something with more complex content, you may want to give our Presentation Skills Lions program a try!

Term Focuses

Our Leopards program changes every term, meaning that there is something different to focus on throughout the school year – in particular, students will cover the following in 2025:

Term #1 – Speech Structure and how to prepare a presentation;
Term #2 – Storytelling and the art of telling an engaging narrative;
Term #3 – Speaking Manner and how different techniques can help persuades audiences; and
Term #4 – Descriptive Speeches that inform your audience.

While it’s recommended that students try each of these focuses, and the emphases change each year, there is no particular need to start with any of them, meaning students are welcome to join at any time!

More Information

Discover how our in-person and online programs differ on our FAQs
Learn more about the SSA Credits & Refund policy
Find out more about the type of things students cover in our blog

When you’re giving a speech, the audience will spend around 93% of its time focusing on your physical and verbal manner. This makes how you say things often even more important than what you say – if this isn’t done right, they could miss out on what is being said altogether!

Utilising activity-based, experiential learning, students will spend most of their time in this program focusing on developing their own personal speaking manner, helping them engage with their audiences to a much greater degree (whilst also finding a moment here and there to cover the other essential elements of a speech like structure) and present their speeches with style.

After completing the Presentation Skills Leopards Speaking Manner program, students should:

have been exposed to the fundamental principles of presentation skills, such as speech structure;
understand various elements of speaking manner, and be able to put those elements into practice; and
have been given multiple opportunities to present to their class in each and every session.

Our Presentation Skills Leopards course is a mixed-experience program designed for all Year 1 students and inexperienced Year 2 students.

Generally, we would recommend the following students to attend the program:

Students in Year 1 or Year 2 who have no public speaking experience (who can join from any term – there’s no requirement to participate at the beginning of the year);
Students who have already completed one or more terms of Leopards, and haven’t been recommended to move up to Lions (the focus changes every term, so there’s no repetition of content for students);
Students who have previously completed either our Speaking Skills Butterflies or Speaking Skills Bumblebees workshops for Kindy kids; and
Any students in Year 1 who have previously tried our Presentation Skills Tabby Cats or Presentation Skills Tigers holiday workshops and have been recommended to join by their coach!

We usually recommend that students continue with Presentation Skills Leopards throughout Year 1 – there is a different focus every term, so there’s always something new for students to learn – before moving up to Presentation Skills Lions in Year 2.

Please get in touch if you’d like to discuss what’s best for your child!

Revision of Fundamental Concepts

The program starts with a succinct (but critical) revision of essential concepts, including audience engagement and speech structure.

This helps prepare students for the rest of the program and ensures that everyone starts on a similar level, especially students who have not been exposed to public speaking before.

Speaking Manner Essentials

For the Speaking Manner focus for our Leopards program, students will generally cover:

Topic #1 – Introductions, icebreakers & tackling the fundamentals of manner
Topic #2 – The essentials of speech structure
Topic #3 – Building an individual tone and expression bank to further develop speaking manner
Topic #4 – Structure of a speech and speech body
Topic #5 – Pulling each concept together and forming an engaging end-of-term presentation

Practice Speeches & Activities

The remainder of the program introduces them to various concepts and activities that will help enhance their presentation skills, which are, in turn, reinforced through regular practice speeches and feedback!

End of Term Presentation

Each term ends with a presentation, either to peers or parents (depending on the venue). This is an excellent opportunity for students to showcase what they’ve learned over the course of the term and continue their confidence-building journey.

Students generally spend the last couple of sessions preparing and practising their speeches for the presentation.

Coaches will also provide an update to parents on what was covered during the term, as well as what comes next for the students’ public speaking journeys.

This program is not suitable for nearly every Kindy student.

We have specifically designed two programs for our tiny tots:

Speaking Skills Butterflies, which runs during the school term; and
Speaking Skills Bumblebees, which runs over two days during the school holidays.

Given the age group involved, these programs are only in-person – we don’t run any Kindy programs online.

Our Leopards, Lions, Tabby Cats and Tigers programs are designed for Year 1 – 2 students. They require students to be able to write at least simple sentences, as well as read their own handwriting and instructions on the board, which most Kindergarten students are unfortunately not able to do. This may well lead to those students feeling inferior to the rest of the class, creating new fears around public speaking – the exact opposite of what we hope to achieve.

As a mixed-experience program, our Presentation Skills Leopards program is designed to be completed multiple times – with a different focus every term, there’s always something new for students to take away from the program!

Presentation Skills Leopards has four focuses, so once students have completed a full year of classes (or complete Year 1), they are encouraged to move up to our Presentation Skills Lions class, which covers more advanced content.

However, if you’re looking for something during a school break, you may want to try one of our holiday workshops, such as Presentation Skills Tigers, which builds on the skills learned during the term.

Check out our Frequently Asked Questions, or get in touch using our contact form to learn more!