When audiences listen to a speech, most of their attention – around 93% – is directed not to the actual words, but rather to your physical and verbal manner.  Given this, it is crucial to get this part of public speaking right to ensure that any audience is listening.

Across Term #2, our Public Speaking Penguins classes will be focusing on building our students’ speaking manner and helping them persuade their audiences using more interesting and engaging presentations.

Having students hone their manner and develop their own personal style of presentations is a powerful tool for building confidence and helping them feel comfortable in all speaking environments, allowing for them to thrive across a range of situations. This workshop gives students the opportunities to try out a range of manner techniques and to hone their own presentation style and personal brand.

For the most part, there is very little that separates our online and physical programs – both are interactive, cover the same theoretical concepts, and give students a range of opportunities to practice and develop their skills. Whilst some activities are different between the two, as some activities lend themselves better to physical or online classes, the actual learning outcomes remain the same for both classes.

Notably, the difference in price isn’t an indication of the quality of the program, or how much students will get out of the experience – both get the same amount of attention and care, and we’ve found some students develop better in an online environment.  The deviation instead is simply a result of the higher costs (such as venue hire) associated with running classes in-person.

Whilst children appear to not be at particularly high risk from COVID-19, SSA places their safety (and the safety of our coaches) as our highest priority.  This emphasis on safety is the first tier of our teaching policy.

We generally consider the risk of transmission at our programs to be very unlikely.  This is for three reasons:

1. From a general perspective, whilst children are not immune, they do show substantially milder symptoms than adults, and appear to catch and transmit the virus at lower rates.
2. Despite high vaccination levels, the Government is still acting cautiously in removing restrictions – most people who catch the virus are quarantined, as are any known close contacts, which has significantly limited the spread of the virus.
3. We have put in place a range of extra protections that are reviewed continuously for best practice, and seek to keep students as safe as possible.

We have prepared our COVID-19 Action Plan, which outlines the three methods we are using to keep students safe.

Whilst you are very welcome to read the Action Plan in full, the four elements are:

1. Vaccination – all of our onsite staff are fully vaccinated, so they pose a substantially reduced risk to our students;
2. Symptom Testing – whilst we instruct all parents not to send students displaying symptoms (or awaiting test results), we will be using temperature checks and coach training to ensure that any students who show symptoms are isolated and removed from programs;
3. Limited Exposure – there are a range of steps in place to help ensure that students (and parents) socially distance, and limit the chance of spreading the virus; and
4. Enhanced Sanitation – we have adopted hand and surface cleaning regimens to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Additionally, we will also be continuing to offer online programs for the foreseeable future. This will help ensure that parents and students who are uncomfortable with physical classes have an alternative that allows them to feel safe, whilst still receiving a quality education in public speaking and debating.

Please check out our COVID-19 Action Plan here, or get in touch if you have any questions!

Our Public Speaking Penguins course is a beginner level program.

This course assumes no particular knowledge – students are more than welcome to join the program with little (or even no) public speaking experience.  All students have to start somewhere, and there is no better place to do so than here.

That said, we usually recommend that students do all four terms of our Public Speaking Penguins program to ensure that they cover all the basics of public speaking!

That said, if your child has already completed our Public Speaking Hummingbirds holiday program, previously given our Public Speaking Wombats term program a try, has formal public speaking training from another provider, or is just more interested in debating, they should give our Debating Parrots program a shot.

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

Throughout the term, students will have the opportunity to:

• learn the fundamental concepts that underpin persuasive speeches, placing a particular emphasis on their speaking manner;
• be exposed to a range of different speaking activities, with the view to helping them develop both their confidence and good speaking habits; and
• practice their newfound skills in a nurturing environment with other students at a similar experience level.

Our classes vary in size for every workshop depending on how many bookings we receive – however, the maximum size of our Public Speaking Penguins class is around nine students with one coach.

If there aren’t any spots left, it’s usually because we’ve hit capacity – please get in touch with us and we’ll see what we can do about either opening an extra class, fitting your child into the existing class, or putting you on a waitlist in case any students pull out!

By the end of each program, students will have:

• a feedback sheet, prepared individually for them by their coach, which goes through what they’ve improved on, and what still needs some work;
• a certificate recognising their achievements;
• a course booklet that covers everything they’ve learned throughout the program;
• the speech that they prepared for their final presentations; and
• hopefully a better relationship with public speaking more generally!