By Bonny Burrows
For the first time, two students from the same school have taken out the district titles of the Lions Club Junior Public Speaking Competition.
Kooweerup Primary School students Bianca Wilson and Tynesha Pirotto recently won the Grade 3-4 and Grade 5-6 divisions of the competition respectively, against competitors Lang Lang and Bayles primary schools.
As a Grade 4 student, Bianca had to speak for exactly three minutes on the topic ‘If you had the chance to go anywhere, where would you go and what would you do when you got there? Would you go alone, who would you take and why this place?’
As a senior primary student, Tynesha was required to speak for four minutes, answering the question ‘If you could fix one problem in the world, what would you fix? How do you think you would fix it? What resources do you think you would need? Would you do it alone, if not who would you ask for help?’
The competition was held on 6 September at the Kooweerup Bowling Club in front of a crowd of 70 adults and the home school proved too good for its competitors.
Bianca won for her talk on Paris, while Tynesha wowed the judges with her passionate speech on the need for further education in Africa.
Kooweerup and District Lions Club member and past president Ron Payne said it was a big deal that two students from the same school had won their divisions.
“It’s the first time this has happened in the five years of the competition,” Mr Payne said.
“It says a lot about the school’s staff and the coaching.”
The judges, he said, were particularly impressed with 11-year-old Tyesha’s maturity and depth of knowledge.
“Tynesha is very passionate about the subject and knows a lot about it. That depth comes through when she speaks,” Mr Payne said.
“For someone so young, there was a lot of maturity in her talk.”
Tynesha said education in Africa was a serious problem.
“I thought that not enough people in the world were getting an education. I thought that would lead to more severe problems if we don’t fix that now,” Tynesha said.
She said after practising in front of her parents hundreds of times she “wasn’t really” nervous about speaking to the crowd.
“I got nervous walking up but as soon as I started speaking it went away,” Tynesha said.
The girls will next compete against six schools on 27 September in the zone competition. If successful, they will head to the final competition in Trafalgar to take on 66 clubs.
Kooweerup Primary School Principal Nathan Jagoe said he was “really proud” of both girls for their focus and effort to reach this stage of the competition.
“Both girls went well beyond their required class learning and did an exceptional job,” Mr Jagoe said.
