Speaking Skills Cubs
Beginner Students Only: Years 1 - 2
A one-hour weekly program designed to help students explore and enjoy the world of public speaking and creative writing.
Student to Teacher Ratio 9:1
Course Objectives
- Give students plenty of opportunities to practice and receive feedback in a supportive environment.
- Help students leverage their own life experiences to inspire more engaging presentations.
- Provide students with sufficient theory to make their speeches even more captivating.
Course Overview
Our Speaking Skills Cubs program is a little different to our usual two-hour weekly term programs.
Running over a single hour every week, each class is structured in a similar way – after settling the students with a speaking activity, the coach will run through a new piece of theory with the students, before running them through a practical task to solidify that week’s concept in their minds. Rather than following a prescribed syllabus like our other Year 1 & 2 courses, the focus for the Cubs program is instead on developing students’ speaking skills by spending nearly all of the session preparing and presenting speeches.
The content changes from week-to-week and term-to-term, so there’s always plenty to keep students interested and developing their skills!
As with all our programs, we place a strong emphasis on creating a supportive and nurturing learning environment, and strive to ensure each student’s introduction to presenting is a positive and enjoyable experience. We keep class sizes small so that we can provide each student with the maximum level of support and attention, including plenty of individualised feedback from our experienced coaches.
Our Term #1 Focus - Speech Structure Essentials
For the young minds, who have just begun exploring the world of reading and writing, structuring a speech can seem very hard, “Where do I start!” often being the biggest question on their minds. Coming up with ideas versus structuring them in a logical order are two very separate concepts that need to be learnt early on.
Each session of the Cubs program is designed to combine a speaking activity, a new piece of theory and a practical task to solidify that week’s concept. Public speaking can only be improved by taking on opportunities to present – with this in mind, the focus for the Cubs program develops students’ speaking skills by spending nearly the entire session preparing and presenting speeches.
That said, if students would like a little more challenge, the two-hour weekly Presentation Skills Leopards (Year 1) and Presentation Skills Lions (Year 2) programs will go through similar content at a more advanced level!
Who Should Do This Program?
Our Speaking Skills Cubs course is a beginner level program for students in Years 1 & 2.
Each term of the Cubs program has its own focus – whether that be manner essentials or reporting essentials – meaning that students don’t repeat content even if they remain in the Cubs program for the entire year.
Whilst students would definitely benefit from joining at the beginning of the year and following through, they are also welcome to join at the beginning of any term – they’ll still get plenty out of doing the program whenever they join.
Whilst our Cubs program is best for new students, it follows the same focuses each term as our Presentation Skills Leopards and Presentation Skills Lions programs, meaning that students can jump between them as their circumstances change.
Please get in touch if you’d like to discuss what’s best for your child!
What Are The Main objectives of this program?
After completing the Speaking Skills Cubs program, students should:
- have participated in a range of activities (which often feel like games) in a nurturing class environment, each breaking down the stigma that public speaking is something they should be scared of;
- have been given at least one opportunity to present to their class in each and every session; and
- have a much greater appreciation of how fun public speaking can be!
How Big Is The Class?
Our classes vary in size for every program depending on how many bookings we receive – however, the maximum size of our Speaking Skills Cubs 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!
what will students have at the end of the program?
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 short booklet that covers the main points touched upon during the program; and
- hopefully a more positive perspective on public speaking!
My child is in kindy - is this program appropriate?
We have a specially designed holiday workshop for our tiny tots called Presentation Skills Bumblebees. Unfortunately, we do not have an appropriate term program suitable for kindy at this stage (although we’re working on one!).
Our Cubs, Leopards and Tabby Cats programs are designed for Year 1 students and require them 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.
This workshop is run by
