Maheno School pupils are a little bit louder and prouder after completing speech courses and exams through the school this year.

Speech teacher Bridget McNally said Creatives in Schools is a form of funding from the Ministry of Education, which allows creatives to visit schools and teach the children, with support from a lead teacher.

“And that’s me in this instance.

“The funding also provides the funding for, in this case, the speech exams.”

All 64 pupils, from new entrants through to year 8, worked throughout terms one and two towards different exam levels, according to their ages and abilities.

“It's that normalising, at a young age, getting up and speaking and performing,” Bridget said.

“So after the exams, you could ask any of these children, would you like to do that again? And they all said, yeah, absolutely, and they had a ball. It was fun. 

“We also noticed . . . particularly in the boys, in the drama aspect, that they thoroughly enjoyed it - thoroughly enjoyed expressing themselves.”

Maheno School principal Stella Macrae said the course was great, “because we get the expertise of someone whose passion is in speech, in grammar, and that's very evident in the learning the Bridget did within the classes”. 

“She's so good at levelling it to the right levels, and it's probably extra helpful for us, that Bridget’s trained to teach. And just the skills that came out of it were amazing for us.”

While oral language - speech and drama - were a part of the school curriculum, it was not to the depths that Bridget could go with this creative programme, Stella said.

“For us to observe and learn and increase our own professional knowledge has been another bonus.

“So that's been a really good aspect of it, and for the children themselves, you know, observing them as a teaching principal, just getting to watch their confidence grow, their understanding - just the skills. The skill set that they already had, but extending that even further.”

She described the exam at the end as “the cherry on top” for the children.

Ōamaru speech teacher Robyn Keno judged the exams, and the children received certificates and badges to recognise their achievements.

Sophie Balchin, who is in year 5, said Bridget made it “just really easy to learn”.

“Instead of it just being really hard, she made it really easy.”

Sascha Fitzwater, 11, enjoyed improvisations and doing skits the most, and Paddy Stanger, in year 6, said his favourite part was writing and performing his speech about motorbikes.

The learning helped remove the fear when it comes to public speaking, Bridget said.

“It's still tough, and it may always be tough, but that's okay, you know you can get through it.” 

Stella said public speaking and performing is harder for some children than others and always will be.  

“But this has decreased the fear percentage I guess for many - most of them, if not all of them.” 

For the exam, depending on the age level, everybody did a talk, and a poem, and there was also reading aloud. The seniors also did role plays and carried out telephone conversations.