Contact Us
- Sandra Aiken
- HICES NSW/ACT Executive Assistant
- 0418 884 346
- admin@hices.nsw.edu.au
Macarthur Anglican School |
605 Cobbity Road Cobbity NSW 2570
For Year 7 – 12 students from all HICES schools
Scots All Saints College |
4173 O’Connell Road Bathurst NSW 2024
For Year 7 – 12 students from all HICES schools
For more information: admin@hices.nsw.edu.au
Teachers: Please visit the Staff page
After standout events in 2023 and 2024 with C3hange and Person of Change Awards, SpeechCRAFT 2025 will continue in this tradition, but will add a second date and regional location to the calendar to allow even more students to attend thereby inspiring them to use their communication skills to enact change in their world.
Once again “Dramatic Difference” will be facilitating both events, featuring a keynote speech by Dr Nicholas Flannagan on ‘The Intersection between Critical Thinking and Content Production’, with a focus on the importance of critical thinking in communication, empowering students to engage with the information they consume in a discerning manner in order to effectively and perceptively communicate.
Throughout the day students will participate in various sessions, with each session facilitating student engagement in an exploration of how they can utilise their critical thinking skills across different domains including problem solving, interpretation and interpersonal communication.
Visiting schools will be sent a conference prompt prior to attendance, so that students can bring current research to assist in their composition of the afternoon presentations.
With the rising importance for multimodal presentations, the final session, ‘Communicate’, will be the delivery and assessment of 10, group produced, 5-minute multimodal speeches, with a bonus marking category for creativity.
The winning group presentation will be awarded the C3hange Award.
A final individual presentation will be made on the day celebrating the talents of one individual Person of Change, who will be named as the best presenter for the conference.
HICES along with Macarthur Anglican School and Scots All Saints College, looks forward to welcoming you all.
2024 Guest Facilitator
Barbara Warren is the Director of Dramatic Difference Training and her experience spans Theatre, Film, TV, Education and Business.
Barbara has used the skills from her theatre background for over forty years encouraging a range of business professionals, education specialists, celebrities, students and leaders to value dynamic communication practices and to be engaging presenters and communicators.
Barbara has worked extensively with elite sports professionals, models, celebrities and countless executives, CEO’s, small business owners, entrepreneurs and extraordinarily talented, high potential students. Barbara’s approach is to eradicate all constraints to imagination, and then to resource appropriate models of technique, to train people to be a part of a vital, compelling and coherent communication practice and employ this with the greatest confidence in all public speaking forums.
Barbara’s practical approach is drawn from her own experience as a small business owner, over thirty years’ experience in the corporate world, and forty years as a performing arts practitioner.
The keynote address and practical sessions will explore the creative skills required to articulate stories and achieve impact and connectivity with every audience.
SpeechCRAFT 2023
Effective communication is a result of confidence. Students who have learnt to craft their speech to be concise, clear, and respectful towards those with differing opinions have obtained the most powerful tool to capture audiences: spoken language.
Self confidence in public speaking not only benefits learning, higher education but is quintessential for future employment. Whether the overall student ambition is to perform a Shakespearean monologue, Viva Voce, multimodal presentation, Ted Talk or participate in co-curricular speaking activities, learning to speak with confidence is an invaluable skill.
Collaborate, Craft, Communicate = C3hange
This 3C model of learning underpins the educational premise for the day, without losing the overall focus on the development of student efficacy in respectful and persuasive speaking. Students learn to communicate with one another and express their ideas about a social issue relevant to today’s youth. This highlights the importance of recognising that words and speaking powerfully can be the biggest catalyst for change.
Visiting schools will be sent a conference prompt prior to attendance, so that students can bring current research to assist in their composition of the afternoon presentations.
With the rising importance for multimodal presentations, the final session, Communicate, will be the delivery and assessment of 10, group produced, 5 minute multimodal speeches, with a bonus marking category for creativity.
The winning group presentation will be awarded the inaugural C3hange Award.
A final individual presentation will be made on the day celebrating the talents of one individual Person of Change, who will be named as the best presenter for the conference.
This revised program has been designed by Macarthur Anglican School and will be a reimagined and unique annual HICES Educational Conference.
2023 Guest Facilitator: DRAMATIC DIFFERENCE TRAINING
The fact that our keynote presenter has a background in performing arts, will give you the first clue as to how she approaches a session on “Presentation Excellence: Building a Narrative for Engagement and Connection”
Barbara Warren is the Director of Dramatic Difference Training and her experience spans Theatre, Film, TV, Education and Business.
Barbara has used the skills from her theatre background for over forty years encouraging a range of business professionals, education specialists, celebrities, students and leaders to value dynamic communication practices and to be engaging presenters and communicators.
Barbara has worked extensively with elite sports professionals, models, celebrities and countless executives, CEO’s, small business owners, entrepreneurs and extraordinarily talented, high potential students. Barbara’s approach is to eradicate all constraints to imagination, and then to resource appropriate models of technique, to train people to be a part of a vital, compelling and coherent communication practice and employ this with the greatest confidence in all public speaking forums.
Barbara’s practical approach is drawn from her own experience as a small business owner, over thirty years experience in the corporate world, and forty years as a performing arts practitioner.
The keynote address and practical sessions will explore the creative skills required to articulate stories and achieve impact and connectivity with every audience.
SpeechCRAFT 2022
After a pandemic pause of a few years, Macarthur Anglican School were thrilled to welcome HICES students back in 2022 for their renowned Speechcraft Day.
The day was facilitated by NIDA and students from across Year 7 – 12 participated in the four facilitated workshops.
The morning sessions, titled ‘ Public Speaking 101’ & ‘What’s your Story’, had a practical drama focus to help develop students’ confidence and speaking articulation.
The afternoon session, which focused on a group speaking task, was a favourite amongst students. Groups were devised from students across all the schools and they spoke about worldly concerns and their possible solutions. Topics included; ‘How can Teenagers properly contribute to environmental discussions?’ In 5 break out rooms schools voted for the best presenters to pitch their ideas to the entire conference (pictured above).
Overall the day provided students with an important opportunity to develop their public speaking skills while enjoying the company of other students from HICES schools.
Past expert facilitators:
The National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) is Australia’s leading centre for education and training in the performing arts.
At Speechcraft Day, NIDA’s Public Speaking and Telling Your Story workshops inspire students to consider…
What makes a great speech memorable? Is it the content, the delivery or the passion? Or is it the perfect blend of each?
Students also discover Public Speaking techniques to engage and enthral audiences and build their confidence to be that memorable speaker. Under the guidance of a NIDA expert develop skills in voice, movement, storytelling and presentation.