​A. B. Paterson Public Speaking Competition 2025 

On Monday night in Week 4, 10 brave students from Years 10-12 competed in the annual A. B. Paterson Public Speaking Competition. 

Year 10: Lulu Allen, Jett Carey, Grace Shefford, Jade Twohy 

Year 11: Giselle Collins, Cleo Malihom, Myah McGregor 

Year 12: Zaya Dawson, Wynesian Patelesio-Faamausili, Ruby Stenhouse 

All students performed beautifully, persuasively articulating their perspectives on topics including: ‘We can’t go on like this’; ‘Adversity causes some people to break, and others to break records’; ‘What’s in a name?’; ‘Walking a fine line’; ‘The biggest social issue of our time’; ‘Silenced voices’; and ‘The truth is rarely pure and never simple’. 

Lulu Allen, Jade Twohy, and Myah McGregor all made their respective finals, with Lulu placing second and Jade winning the Year 10 competition. 

This is a wonderful achievement by Jade and Lulu—as well as all of our competitors—and a true testament to their passion, diligence, and public speaking skills. 

In Term 3 we will begin preparations for the Year 7-9 Public Speaking Competition, with up to 5 students from each year level able to compete. Watch out for more information about this exciting opportunity. 

But now, please enjoy a short extract from Jade’s inspiring speech. 

Jade Twohy: We can’t go on like this 

 We live in a world where we’re always connected, always ‘active’, always ‘live’ always comparing. And honestly, It’s exhausting.  

 We live for likes, for comments, for approval from people we don’t even know and it’s impacting us in ways we don’t even realise. We post our best memories but hide our worst.  

This is not what life is meant to be.  

We’ve become trapped in a life controlled by social media. Real conversations are becoming harder to find and the way we used to live has been destroyed.  

Social media has trained us to continuously compare ourselves, to put on an act, and to pretend to be someone we’re not.  

Is this really the way we want to live? 

Because right now, it just feels like we’re stuck in a cycle we don’t even know how to escape. A cycle that tricks us into thinking we’re not good enough. A cycle that tells us we have to be perfect to matter.  

And think about this – parent shouldn’t have to fear giving their child a phone. They shouldn’t have to lie awake wondering what social media is doing to their child’s mental health, or whether saying no to an app will make their child feel left out or in the end turn against them. They shouldn’t have to second-guess protecting their child from something that’s clearly harmful. The fact that they do - that so many parents are questioning this - proves that there’s obviously a problem. 

But the thing that doesn’t make sense is vapes are illegal for kids but social media is not? 

Both can damage lives. Both can damage mental wellbeing. But one is treated like a danger, and the other is handed to kids without the second thought.  

We need to break the cycle, before the cycle breaks us. 

Think for ourselves instead of letting the Internet tell us who to be. 

Because at the end of the day, you won’t care about how many followers you had. You’ll care about the real memories you made, the ones that actually mattered. 

We can’t go on like this.  

And honestly, I’m sick of pretending like it’s okay 

Enough is enough.  

We’re letting the most important parts of life slip through our fingers – for what? A couple of seconds of attention? 

It’s time to stop acting like this is normal. 

Kate Reynolds 

Assistant Curriculum Leader - English