Valued Voices
Exciting Choices

Lower School Forensics Team Wins Regional Competition

The Lower School Forensics Team won first place at the Robert S. Sergeant Independent School Forensics competition this year.

The competition, hosted this year by Norfolk Collegiate, is a major forum for students interested in gaining experience in expressive public speaking, with four different categories for competitors: prose (reading a work of prose fiction in an expressive style); poetry (reading a poem in an expressive or dramatic style); storytelling (giving a dramatic presentation of a story from memory and with gestures/movement to provide excitement); and oratory (researching, writing, and delivering a persuasive speech on a topic of the student’s choice).

Norfolk Academy’s team, like others at schools across the region, trains for months to prepare for the competition. Norfolk Collegiate won second place overall; Cape Henry Collegiate placed third. Norfolk Academy will host the competition in April 2020.

The medalists in the categories were as follows:
 
Anna Barton (6th grade) - 1st place Girls Prose
David Salter (6th grade) - 1st place Boys Storytelling
Natalie Martin (6th grade)  - 2nd place Girls Oratory
Chance Stuart (6th grade) - 2nd Place Boys Oratory
Lily Mason-Breit (4th grade) - 2nd place Girls Prose
Zachary Armentrout (6th grade) - 3rd place Boys Poetry
 
Teachers-coaches worked closely with students to prepare for the competition. The coaches for this year’s team were as follows:  Kathy Lonergan (4th grade teacher); Jackie Diamonstein (1st Grade teacher); Jennifer Walker (5th grade teacher); Alice Pleming (4th grade teacher); Marianne Tembe (resource teacher); Sarah Smythe (Associate Director of Admissions); Susan Duquette (Assistant Director of the Lower School and coordinator of the Forensics Team).

Congratulations, Bulldogs, on your public speaking prowess!

 

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