Tuesday 17 February 2026
At the end of last year, we sat our Speech NZ Grade 8 Speech & Drama exam and both passed with Honours Plus.
Speech & Drama is something that’s a lot of work (it took us a full year to prepare for our exam) but is also fun.
William Howden
What is involved?
For Speech & Drama, you don’t have to do exams but Trinity or Speech NZ qualifications are well-recognised. Trinity and Speech NZ test skills slightly differently, so one might suit you better than the other.
In exams, there are a large list of options of what you can do, but you only have to choose a few. There is usually a talk or speech, a memorising component (like a poem or play), a sight-reading task (reading aloud from a book of your choice) and an impromptu talk or improvisation (acting that is not planned beforehand).
For our Grade 8 exam, we put together a board sharing a critical appreciation of a movie we enjoyed. We chose The Lord of the Rings and Interstellar. We also performed scenes together from two contrasting plays: The Importance of Being Earnest, an Oscar Wilde comedy, and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, a parody of Hitler’s rise to power. Another part of Speech & Drama is improvising on the spot. Although this can be challenging, it is a lot of fun.
To prepare for our exam last year, we did one lesson per week, however, the earlier grades are less intense. If you put effort in, and have fun doing it, you should come out with a good grade.
Tom Howden
What is it good for?
Speech & Drama is great for many things. It gives you the courage to talk confidently in front of a crowd. Whether you need to do a talk at assembly, or want to do well in Year 9 and 10 speeches, it's a great help. Getting a good grade on exams is also great for your CV.
This year we are now moving onto our Diploma (ATCL) in Performing. This will be our final Speech & Drama exam!
Written by Tom Howden and Will Howden (both Year 12, Major)