High School Guest Speaker

IRL Education is a top high school guest speaking organisation in Sydney and across New South Wales. We understand what it takes to engage students, to go beyond clichés and platitudes and connect with something personal and meaningful for each and every student.

We use the transformative learning model of ‘head, heart and hands’ to connect students cognitively, emotionally and physically. That means;

  • Posing questions that peak students curiosity and get them involved, such as ‘what makes us happy?’ ‘what’s important to you?’, and ‘who do you want to be?’

  • Sharing personal stories students can connect and empathise with

  • Getting up, moving around, and using our bodies to learn, practice and grow

Motivational Speaker

In 1954 Roger Bannister broke the four minute mile barrier widely believed to be physically impossible. In the years since, tens of thousands of people have repeated the same feat, because Roger’s example changed our expectations of what is possible.

We connect to each other, and to the best in ourselves through the stories we hear and the examples we see. Educational speakers and motivational speakers play an important role in young people’s lives by exposing them to the huge world of possibilities, challenges and opportunities beyond the classroom. They connect with the experiences of others that are meaningful to them, and relate to other young people sharing personal stories that they want to emulate, or at least learn from.

Year 7 Guest Speaker

Starting High School is a huge change for students. They need to make the emotional transition from ‘top dog’ to going back to the bottom of the social ladder, and the cognitive transition from being treated like kids to being responsible for their own time and to-do list.

Our Emotional Intelligence and Routines and Habits courses are specifically designed to help Year 7 students with these two transitions, and to find their feet in high school with confidence.

Year 8 Guest Speaker

Having settled in to High School last year, Year 8 students are starting to transition from childhood to the complex teen years of young adulthood. Social relationships are becoming all important, and they’re starting to forge their individual identity. While they may think they’re ‘all that’, developmentally Year 8 students still have plenty of learning to do.

Our Finding Your Identity course helps them think about who they are, who they want to be, and how their friends, groups and habits will affect that. We also help them communicate effectively with their peers to manage their relationships, and connect with parents and teachers in healthy ways with our Communicating with Confidence course.

Year 9 Guest Speaker

Universally, the feedback we receive is that Year 9 students are the most challenging for teachers and schools. Students struggling to connect with the curriculum can start to rebel, and disengage further from subjects and teachers. As they start to discover who they are as adults, they push back from authority figures and structures of control.

IRL begins every seminar by saying we’re not here to improve your grades or help you turn in assignments on time, but to connect with students’ real world challenges, from relationships to anxiety, and everything in between. Our Healthy Relationships and People Skills School Speaker courses are designed to give students the real world skills they need to become happy and successful young adults, and help them connect with topics meaningful to them.

Year 10 Guest Speaker

As students move into their senior years, and choosing their senior subjects, attention starts to turn to the perennial question ‘what are you doing in life after school?’ Our Careers course help students start to think about this question in a structured way, while our Emotional Intelligence course is well suited to help them continue to strong social support systems for the challenges ahead.

Year 11 Guest Speaker

Many now in their penultimate year of schooling, it’s more important than ever that students set themselves up well with healthy Routines and Habits that will provide them the strong foundation they’ll need during the challenges of the HSC, and life beyond. It’s also a good age for students to be engaging in conversations about sex, consent and relationships more generally, which is the purpose of our Healthy Relationships course.

Year 12 Guest Speakers

Transitioning from school to life beyond is an incredibly stressful and scary experience for many students. Their structures, routines and support networks are dissolved replaced by responsibility to find their own path, find their passion, and find happiness. From how to find work, to moving out of home and keeping a passion for learning alive, students have big questions that aren’t addressed by the mainstream curriculum. Our senior courses are designed to bridge this gap, and prepare students for a happy, healthy and successful life after school.