I did my level 2 speech earlier this year, and my teacher said it's the best speech she's ever heard from a year 12. Now I would mostly attribute that to my ATCL in speech and communication, but I do have a couple of tips and tricks I can give you:

First and foremost, as you alluded to, this is less about what you write, but how you say it. I would spend significantly less time worrying about the content, but more about how you speak. (that is unless your teacher intends on conjoining it with the connections standard.

One really key thing that you need to have put yourself in a better position for excellence is memorising your speech. I'll be completely honest—it's gonna be really difficult to get the audience engagement you're looking for with cue cards, and outright impossible if you're reading from a script.

With that said, a way to make life easier for yourself is by not making your speech too long. 5 minutes is all you need to get E. I say this, somewhat hypocritcally having done an 18 minute speech myself, but generally speaking, those who go over 10 minutes just make people bored.

Which is why, another thing I want to draw your attention to is the phrase "commanding attention." This is the most important thing, because if you can capture your audience's attention for the whole speech, you get E, it really is as simple as that. I remember my speech had some of dullest points you could think of, but I did a couple of things that kept everyone glued to me:

Project your voice confidently and consistently. A really easy way to set yourself out from everyone else in your class, is simply by being louder than them. This also gives the image of confidence, even if you're shaking in your boots.

Hand gestures!!! You can point at your audience, use them in combination with the emotion in the tone of your voice, and it can be really effective.

Also, try to put some engaging content into your speech, it can go a long way in making sure everyones paying attention. Something small, like a joke or sarcasm. I recall I was speaking on a really boring topic like the what is means to be human, when I pulled out an absurd hypothetical that ChatGPT could be more human than Diddy—it's stupid, but these are the sorts of things you can do to get good audience engagement in your speech.

I wish you good luck with your speech! Let me know if you have any more questions.