Last Wednesday saw the culmination of this term’s major assignment for Year 8 Veritas. The task required every Year 8 boy to work in a small group to collaborate and create an ‘Advocacy Presentation’ around a social justice issue they were passionate about. The extension to this assignment from your day-to-day classwork assessments was that all families were invited to be part of the audience and members of the marking team.

The wonderful thing about this project is that it is a strong contributor to the growth journey of boys at Aquinas College because:

o they learn about a justice issue in the world,

o it provides a chance to learn about and experience ‘advocacy’,

o students apply the 21st century learning skills of collaboration, citizenship, communication, character, creativity, and critical thinking in front of peers & family,

o students develop public speaking and presentation skills,

o it helps to promote our Catholic values and builds an even more informed and compassionate Aquinas College community.

Here is what some of the boys said about the Advocacy Presentation Task.

My group included Liam Trewhella and Tate Chattaway and we chose plastic pollution in our oceansas our advocacy topic. I felt confident in creating my presentation because I am a good public speaker. Before we presented our presentation, I felt a bit nervous as if I was going to forget a line in my speech, but that nervousness slowly went away and I started to ease in to it. We faced challenges of debating whether we should use palm cards or not. I feel like the experience was good to get used to public speaking and working on your group skills and learning how to create a good and eye-catching presentation.

Patrick Winfield (8VER4)

On the night of 16th of August, the year 8 cohort and I were going to present our advocacy speech. My group which consisted of Owen Marsden and I were presenting about Food Wastage in Australia. When getting first assigned this task to present to parents and students of other year 8 students, I felt happy and nervous by getting the chance to advocate for a topic that I am passionate about but nervous of the work and preparation ahead of me. Before the presentation I felt prepared but with a hint of nervousness but after I felt relieved and happy. What was positive that I took away from the presentation is that I got to learn a lot about other advocacy presentations such as stalking and melting ice caps. The challenges in the presentation were the planning and time management issues and how we couldn’t get as much presentation time practice as we wanted. But overall, it was a good experience creating and presenting a long presentation.

Ka Pham (8VER4)

My group chose family homelessness. We chose this topic because we spun a wheel with a few we wanted to do and it landed on this one. In my group I had Cameron Osman and Lachy Williams. When I was told I would be doing the presentation I felt fine becuase I don’t get nervous public speaking. A positive I took away from the experience was that when you work hard on something you can get a lot done in a little time. A challenge I faced was when we first started working on the presentation, my group wasn’t doing much work and I was doing almost all of it, this got better though in the last week before we presented.

Tyler Grant-Mackay (8VER1)

Our topic was melting ice caps, we chose this topic since it is a huge problem these days and is affecting the whole world. The people in my group were Oscar Charlesworth and Joey Lee. When I found out about this assignment, I felt extremely nervous and scared, I didn't know what would happen. On the night I was nervous at the start, but I knew I could do it since I had been over myspeech 1000 times. After the speech I felt proud and happy that it was over and that I spoke fluently. I think on the night I learnt that I could do speeches, I think I did extremely well. The challenges I faced were getting scared and stuffing up words, which had barely happened during my practicing, but it still happened once or twice. There isn’t anything else from my experience, however it did give me confidence about doing speeches in the future.

Joshua Killigrew (8VER1)

We chose racism is sports because we all thought we would be more productive if we liked the topic we were doing. My group included Joseph and Matthew. I was pretty happy about doing the advocacy presentation but a bit scared when I found out my parents were going to be there. I felt good on the night of the presentation because my group was pretty organised and ready to go, and after the presentation I felt relieved that it was done, and I didn’t have to worry about it anymore. A positive I took from the night was I got to practice teamwork. A challenge I faced was worrying about palm cards the night before and I should’ve organised them before. Overall, I enjoyed doing our advocacy presentation.

Jonty Petersen (8VER3)

Our group chose illegal whaling in southern sanctuaries because we don’t believe its necessary to kill such magnificent creatures. In my group I worked with Rourke Thiedmen and Alex Clarke. When I was told I had to do the presentation I felt worried but excited to do a presentation that was so important but kind of hard to be honest. Before the presentation I was worried because both of my teammates weren’t in my room and kept on disappearing. After the presentation I felt glad that it was out of the way, and we had Edmund rice day the day after. A positive I took away from the advocacy presentation was that I was more able to speak to a public audience without laughing or smiling. The challenges I faced was writing the script and putting palm cards together but, in the end, I barely used the script during my presentation. I think that the night was fun and enjoyable and a new experience for me and I really liked the flow of the presentation.

Jayden Azzopardi (8VER3)

Our Advocacy Presentation was about social media’s effect on mental health. My group members Heath and Elijah did an amazing job in how they went about creating their PowerPoint. I felt very overwhelmed how we didn’t have a large time frame to create this presentation. Being told that we are presenting a PowerPoint on an injustice I felt nervous but I’m a person that doesn’t like to do the activity that we are required to do but when the time comes to doing to activity, I change my mind quickly and want to do the activity. The positive I took out of the night was how teamwork and courage comes into play. I felt happy how we did in our presentation and I’m really proud of my efforts that I put into the presentation.

Lucas Dillon (8VER2)