Year 8 Advocacy Night: Championing Social Justice and Building Character

Aquinas College, A School of Faith, Character and Excellence. What better way is there to encompass these three things into an authentic learning experience that is the Year 8 Advocacy Presentation evening. This Term All Year 8 boys have completed a Veritas class assignment that required them to work collaboratively in small groups to create an ‘Advocacy Presentation’ around a social justice issue they felt passionate about. To add further challenge to this task compared to normal classwork assessments, boys had to present their work in front of family and friends with parents in the audience marking their presentations.

This assignment integrates the development of positive character traits and personal skills in boys as they:

• learn about injustices in the world to endorse fairness, justice and freedom from prejudice,
• experience being an advocate, showing a concern for the common good and global community,
• practice applying 21st century learning skills of collaboration, citizenship, communication, character, creativity, and critical thinking,
• grow in confidence with public speaking and presentation skills,
• promote our Catholic faith and values to enhance their empathy, compassion, generosity, and gratitude.

This is what some of the boys had to say about the experience.

As a Year 8 cohort, we were set a task to create, in a group of three, a presentation focusing on an advocacy topic and present it to our parents and fellow students. The topic my group chose to discuss was ‘Social Media’s negative effect on mental health.’ My group consisted of Michael Boctor, Willoughby Cacho, and myself, Asher Saverimutto. When we were told that we would be creating a presentation to present to our family and friends, there were polar opposite reactions.

Michael and Willoughby were quite nervous and petrified of the task while, even though I was scared, there was something else - a sense of determination, a thirst to prove to my family and friends that I could pull off a great presentation and I could get my point across in an amazing way. However, right before the presentation, all that determination faded quickly, and I was left with shaking hands and a nervous laugh before we were called up. As soon as the presentation finished, all I could think was “Wow, we actually did that, and we didn’t completely and utterly fail!”

This is the basic point of the advocacy presentation, to give a sense of confidence to students. It showed the students they could do a presentation in front of their family and friends. The Advocacy presentation is a task that gives students multiple qualities such as collaboration, cooperation, problem solving and many more. Sure, there were challenges such as iPads not working and teammates not being present, but overall, this task was an amazing opportunity for the students to gain valuable life skills that will benefit them for years to come and is an asset to all who participated in it.

Asher Saverimutto

We chose to advocate for why we should stop Shark Finning because of the impact it is having on our environment and the shark population. In my group were, Oscar Davis and Max Paterson. After I heard, we were having to create an Advocacy Presentation for our families I felt a bit nervous but also happy because I thought It would be good presenting something I have been working on in front of my Mum. It was also nice listening to other presentations, showing our group how they did theirs. I felt neither nervous or excited on the day until we got to the classroom and the parents came into the room, then I started to feel nervous. After I had presented, I felt good for completing the assessment and because I thought we did a good job. It is good that.

The positive I took away from the night is I have learnt how to create a good persuasive presentation on a world-wide problem to people I have never seen before. In our group we didn’t experience many challenges, just the fact we were looking at our palm cards more than looking at the audience. The event was overall a good night and I’m glad we got to share with our parents and I’m glad we got good marks.

Kingsley Duff

Our topic was Battery Farming, and our group consisted of Dominic Treacy, Harry Cosgrove and me, Raefe Kirk. After I was given the task, I felt slightly nervous but excited at the same time as I thought that it would be fun to research a topic and create a slide show to present to an audience, but at the same time I felt nervous as what would happen if I stuffed up or didn’t know the words. At the start of the night before we went into the classrooms, I wasn’t really nervous as I was just hanging out with my friends. However, I now realise my group should have really been practicing. As I watched the other groups present and it got closer to our talk, I started to get anxious, wondering whether I prepared enough and if our presentation was actually good.

The amount of people in our room also did not help as I would stare and look at the people in thinking and hoping we better not stuff up. I think the main positive impact from the advocacy presentation was that it pushed us out of our comfort zone to see whether we would thrive or crumble under the pressure and use whatever happened as a building block for future success. I think the main challenge I faced as an individual was I felt nervous and anxious and I didn’t want to do the presentation, but I did. I think this helped me to grow and realise that being nervous and anxious about something is fine you just have to push through and keep going. All up it was a fun experience making and presenting the presentation. I got to build better relationships with my teammates as we bonded over our topic. After we presented our presentation, I had a great feeling of relief that we had done ourpresentation without mucking it up.

Raefe Kirk

In our group for the Year 8 Advocacy Presentation assignment, was Zak, Fletcher, and Toby, we chose food wastage as out topic. After we created our advocacy presentation, I felt good as we had a topic that we cared about, and we learnt a lot more about the issue of food wastage in the world. I am very happy with our overall mark. Before the presentation I felt confident and that didn’t change after and during our presentation. I was very happy with the result but one thing we could have done better is speak a bit louder at the start as we didn’t speak loud enough but it got better as we got more relaxed with our talk.

We faced the challenge of trying to find research as it was hard to find information about food wastage, but we worked hard and found a lot as a group. I would like to say that I had a very good experience making the presentation and enjoyed working with my group to get our result and am very happy overall.

Zak Mollica

For our Advocacy Presentation our group chose the topic of Modern Day Slavery. This was because it is a global issue rapidly becoming worse and worse because the richer get richer and the poor get poorer. In my group I had Brendon Karzub, Evan Kent and Ollie James. Once I was told I was going to present this to my friends and family I was very nervous as I did not want to do this presentation and step outside my comfort zone. On the night of the presentation, I was very scared as I had barely practiced my speech and now, I would have to present it to my family and friends. However, I got through it and once finished I felt much relived and proud of my group as we all spoke well.

A positive I took away from the advocacy presentation is that I stepped outside my comfort zone and was able to confidently publicly speak in front of my friends and family, learning a skill I could use throughout the rest of my life. During the production process of creating the presentation we had many obstacles such as structuring our speech and the timing of slides which we still had trouble with on the night. Another thing that I want to share about creating the presentation is that the best thing to do when public speaking is to make sure you practice beforehand.

Nathan Huynh

The topic my group chose for our Advocacy presentation was about Modern Slavery, we thought we should choose this because it is unique and important for people to know about it. When we got told we were doing a presentation in front of our friends and family I was excited. I was excited because speaking is a skill we will need when we grow up, and it is good that we are practicing. I was not really that nervous because back at home in Onslow I always had to speak in front of the whole school for assemblies, Anzac Day masses, and much more. Even though speaking in front of the whole Onslow school, the same amount of people as the Year 8 cohort at Aquinas, I was still confident I was going to do well.

I felt excited on the night of the presentation because my dad had flown all the way from Onslow to watch which made me very happy. Something positive I took away from the presentation was seeing that everyone was supportive to one another and did not judge. A challenge I faced in the presentation was not looking at my palm cards, if I were to do this again, I would try and memorise my notes. I think the Advocacy program was a great activity, and really pushed boys out of their comfort zone to reveal to them that it is not that bad to speak in public.

Oliver James

My group chose social media and the role it plays in teenagers’ mental health and the disconnection it creates. We thought this was an important topic to discuss because we have seen in the media how many young people are ending their own life early because of bullying incidents on social media apps. In my group there was Sachjien Corpus-Sampi, Lucas Parkinson and myself. When I first found out about the project, I was pretty nervous because I thought we were not given enough time to prepare, and I did not know what we were being asked to do and how to do it.

Before I did the presentation, I was really nervous that I would forget to say what I was meant to. When I finished, I realised it was a lot easier than I thoughtit would be. It was a fun and interesting experience because it was a different type of speaking then most people are used to.

Thomas Swingler