We spoke to our programmes team to hear their top tips to share with your students on how to speak with confidence at their First Give Final. Here are ten top tips..
- 1– Don’t forget to use your notecards! The audience want to see your faces, not the back of your heads, while you present. Not only is this more professional, it also helps with your voice projection. (There are notecards included in your coursebooks on P.31)
- 2 – Don’t forget your ‘why’ – Why did you choose this social issue and charity to focus on? This is all about student voice, so be sure to include this as you summarise your First Give journey
- 3– Charity meetings – make sure you talk about your charity meeting and what you learned. This both demonstrates great charity engagement, and helps you to shine a light on your enthusiasm and engagement with the programme
- 4– Speak up! You’ve worked so hard on your presentation, make sure your audience can hear you all the way at the back
- 5– Get someone to help you practise by standing as far away as the back of the audience, so they can tell you if you can be heard. Practicing outside adds an extra challenge as you have to work harder to be heard
- 6– Articulation is almost more important than volume – make sure you’re really clear with all your consonants and your audience will find it easier to hear you
- 7– Keep your head up and talk to the back of the audience – helps your projection and means that the audience can connect with you more easily
- 8– Make sure that the content of your slides is all in your own words, not copy and pasted from your charity’s website. When talking about the charity, make sure to change language for phrases like ‘we do XYZ’ to ‘they do XYZ’ – otherwise, it’s a tell that you may not have written the words yourself!
- 9– Bring along any posters, leaflets or anything else you’ve made on the day of the Final – you can put them on the judges’ table during your presentation for them to see for themselves, and it’s a nice touch to help bring your social action to life!
- 10– And finally…Enjoy it! Remember that everyone is on your side and wants you to do well! The judges will be impressed that you’ve come this far and are standing up to represent your class, and the First Give facilitator will be happy to support and answer any questions you might have on the day.
Wishing the best of luck to all presenting students from the First Give team.