On Thursday 30 March, ambassadors from the University of Kent visited Folkestone Academy to deliver a Presentation Skills workshop. This session was designed for students who were a member of the Junior Leadership team or Student Council to help increase their confidence with public speaking, and to learn how to structure a presentation effectively. This meant that students were picked from a variety of different year groups and this helped develop their communication skills as they had to work with other students who they did not necessarily know.
The day began with a fun warm-up that saw students participating in vocal exercises and they were then given the opportunity to stand up in front of their peers and speak for 30 seconds about a topic that they were passionate about. Following this, students were shown a short video of a business pitch from Dragons Den and introduced to the question ‘what makes a good presentation?’ The group brainstormed ideas and came up of with a list of key factors such as interesting content, enthusiasm and good eye contact that they thought were important to consider.
Students were then set the task of creating a presentation in groups that focused on what aspect of the school they would change to make it better for future year groups. They were told to think about the structure of their presentation to ensure it had a clear introduction, middle and conclusion. Once the allocated preparation time had passed, the groups delivered their presentations which included visual aids such as diagrams and drama sketches to inform and entertain their audience. They were also given constructive feedback by their fellow peers on things like their body language and the content of their presentation.
We were really pleased to receive the following feedback from the school:
“Thank you for the wonderful workshop you delivered for our Student Council and Junior Leadership Team students today. The students were thoroughly engaged for the duration of the workshop and came away feeling much more confident in their presentation skills. A hugely beneficial activity.” – Katy Tibbles, Folkestone Academy.
In addition to this, the feedback received from students was extremely positive with many listing group work, increased confidence in public speaking and learning how to structure a presentation as some of the things that they found beneficial from the session.
For more information about this activity, please contact outreach@kent.ac.uk