Why presentations at school · Code with Martin

The teacher wants you to be able to say it. Not a concert of effects on the wall.

School does not want fireworks. It wants you to be able to say it.

The teacher does not mark whether you can draw in Canva. They mark whether you understood the topic and can say it out loud to the class.

A presentation at school is not a concert of effects. It is a short proof: you pick what matters, you show it on the wall, and you carry three minutes without reading a notebook off the screen.

When you know this, you save yourself a Sunday colouring fifty slides — and on Monday you still do not know what to say.

Adam spent Sunday in Canva. Twelve transitions, neon type, a meme from chat. On Monday the teacher said: “What is this about?” Adam read paragraphs off the screen. From the back row you could see nothing.

Ema had three slides, a big title and one sentence out loud. The mark was not for beauty. It was for the class understanding the topic.

💡

Before you open the program, write on paper one sentence: what this is about. If you do not have the sentence, slides will not help you. The program only makes the mess bigger.

Three jobs a school presentation has

First: you show that you can pick what matters, and leave the rest.

Second: the class and the teacher see it from the back, not just you in the front row.

Third: you carry out loud the time they gave you — often three to five minutes.

None of those jobs is “make a pretty background”. A pretty background you cannot read is a bad presentation.

We will work in Google Slides (free in the browser) or in PowerPoint. A parent or the school sets up the account. A child’s email does not belong here. Canva can do stickers. Stickers do not make the mark.

Ema has to talk about bees. A bad presentation: twenty slides with paragraphs from Wikipedia, a bee from a meme, type that disappears from the back. A good one: five slides, the title is a sentence “Bees carry pollen, not honey into a jar”, one number, one picture with a caption. The speech has a story. The slide has proof.

⚠️

Do not copy a ready-made presentation from the internet and only change the name. The teacher will notice. You learn to cheat, not to speak.

Four things you will build in this course

The course has four small projects. You do not have to do them all at once.

🎯 A hobby in 5 slides

Five slides about something you like doing. One sentence about what it is.

📚 A report

Eight slides: a start, three proofs, an end. The title is a sentence.

📊 Survey results

A chart from a table, not a screenshot from chat. Under the chart, where the numbers come from.

⚖️ A defence

You say one sentence, show proof, answer a question. If you do not know, you say I don’t know.

Try it now

Today we do not deal with colours yet. First the sentence, the reason you open the program at all.

Take paper. Write the subject and the day you have to speak. Under that one sentence: what the class should remember when you leave the board. The sentence has a subject and a verb, not just the word “bees”.
Read the sentence out loud to a parent. If they ask “and so what?”, the sentence is weak. Fix it. Do not open the program yet.
Open Google Slides under a parent’s or the school’s account. Pick a blank presentation, not a cheerful template. In PowerPoint File → New → Blank presentation.
Click into the title of the first slide and paste that sentence from the paper. If it is longer than two lines, shorten it.
Click “Untitled” at the top and name the file: subject, topic, your name. For example Science-bees-Ema. Save. In PowerPoint File → Save as into a folder a parent knows.

Once more

Practise what school does not want to hear.

Find one paragraph in your notebook. Rewrite it as one sentence. Leave the paragraph in the notebook.
Tell a parent what a presentation at school is for. If you say “so it looks nice”, correct yourself: so the class understands one sentence.
Write on paper what you are deliberately not doing today: animation, Canva, music. Tick “not today”.

Now you 💪

On paper there is one sentence about what this is about.
That sentence is also in the title of the first slide.
The file has a name, not “Untitled”.

✅

Done when: You can tell a parent what you will talk about, in one sentence — before you start decorating.

What to take from this lesson

At school a presentation = a sentence + proof out loud. Not fireworks.
First the sentence on paper, then the program.
Google Slides or PowerPoint. A parent’s or the school’s account.
Canva stickers do not make the mark.
Names in the examples (Ema, Adam) are made up. Do not put your number, email or photo on a slide.