Computer Skills

Beginner

60 mins

Teacher/Student led

+80 XP

What you need:
Chromebook/Laptop/PC or iPad/Tablet

Pitch Deck — Slides That Don't Put People to Sleep

Build a 5-slide pitch deck using a simple structure: Hook, What it is, Why it matters, The numbers, The ask. You'll reuse content from your portfolio and practise pacing with speaker notes.

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1 Introduction
2 Key Concepts
3 Step-by-step Task — Build the Demo Deck
4 Common Issues
5 Portfolio Build — Your 5-slide Pitch Deck
6 Reflection
7 Lesson Summary
Quiz

1 - Introduction

Illustration for Introduction

Welcome

Pitches live or die on the first 20 seconds. This lesson is about building a tight 5-slide deck that carries one real idea clearly, not a pretty deck that says nothing. The good news: you've spent seven weeks producing the raw material (your project brief, research, proposal, and a chart), so most of today's job is shaping and cutting, not writing from scratch.

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

Plan a 5-slide pitch using a simple structure: Hook, What, Why, Numbers, Ask
Apply a theme and layouts so your deck looks consistent without styling each slide by hand
Insert images and a chart from your earlier portfolio work
Add speaker notes and run your slideshow to practise pacing
Build {{code:08_pitch_deck}} for your own Something Real project

Warm-up

Think of a time someone tried to explain something to you using slides, whether that was a teacher, a guest speaker, or an online video. What made you stop paying attention? Keep that in mind. Your deck has to do the opposite of whatever that was.

Teacher Notes

Students should have their Digital_Portfolio already populated from earlier lessons (project brief, research, proposal, chart). If a student's portfolio is thin, allow them to sketch content directly onto the slides today and backfill the source artifacts afterwards.

👇 Mark your steps as done as you complete them.

+5 XP

2 - Key Concepts

Four ideas that do most of the work today. The first one (pitch structure) is the spine of the whole lesson.

Concept	Why it matters	Example
Pitch structure: Hook, What it is, Why it matters, The numbers, The ask — a simple 5-slide structure we'll use in this course to force focus on one idea	A pitch that wanders loses the room in 20 seconds; 5 slides is short enough to remember under pressure and cuts anything that doesn't move the idea forward	Boring Slide 1: "Introduction to Bake Sale". Strong Slide 1: "Could we raise €500 in one lunchtime?". Same topic, but the strong one opens a question the audience wants answered.
Slide layout — a pre-built template (Title, Title and Content, Two Content) that locks the position of titles, bullets, and images	If every slide's title sits in the same place, the reader's eye doesn't have to hunt each time you advance a slide	Using "Title and Content" on slides 2-5 means your headings line up; the viewer notices the content, not the layout
Theme — a single design choice (colours, fonts, background) applied to every slide at once	One theme pick styles all 5 slides; without it you end up hand-formatting each slide and they drift	Picking a clean Office or Slides theme once means your body text, heading colour, and background stay consistent across the deck
Speaker notes and Presenter view — notes are private reminders attached to each slide; Presenter view shows those notes on your screen while the audience sees just the slide (works in Google Slides and desktop PowerPoint; PowerPoint for the web shows notes in edit mode only)	Notes let you write pacing cues ("slow down", "look up after the number") so you can deliver without reading off the slide	During your 2-minute pitch, your notes show "pause after the hook" — the audience just sees the hook slide

More hook examples (good vs boring)

Boring: "My Project" / Strong: "Every Monday, 40 lunches go in the bin. Here's why."
Boring: "Overview" / Strong: "What if every Friday lunchtime was movie day?"
Boring: "Presentation on Recycling" / Strong: "Our school throws out 300 paper cups a week. I'd like to change that."

Worked example — the 5-slide shape

In the next step you'll build a demo deck for a fictional Lunchtime Film Club pitch so the shape is visible before you apply it to your own project. The demo content per slide:

Slide 1 (Hook): "What if every Friday lunchtime was movie day?"
Slide 2 (What it is): 45-minute films in the hall / rotating genres chosen by members / open to all years
Slide 3 (Why it matters): Builds community across year groups / low-cost shared activity / uses the hall at its quietest hour
Slide 4 (The numbers): projector already in the hall / €15 one-off for a cable / €0 weekly running cost
Slide 5 (The ask): 4-week trial / one teacher to supervise / announce at next assembly

👇 Mark your steps as done as you complete them.

+10 XP

3 - Step-by-step Task — Build the Demo Deck

Build a 5-slide demo deck for the Lunchtime Film Club pitch. You'll throw this file away afterwards; the point is to practise the techniques before you build your real deck in the next step.

Teacher Notes

Students are building a throwaway demo file called pitch_demo. The Independent Practice step has them create 08_pitch_deck for real using their own project. Watch for students who try to build the real deck here; redirect them — the demo uses the worked example content so they can see the full shape before the content pressure kicks in. Timing fallback: if a student is still on Slide 2 after 10 minutes, tell them to do a minimum viable demo — just Slides 1-2 plus the theme applied — and skip the rest of the demo steps. They'll pick up the remaining techniques (layouts, image insert, notes, slideshow) when they build their real 08_pitch_deck in the next step. It's more important they have time for the portfolio build than they finish the throwaway demo.

+15 XP

4 - Common Issues

Three things that go wrong on nearly every first deck. If any of these hits you in the next step, this is the fix.

Issue	Solution
My title or bullet runs off the edge of the slide	The text is too long. Aim for 6-10 words in a title and one line per bullet. If a bullet wraps to three lines, split it into two bullets or move the detail to your speaker notes.
The theme changed some of my text to a colour I can barely read	Select the text, use the text-colour tool on the toolbar, and pick a colour that contrasts strongly with the background (dark text on light backgrounds, light text on dark).
I can't figure out how to put my chart on the slide (PowerPoint for the web)	Open your Excel workbook in another tab. Click the chart once so its border is selected. Press {{kbd:Ctrl+C}}. Switch to your PowerPoint tab, click on Slide 4, then press {{kbd:Ctrl+V}}. Fallback: screenshot the chart, save as an image, then use {{menu:Insert -> Pictures -> This Device}}.
I can't figure out how to put my chart on the slide (Google Slides)	Open your Google Sheets file in another tab. Right-click the chart border and choose {{btn:Copy}} (or press {{kbd:Ctrl+C}}). Switch to your Slides tab, click on Slide 4, then press {{kbd:Ctrl+V}}. A dialog asks whether to link to the sheet — choose {{btn:Paste unlinked}} so the image stays fixed.

+10 XP

5 - Portfolio Build — Your 5-slide Pitch Deck

Independent Practice

Your goal: Assemble a 5-slide pitch deck for your Something Real using content you've already made, so you're remixing real project work rather than writing from scratch under time pressure.

Time:~20 minutes

Task:

Open your {{code:Digital_Portfolio}} folder and create {{code:08_pitch_deck}} from inside it.
Build exactly 5 slides in the pitch order: Slide 1 Hook, Slide 2 What it is, Slide 3 Why it matters, Slide 4 The numbers, Slide 5 The ask.
Pull your Slide 1 hook line from your project brief. Use facts from your research page on Slides 2-3 and the idea shape from your proposal.
Put your real chart onto Slide 4. Right-click the chart in your spreadsheet, copy it, then paste it onto the slide.
Apply one theme, use a Title and Content (or Title and body) layout on Slides 2-5, and keep each slide to a short title plus no more than three one-line bullets.

Success criteria:

Your deck has exactly 5 slides in the pitch order (Hook, What it is, Why it matters, The numbers, The ask), saved as {{code:08_pitch_deck}} inside {{code:Digital_Portfolio}}
Slide 1 has a single hook line that would make someone look up from their phone (not "Introduction" or "My project")
At least one slide clearly reuses real content from your earlier portfolio work (a verified fact, an image, or your chart)
Every slide is readable from the back of a classroom: short titles, no walls of text, one theme applied throughout

Teacher Notes

Watch for students putting too much text on slides. The Slide 4 chart insertion is usually the sticking point — have them try copy-paste from their spreadsheet first, screenshot as a fallback.

+15 XP

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Pitch Deck — Slides That Don't Put People to Sleep

Teacher Class Feed

1 - Introduction

Welcome

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

Warm-up

2 - Key Concepts

More hook examples (good vs boring)

Worked example — the 5-slide shape

3 - Step-by-step Task — Build the Demo Deck

4 - Common Issues

5 - Portfolio Build — Your 5-slide Pitch Deck

Independent Practice

Unlock the Full Learning Experience

XP