A student presenting four pitch posters on easels — mining, careers, water and renewables — in a gallery space
Year 7 · Unit 05 · Lesson 05

Pitch Day

An event, not a class. Everything is pre-built — Dossiers, Blueprints, trained judges — so the teacher's job is master of ceremonies, timekeeper, and the person who says the final words well.

The 25th and final lesson of Year 7, run as a launch event. THE STAGE RULE sets students free with one law: pitch in ANY technology — paper poster, slides, video, website, model, animation — but the five panels must exist in whatever medium the studio commands: the problem · the concept · who it’s for · why it works · what’s next. The poster is three-fifths pre-built: the Dossier is panel one, the Blueprint is panel two, and the sprint’s so-that chain and friendly-fire repair fill panel four — the unit was the draft all along. The pitch spine structures three hard-timed minutes (hook · problem · concept · proof · ask), every member speaks, and the floor works: judge cards with four criteria and the judge’s law — stars go to evidence and honesty, never to the fanciest technology — plus two questions per pitch under hearing rules. Five awards mean most studios win something, and the year ends at the CLASS OF 2040 wall: every student signs their name and their 2040 job title. The wall stays up.

Setup

Assembly + the stage rule

Dossiers and Blueprints returned — the pitch is mostly built before the lesson starts. The stage rule stated plainly: any technology, judges never mark the medium, five panels are the law. Tech triage in the first five minutes; every digital pitch names its paper fallback. Where policy and consents allow, record for industry feedback — policy first, always.

An unrecorded Pitch Day is still a complete Pitch Day.
Run

The pitches + the trained floor

Six minutes per studio: three-minute pitch (warning at 2:30), two floor questions under hearing rules, changeover. More than six studios splits across two lessons — tell the second-day studios today. The floor judges every pitch on four criteria, catches one exact quote (press corps rules never expired), and fires Google-proof questions.

Name it from the front, once, early: “we don’t know yet, but here’s how we’d find out” is a full answer. Every studio hears it before their turn.
Award

Five ways to win

JUDGES’ PICK · PEOPLE’S CHOICE · THE HONEST FIVE (best what’s-next candour) · THE STEAL AWARD (best credited improvement) · BEST QUESTION FROM THE FLOOR. Five awards means most studios — and one audience member — leave holding something. Announce like it matters; it does.

Close

CLASS OF 2040 + the year’s last words

Every student signs the wall: name, and 2040 job title — from their Job Reality Profile or invented outright. Then the year’s last words, roughly: “In February you drew your own street. Since then you’ve followed iron ore to the world, judged a mine like a court, interviewed the industry, and today you pitched its future — with evidence, with honesty, and without fear of hard questions. Class of 2040 — dismissed.”

Photograph everything before the room empties: panels, the wall, the sprint wall behind it. Ten minutes with a phone; a year of proof.

Teacher intel

“Your hook — would it stop a stranger in a corridor?” (If it only works on classmates, it’s a greeting, not a hook.)
“Panel five says what you’d test first. Could THIS class test it next year?” (Watch a studio realise the answer is yes.)
“Which pitch changed your stars after the Q&A — up or down — and why?”
“The 2040 title you signed — which unit put it there?” (The whole year, answered in one question.)
What gets markedThe rubric marks the PITCH — problem, concept-to-HMW fit, honesty, communication, team & floor. Judge cards are peer feedback and award fuel, not marks. Archive every studio’s panels on the day — “it was on Riley’s laptop” is not an archive.
Nerve rescuesFrozen speaker: point at their panel’s first line — reading one line restarts almost everyone. Blanked Q&A: hand them the program’s sentence and let them finish it. Tech death: paper fallback, zero fuss — “real launches break too; watch how professionals recover.”
Running shortAwards compress to three (keep THE HONEST FIVE — the program’s values with a trophy). Q&A drops to one question. The pitches, the judge cards and CLASS OF 2040 are untouchable — the wall is the year’s full stop.
Watch for“Flashier medium = better mark” (the rubric never asks; the judge’s law says it twice) · “Q&A is an attack” (hearing rules — Term 3 taught this) · “the pitch ends the project” (panel five is titled WHAT’S NEXT — the best pitches end with a beginning).