Service learning: English advertising community partner competition

17 January 2019

Last week Year 8 took part in the final of the annual English advertising competition, which this year was given a new community partner focus.

Year 8 English Advertising Competition - BIS HCMC

Nesta Lanyon Jones, Secondary Community Co-ordinator commented: ‘This year we decided to work closely with four of our partners to create advertising campaigns. There was a double benefit of this as our students learnt about advertising whilst also spreading awareness about their chosen partner.’ It’s a great example of service learning which is interwoven with the curriculum. Prior to designing their campaigns, Year 8 had a chance to engage with their chosen partner to conduct research. As part of the preparatory process, they visited Nhat Hong school for visually impaired students and heard presentations from EAST, the Christina Noble Children’s Foundation and Animal Rescue and Care.

There are so many valuable skills involved in a project of this kind: critical thinking, collaboration and creativity, to name but a few. Andrew Bligh, Assistant Head of English

Following this, students worked in teams to make a leaflet, a television advert and an online platform to promote their partner. Andrew Bligh, Assistant Head of English, said: ‘There are so many valuable skills involved in a project of this kind: critical thinking, collaboration and creativity, to name but a few.’

Our partners have praised the project too - Marina Kenyon from EAST commented on the significance of such activities, ‘Awareness raising is a really important part of what we do and it’s great to be able to reach out to this group of students. The attitudes of young people will play a central role in the future survival of vulnerable species.’ Olivia Hearn, Business Development Director for the Christina Noble Children’s Foundation very kindly agreed to be our guest judge. She commented: ‘What a pleasure to take part - I was incredibly impressed by the level of all the presentations and honoured to see CNCF’s inclusion.’

It was a hard fought battle but the deserving winners were 8N for their engaging campaign for Animal Rescue and Care which wowed the judges. Very well done to Hannah, Harry, Mina, Tram Anh, Nghia, Joon Yeol and Andy. Also really well done to our runners up, 8V, whose campaign for The Christina Noble Children’s Foundation was highly commended.