7-12 News

Business Studies with Ms Chisholm

Year 12 students in Business studies weren't just drinking soft drinks in class but were evaluating through a blind taste test the effect that brand names and marketing have on consumers’ evaluation of a product. Students weren’t blindfolded as such but had 5 numbered cups of unmarked cola to taste and then to evaluate.

Students before the test outlined their favorite coke brand which in our class was Coca Cola ‘regular’ and most were confident, they would be able to identify the sample. The surprising results was that students overwhelming selected Pepsi as the sample that had the best taste. Students were generally surprised to realise that Pepsi is also half the price of Coke so they were possibly selecting a brand of cola based on marketing and not that they preferred the taste. Woolworths own brand of cola came in second. This experiment highlighted the importance of marketing and branding to companies and the influence it has on your purchasing habits.

Law Excursion with Ms Chisholm

As part of our law, society and political involvement subject our year 10 Commerce class traveled to Sydney to learn how laws are made an enforced.

Once arriving in Sydney and offloading our bags our first stop was NSW parliament. Here we spend 2 hours learning about how laws are made and what politicians do. The good thing was they didn’t just talk at us about what everyone did they had us use a script and acted it out as if we were politicians. Eat your heart out Mr Carver (Drama teacher).

We debated introducing a law to increase the drinking age to 21. We didn’t pass the bill. Cooper particularly was having such a good time as the leader of the opposition in the senate that our guide loosened up to and joined in Coopers calls for a division and re-counts.

After a quick stop back at the hostel our evening activity was at an Escape Room which is designed to test our ability to work in teams and problem solve. Both teams did escape their rooms under the 60-minute time due to strong team work and determination.

The next morning, we went off to the Police Museum to do role play of how courts work if you were on a drugs charge. We also learnt about some very interesting crimes in New South Wales before heading back on the train with some very tired but well-informed students.

Mathematics with Mr Boardman

Year 12 Mathematics Standard 1 students developed their understanding of bearings

by plotting a course between school landmarks.

Here they are practicing their summarising skills by creating one-pager summary of their

Year 12 course work.

This is an invaluable skill as they approach their HSC, and the culmination of all their hard

work over the past years.

Year 7 have just begun looking at coordinate geometry. They loved getting to practice reflection using the desks of A8 & A11 as a creative outlet.

7J making the most of their GRAB time to enhance their literacy and comprehension skills.