Year 7 Term 4 Overviews

English: 

In our final term we are reading the novel Holes by Louis Sachar. In the lead up to exams, students are focusing on analysing the important elements of successful narratives. While reading in literature circles, students will identify how authors create powerful images and beloved characters with their own distinct traits, biases and perceptions through their use of language. Later, students will understand how narrative structures can affect reader engagement. We will consider flashbacks, foreshadowing and time lapse and how these structures can add or enhance meaning to the overall plot. After the first round of exams, we will pivot to a media studies focus by analysing the film adaptation of Holes. Students will examine how the film uses music, lighting, props, costumes and camera angles to deepen how we perceive the plot and characters.

Humanities: 

“What does it mean to be Australian?”, this is the salient question our students will be focusing on this term. The students will be focusing on key themes such as freedom, society, compassion, multi-faith, secularism and many more. Taking these themes into consideration, students will be carefully led to the main goal of selecting a moment in the Nation's history and discuss its significance and relevance to national pride and identity. The skills required for this will entice students to explain perspectives of a range of groups in our community, compare and contrast groups to explore diversity, share values and cohesion in society and many other skills alike. It is imperative to note that the term ‘diversity’ will be sprinkled throughout the unit, as students will be encouraged to embrace its meaning, assess its importance and implement its interpretations when linking it to the Australian national identity.

Health: 

In Term 4 this year students will develop their personal and social skills through investigating strategies to manage healthy and respectful relationships. Students will start by explaining how emotional responses will impact their social relationships and identifying methods to manage their different emotions. Moreover, students will explore environmental, social and cultural factors that influence emotional responses by working on different scenarios. Students will also recognise and research the different aspects of establishing respectful relationships, including barriers within the local community, local natural resources, personal boundaries and their personal values and beliefs. By the end of the term, students will apply their knowledge and model the skills and dispositions of establishing and maintaining respectful relationships to other year level students. 

Maths: 

In term 4 students will be looking at two final units of learning before their exam window begins. Students will start the term with 2D shape alongside algebra and problem solving. Within the unit students will consolidate their understanding of the properties of 2D shape whilst also mastering their understanding of the basic algebra conventions. Following this, students will be doing economics and financial maths where they will apply their understanding of numbers to make financial decisions. In week 5 students will engage in their first round of exams. Students will receive their results and goals to work on in the lead up to exams in round 2. Each class will also focus on units of learning that need to be consolidated prior to round 2, which will be informed by data from the round 1 exam. To finish the term students will engage in a variety of maths problem solving tasks, investigations and projects to apply their skills and concepts to a range of real world settings. 

Science: 

During term 4, students will learn that there are differences within and between groups of organisms and by classifying organisms, this diversity can be understood easily. 

To achieve this, students will learn organising and grouping a variety of organisms on the basis of similarities and differences in their characteristics and features. Furthermore, students will understand how classifying organisms using hierarchical systems, for example, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species can help in understanding

To improve their science inquiry skills, students will conduct an investigation and hone their inquiry skills including questioning, predicting and conducting an investigation, recording and reporting their results and communicating their findings.

Technologies (Digital and Design): 

During term 4, in digital technology students will gain understanding about binary systems and learn how digital systems represent text, image and sound data in binary systems. They will describe that in binary there are only two possible values for each digit which are the  basis for all binary codes used in computing systems. Additionally, towards the end of the term, they will be able to explain that characters in text correspond to numbers defined by the unicode character set. 

In term 4, in design technology, students will continue working on food specialisations. Students will analyse how characteristics and properties of food determine preparation techniques and presentation when creating solutions for healthy eating. They will examine the relationship between food preparation techniques and the impact on nutrient value, for example steaming or frying vegetables.

Furthermore, they will investigate how a recipe can be modified to enhance nutrient benefits.