Humanities

Term 4 is well and truly under way and students across the junior school are completing their business and economics studies.

In Year 7 students are being introduced to the key foundational concepts of this unit. As part of this ideas such as supply and demand, opportunity cost, and budgeting are studied. These concepts underpin not only their studies for the next six years, but also fundamental aspects of every day life.

In Year 8 the focus is on businesses. At this level students undertake a case study on McDonalds, exploring how the company revolutionised the idea of business and grew to the global brand it is today. The free choice component of the assessment task allows for students to investigate various aspects of McDonalds in detail. One option is to learn about their ‘Speedee System’, where a style of production modelled on manufacturing allowed McDonalds to deliver food in 30 seconds rather than 30 minutes. The extract from Ella’s folio (pictured) is a great example!

In Year 9 student work for the first half of the term focused on completing a careers investigation folio. This gave students the opportunity to develop a range of essential resources, such as resumes and cover letters, as well as prepare for their Year 10 work experience week. Since completing these students have moved on to studying the global work environment. In week 5 this meant that all the classes took part in the National Geographic ‘trading game’. This allowed students to work together in small groups and as a whole class to better understand the nature of global free trade. Throughout the term students are earning money as part of their “classroom economies”, in week 9 they will have the opportunity to spend these classroom dollars on real life loot. Good luck!