Room 14

Commerce and Business

Commerce and Business provides the knowledge, understanding, skills and values that form the foundation on which to make sound decisions about consumer, financial, economic, business, legal, political and employment issues. It develops an understanding of commercial and legal processes and competencies for personal consumer and professional business management.

For the Year 9/10 elective course, Commerce students learned how to establish a personal household budget using real data and spreadsheet software. They also developed a fully costed international travel itinerary for a hypothetical client and created a ‘Delicious Delights’ marketing campaign for sales of products in the Cooking and Design class. Students also enjoyed the opportunity to visit a number of Port Vila businesses.

Senior Business students learn to both design a business from scratch and transform an existing business based on an identified business problem or need. They use industrystandard design and information gathering tools to develop their ideas and then present their work in a comprehensive business plan. With a course focus on emerging technology, students appreciated the generous time given to them by VBL Media.

Senior Economics students are provided with the tools to diagnose world economies and make predictions about resource allocations affecting households, governments and businesses. A highlight of the course this year was a visit to the Reserve Bank of Vanuatu where students gained valuable insights into local fiscal and monetary policies.

Drama

Drama encourages students to explore different roles, situations and characters. Students learn to adjust their voice, and use gestures and facial expressions.

Year 8 began the year with a class play, ‘Ernie’s Incredible Illucinations’ that was sadly interrupted by Covid lockdown.

Year 7 worked in pairs to rehearse and present duologues. Ennio’s character was wrapped up in egg cartons, Tyrone and Auguste choreographed a fight scene, Grace and Simona played a beauty pageant scene and Kailav and Benjamin performed a funny teacher and student script.

Year 10 elective drama has been a small ensemble class which has enabled them to explore scripts with small casts. Students performed a melodrama comedy “Her Heart Belongs to Heartburn,” which required exaggerated movements and expressions. Holly and Jada were the main characters, two mean sisters trying to swindle their kind stepsister out of her inheritance. Jacky played the sinister sheriff and Keanu played the hero. Students also performed excerpts from the play “Dags” with Holly playing the main character throughout all the scenes.

Bertrand Letlet in year 12 performed two Shakespearean monologues from Macbeth for Stage 2 Creative Arts. He performed ‘Is this a Dagger I see before me?’ and ‘If it were done when tis done.’

Workplace Practices

Workplace Practices allows students to develop knowledge, skills, and understanding of the nature, type and structure of the workplace. In this class they learn about the value of unpaid work to society, future trends in the world of work, workers’ rights and responsibilities and career planning. Some of the class’s highlights from the year were the excursion to the Public Services Careers Expo at The Convention Centre, visit to USP’s Open Day, and 1-week placement at workplaces. All these especially the work placement, where students undertook a work-placements at a company, enabled students to undertake learning in the workplace and develop and reflect on their capabilities, interests, and aspirations. We had students working abroad in Fiji and Solomons Islands, and of course in Vanuatu. A highlight for the students in class was working during class time in and around the school, this mainly was students working as teachers’ aides in Math and Sports classes. This was a great opportunity for students to give back to the student body and more closely collaborate and work alongside teachers. It allowed students to build upon their communication, organizational, teamwork and collaboration skills getting them ready for the working world!