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Cerdon College has offered the Australian Business Week Program to its Year 11 students since 1995. This is a week-long program incorporating extended school hours where students form teams of ten to run a company over a simulated period of 2 years. Each student team is assisted by a business and teacher mentor whose task is to advise and guide the students without actually "telling them the answer".
Since we began offering the program to our Year 11 students, twenty staff members have taken on the role of mentor to a student team and have been exposed to the discovery learning of the Program.
The major components of this program are:
Each student within a company is designated a role. This role could be that of the Chief Executive Officer, the Marketing Manager or the Operations and Production Manager.
In 1996 our program was judged the best in a National Competition and won 1st prize. In 1997, we again entered the competition, sharing 1st prize with Carlingford High School.
Our school is particularly pleased with the support offered to our program by the Staff and School Executive, parents, the students and the many local businesses who sponsor our students during the week-long program
Student evaluations at the end of the week have been extremely positive. Students are occupied throughout the whole week and participation in the programme gives them an opportunity to experience real life at first hand. By participating in this program our Year 11 students develop many skills such as time and stress management and group interactions that will equip them for later life. We intend to run the program again this year in its usual time slot of Week 1 Term 4.