Enterprise Education

Enterprise Education continued to be a priority in 2002 with the dedicated block for Enterprise Education continuing on a Wednesday afternoon for all years 6 -10 students. Teachers continued to trial different approaches to teaching enterprise education and a new approach, the Activ8 Arts program was introduced to students. A SACE Stage 1 unit was written for the course, and this course was trialled with students. All students were also assessed in Enterprise Education as a subject and awarded grades as with other areas of valued curriculum.

Enterprise Education continued to contribute positively to the School Ethos and received good community support. In 2002, Allendale East Area School was also successful in its application to be part of a National Action research project in Enterprise Education conducted by Erebus consulting.

Data Collection

Through the National Action research project, data was collected from some teachers and students to suggest future directions for Enterprise Education. The data was collated and presented to the school as an interim report. The data from 2002 indicated that the support for Enterprise Education from the leadership of the school was positive and there was a depth to the community partnerships that had been formed since the introduction of Enterprise Education. The data also showed that teachers required more support with programming, new staff had not been adequately inserviced and that teachers were not planning for teaching the skills and attributes of Enterprise explicitly. The data also showed that in some situations Enterprise Education was an add-on activity, and lacked rigor in the teaching.

Future Directions

In order to teach Enterprise Education and attributes further data collection is planned throughout 2003 student achievement will be measured against predetermined Enterprise Education attributes.

Future directions also include incorporating whole school themes and opportunities such as the 50th Anniversary Celebration. A scope and sequence for programming has been developed and teachers will be supported by the R-9 Coordinator with programming, planning and assessing for Enterprise Education. There are also plans to write a year 9/10 SACE unit and to investigate the course being extended into Stage 2 studies.