Sam de Vries | Secondary Teacher HASS & BLW

This term in Civics, Year 8 students have been learning about different types of laws and where they come from. 

When they learnt about statutory law, students participated in an in class role play where the classroom was rearranged to match our Federal Parliament.

Different students were given roles, including the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader, various ministers, independent and minor parties, backbenchers, clerks and whips. 

The proposed bill which was up for debate was the “No homework Bill 2025”.

The Government argued that homework was not necessary because students have other commitments like family and sport, and homework encroaches on these things, while the Opposition put forward that homework was used to reinforce the learning happening at school and therefore needed to be done. 

After much debating back and forth, hearing from ministers, the back bench and the cross bench, an amendments was proposed that homework be given to those who want it, but not be compulsory for all students. After discussion on the amendment the bill was passed, with support from the crossbench in both classes. 

It gave students a valuable insight on how laws are made in Australia and a bit of a taste of how our country is run. 

Who knows, maybe one of these students may represent us in either our State or Federal Parliament in the future.