Year 4 and Year 8 Marketing Study

The Year 8s have been studying persuasive writing and presentations through a marketing and advertising project in their English classes. This led to them presenting a chocolate product of their own making to the class and to some marketing professionals who were invited in to judge their work. There were a range of incredibly creative ideas, from chocolate bars with four different flavours to miniature glass cups filled with puddings. Some people even made websites or brought samples of their products!

Coincidentally, the Year 4s were studying marketing in their English classes as well. Their project was slightly different though, they had to produce a brand of cereal and design the box to help sell it. The Year 4s had to include all of the persuasive language that professional marketing people use in order to sell their product i.e. ‘organic’, ‘’original’, ‘healthy, not just tasty’ and so on. The Year 4s were studying advertising just the same as the year 8s and so the teachers of all these years thought that it would be beneficial for the year 4s to see a marketing presentation and be taught by the older students.

So two groups were chosen to present their chocolate products to the students in Jardine’s Lookout whilst the rest of year 8 A came along to help teach the Year 4s. The Year 8s were split between the two Year 4 A and B classes, and after the presentations were finished, the older students were set a task: to help the year fours create a poster which advertised their cereal product. The synnergy of both the primary and secondary students studying the same unit in English provided both year levels an excellent opportunity to learn from each other. What the Year 8s discovered was that in order to be able to teach advertising and persuasive language, you really have to understand first!

Madeleine Tzatzakis,
Class 8A, March 2016.