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Year 7 · Unit 04 · Lesson 02

The Real Numbers

Nothing in the student pack prints a salary figure — by design. Students pull today's numbers from today's ads, so the lesson is accurate the day it's taught, this year and in five years.

For many students this is the first money-and-jobs conversation school has ever had with them — so the run sheet opens with a rule for the teacher: ban “what do you want to be?” and replace it with “what do you want to know more about?” The lesson runs on live data on purpose. It opens with the reckoning — last lesson’s locked salary guesses checked against a real job board, projected live. Then OVER or UNDER, a wall game whose lines the teacher sets from that morning’s actual ads, an 8-minute live ads hunt where pairs scout a real ad for a job from their own shortlist, and the four doors — apprenticeship, TAFE, university, direct entry — framed as promise: all open, none of them the back door.

Prep

The morning of — ten minutes that make the lesson

This lesson runs on live data by design — printed figures go stale; job boards don’t. The morning of: search “haul truck operator WA” on a major job board, note the going rate, then pick five Lesson 1 deck jobs and note one advertised salary each. Those become the OVER/UNDER lines.

Ten minutes of prep buys a lesson that is accurate the day it’s taught — every year, forever. It also quietly teaches the real skill: anyone can look up what a job pays.
Spark

The reckoning

Locked guesses out — no mercy, no changes. The job board goes on the projector, the class reads a real ad off the screen, and every student calculates their gap. Most of the room is wrong by tens of thousands, in both directions.

The line that turns the gap into fuel: “you’ve been guessing about your own future. Today we stop guessing.”
Core

OVER or UNDER + the live ads hunt

Five rounds of the wall game: job named, line named, class walks to the OVER wall or the UNDER wall, real ad revealed. Then pairs get 8 minutes and a device: one live WA ad for a job from THEIR Lesson 1 shortlist, filed as a scout report — title, location, pay, one requirement, one surprise, source.

“Salary not listed” is a finding, not a failure — harvest it. Why would a company hide the number? Let them theorise before you explain.
Land it

Four doors + the honest question

Apprenticeship · TAFE · university · direct entry — and the apprenticeship reveal (paid to learn) reliably drops jaws at this age. Shortlists get matched to doors. Then the honest question seeds Lesson 3: why does remote work pay MORE? The extra money buys something from you — and the gut-lock closes it: town, FIFO, or neither. No changes. Next lesson we test it.

Teacher intel

“Your ad says ‘FIFO 8/6’ — what do you reckon that means?” (Park it: next lesson.)
“The ad lists a requirement you don’t have. At what age COULD you have it?” Futures feel closer counted in years.
“Two ads, same job, different pay — what could explain the gap?”
“Who in your family took which door?” — only if it arises naturally. Never force it.
Money guardrailsComparisons stay between JOBS, never between families — no “what do your parents earn.” If a student announces a family salary, receive it neutrally and steer back to the ads.
Watch for“Uni is the only smart-kid route” (four doors, all open — say it twice) · “big pay is free money” · “I have to decide NOW” (nobody picks anything — scouts scout).
Running shortThree OVER/UNDER rounds instead of five. Protect the reckoning, the live hunt, the four doors and the FIFO gut-lock — Lesson 3 opens with it.
Support / ExtendSupport: pre-loaded job-board tab + printed search string; pair confident readers with developing ones — real ads use adult language. Extend: same job, two locations — explain the pay gap using this unit’s word: liveability.