A classroom video Q&A: a smiling offshore worker in orange coveralls on a laptop screen
Year 7 · Unit 04 · Lesson 04

The Q&A

A real voice does what no worksheet can — but only if the class arrives as press. The structure makes silence impossible and awkwardness survivable.

The encounter lesson — run as a press conference. The question box from Lesson 3 comes back and every question faces surgery: the Google test (if a search engine can answer it, it’s DEAD — don’t spend a human on it), the yes/no test, the so-what test. Then the room casts itself: an anchor, desk reporters for each job family, quote-catchers bound to exact words, a fact-checker, a timekeeper. Nobody is an audience member — audiences drift; press corps don’t. The conference runs a printed protocol ending in a lightning round and the program’s signature closer: “What do you know now that you wish you’d known at 12?” A three-tier fallback protocol means the lesson survives any cancellation — and it closes with THE DRAFT: each student locks the four careers their Job Reality Profile will investigate.

Spark

Question surgery + DEAD or LIVE

Lesson 3’s harvested questions return to their owners and get rebuilt through three tests. The warm-up sort calibrates the room fast: “what does FIFO stand for?” — DEAD. “What do you miss most on day 4 of a swing?” — LIVE. Desks then choose their single best question.

Ruthlessness is the lesson: you don’t spend a human on what Google knows. Interview craft, taught at 12.
Setup

Casting the conference

Every student holds a job — anchor, desk reporters, quote-catchers (exact words only; “nearly what they said” is not a quote), fact-checker (spoken numbers get the no-source-no-evidence treatment too), timekeeper. Press badges filled in on page 1.

Core

The conference

Anchor’s welcome → guest’s 2-minute opener → desk rounds with one follow-up each → lightning round (best meal on site? weirdest thing in your work bag?) → the closer, always the same, always last: “what do you know now that you wish you’d known at 12?”

The closer is the program’s question — guests give it their best answer every single time. Two rescue moves are scripted for quiet rooms; silence rarely survives either.
Land it

Debrief + THE DRAFT

Best-caught quotes read aloud, the fact-checker files numbers for verification, front-page sentences shared. Then draft day: two inside picks, two outside picks, locked — with a wildcard celebrated loudly. Lesson 5 opens on exactly these four.

Teacher intel

“Your question survived surgery — but would YOU answer it honestly if a stranger asked you?”
“The guest said something no ad had told us — why do ads leave that out?”
“One worker is one data point. What would change if we’d had a different guest?”
“Which desk’s question got the best answer — and what made it work?”
Fallback protocolPLAN A: live guest (brief them: 2-min opener, no slides, one photo or object, the closer sent in advance). PLAN B: recorded video — the conference still runs; the questions a recording can’t answer become the lesson. PLAN C: teacher-in-role with the Alex Torres character card. Y7 forgives theatre; it does not forgive cancellation.
SafeguardingStandard external-speaker protocols. Rehearse the swap: “what do YOU earn” becomes “what can someone in your role earn.” FIFO guests may describe some students’ own homes — same care as Lesson 3: experts by choice, never by exposure.
Running shortCut the warm-up sort, never the surgery. Protect the conference, the closer, and THE DRAFT — Lesson 5 cannot start without the four picks.
Watch for“Good questions sound impressive” (good questions get answers nobody had) · “the guest’s life is THE life” (one data point; the profile needs sources, plural) · “quotes can be roughly right” (exact words or it isn’t a quote).