Our Year 8s are reading Kashmira Sheth’s Boys Without Names, a novel that follows Gopal, who moves with his family from rural India to Mumbai, is kidnapped into a sweatshop and uses courage, friendship and storytelling to plan their escape. Students are using the text to connect literature with real-world issues that echo the Industrial Revolution:

• Child labour & modern slavery: why it persists and how it is hidden in modern supply chains.
  
• Pollution & environmental harm: factories then and now.
  
• Urban slums & poverty: how rapid industrial growth concentrates disadvantage and what helps communities change.
  
• Mechanisation & automation: productivity gains alongside job loss and changing conditions of work.
  

Alongside English, in Humanities, we’re exploring megacities and urban design. Using a hands-on program from the University of the Sunshine Coast, students are designing their own towns in the game—a 1,500-person “10-minute city,” where most daily needs are reachable within 10 minutes from home. They experiment with transport links, green space, and housing density to see how different layouts affect congestion, access to services, and liveability.

Our aim is simple: help students recognise recurring urban challenges, see how story makes them human and memorable, and understand how thoughtful urban design can improve city life today.

Helen Douglas, Year 8 Coordinator