Testimonal
My class is very happy with the Legal Studies for Queensland texts; in fact, I use them nearly every lesson.
It is hard to find a text that relates with every aspect of a course, yet the Legal Studies for Queensland text does this exceptionally well. It is great how you link the legal principles and laws to real life cases and scenarios that happen in Queensland. It is exciting for my class to read about cases that happen on the Sunshine Coast as well!
I also like how the text takes the laws directly from the Queensland Criminal Code and then explains these laws further with examples and case studies. My class loves the case studies and the What do you think? activities always spark debates amongst my students.
My Year 11 class has just completed the criminal law unit of the text and we had the opportunity to attend the Supreme Court in Brisbane. It was great to see that the students were able to see the laws and principles that have been covered in your text then being used in a real court of law. Most of my students found this enabled them to understand the goings-on of the court far better.
Thank you so much for producing a great text. It is hard for me to find texts that I can rely on which will cover all the important aspects of the course that must be discovered. I strongly believe your text has done this, and done it well. Once again, thanks for a great teaching tool. I see your text not only as a textbook but as a comprehensive teaching tool.
Daniel Gettis
Legal Studies Secondary Teacher
Suncoast Christian College
Testimonal 2
As a recent Legal Studies Educator at the University level and now as a teacher within the Secondary School setting, I have found Legal Studies for Queensland Volumes 1 & 2 to more than adequately meet the requirements of both the internal and external Legal Studies Curriculum.
When lecturing in Legal Studies Curriculum within the Education Faculty of QUT, I always recommended to our students that as future Legal Studies teachers they should have copies of both volumes within their professional library, together with the solutions/resource manuals. Many student teachers used the texts and manuals for lesson preparation during their field experience programs.
The authors of Legal Studies for Queensland have had many years of experience in education at both Tertiary and Secondary level and within the legal profession.
They have continued to keep in touch with constant changes in the law and address the requirements of each new revised QSA syllabus. The full colour fifth edition of the texts, complete with CD-Rom and the teachers’ Solutions and Resources manuals continue to meet the high expectations teachers require in a text as a resource that helps them to present interesting, relevant and challenging lessons in order to achieve the stated Understandings of the syllabus.
During the last five years I have been preparing students/candidates for the Legal Studies Senior Examination in October of each year. Students are required to complete two examination papers, drawing on all of their legal knowledge from the year’s course in order to answer a range of questions from multiple-choice, short answer up to extended essays meeting all of the Criteria.
Candidates preparing for the external examination find the practical activities and the questions designed to develop their higher order skills very relevant to the external mode. The sections Essential Legal Skills and Independent Study particularly help students in their preparation for the final examinations, as they have to be up-to-date with current laws and also be able to discuss relevant legal and social issues. Students find the Review section at the end of each chapter very useful as part of their ongoing revision program, as this helps them to focus on areas where they may need to do more preparation.
Legal Studies for Queensland texts and resources continue to meet the specific needs of experienced and beginning teachers, as well as providing Secondary students, either in the internal or the external mode, with many opportunities to develop life skills relevant to dealing with social and legal issues.
Ernie Woodward
Former Legal Studies Teacher
Hubbard's School (Auchenflower)
Testimonal 3
The content of the new full colour editions of Legal Studies for Queensland is clearly written, with a solid focus on legislation and cases, so that students have useful, valid and current resources at hand for building arguments.
It is organised into bite-sized chunks with headings and sub-headings, boxes, shaded sections and graphic images, all of which help students understand what’s on each page. In fact, my students really like the layout. They are able to find things with relative ease, and there is enough depth there on most topics without totally overwhelming them with facts. The index is easy to read, and so year 12’s doing independent research have had a ready-made starting point for many of their chosen topics, and material has been easy to locate with the bold-face headings used.
There are also plenty of activities included, to allow for the effective setting of useful homework. I particularly like the inclusion of many articles with “thinking” questions following. The Case Studies are a favourite source of discussion with my students, and many a fruitful and interesting lesson has arisen from those. The other useful thing is that activity questions have been identified according to the Syllabus Criteria – K, I, E, C. As a result, students are learning right from the start how these criteria are different from each other, which I think, helps them to understand and improve their responses as they develop through the course.
Another thing that I like about this text, both volumes 1 and 2, is that there is an abundance of material included, so much so that, sometimes, I have to stop and remember that I don’t need to cover it all! But the advantage is that there is always something extra available to delve into for an advanced student, and I have not yet noticed any points where I have felt that I wanted more information. In fact, we have been able to take some quite interesting detours on our legal studies journey, simply because we have had the resource available. So that’s good.
Overall, I am extremely happy with my choice. The layout and the solid content suits me. The fact that students like it too is a real bonus, so thank you to the authors who have produced a very readable, relevant, up-to-date and interesting text, which promotes and complements classroom activities, discussion and debate.My rating – great!
Mary Helbig
Legal Studies teacher
Victoria Point State High School