Sunday, January 26, 2020

Strategy Used By Premier Inn

Strategy Used By Premier Inn Premier Inn is the UKs biggest and fastest growing hotel company, owned by Whitbread. And the company contributes 70 of the total profits of Whitbread (Annual Report, 2009). As the hotel industry, the development of Premier Inn is highly dependent on the macro-environment, especially the tourism industry. Indeed, hotel industry and tourism industry have been so close that the following reduce in tourism after the economic crisis has strong impact on hotel operations. However, the British hotel industry has been suffered significant loss although it has manifested recovery during the previous years. Last year, the continuing crisis in global finance and trade has triggered the worlds worst economic plunge. UK unprecedented economic contraction was described by Sir Terry, Tescos chief executive, as low point. However, from the second half of year 2009, the UK economy appears to be in a slowly recovery. Companies have begun to hire and consumers seem to be increasing. This paper focuses on the strategies used by Premier Inn in this situation. Then we will review these strategies, and recommend some resolutions to close the gap. The following section will also use PEST analysis to audit the macro-environment that Premier Inn is facing. 2. Review on the Strategy Used by Premier Inn In this part, we will review the strategies that used by Premier Inn. And we will only focus on the marketing strategy and operating strategy. 2.1 Marketing Strategy Marketing strategy is very important and even could be the biggest factor in the success or failure of the company. Premier Inn also attached great importance to the marketing strategy. In this year, the company makes an additional 8 million pound in marketing investment (Annual Report, 2009). First, Premier Inn has start out a commercial action plan to enhance its status as the preferred hotel brand for travelers and to attract more leisure customers. They put in place four key levers in their marketing plan: focused advertising; increased sales activity; Premier Offers; and widening reservation distribution (Annual Report, 2009). Furthermore, the new website went live in November 2008 and has increased visits by 80, and now the site helps to attract over three million visits per month (Annual Report, 2009). Third, Premier Inn has also set out development of a new 267 bedroom budget hotel at Stratford, which adjacent to the Olympic Stadium (Annual Report, 2009). It can be seen that Premier Inn has already prepared for the 2012 Olympic Games. 2.2 Operating Strategy This paper considers that operating strategies in Premier Inn are as follows: First, Premier Inn has specific short and medium term growth programs, which give employees a specific direction. For instance, the company wants to increase room numbers in November 2010 by over 2500 rooms and target a 32 increase to 55000 rooms in the UK by the end of 2014 (Annual Report, 2009). In addition, the Premier Inn has decreased the overheads instead of adopting streamlining management, promoting the back-office processes and delivering a series of procurement initiatives. The company want to control cost tightly, through both procurement and operation efficiencies. And this helped underpin its operation margin. Last but not the least, the Whitbread launched Good Together program in January 2010, to drive sustainable performance and further deepen its corporate responsibility. This program has set goals for CO2 reduction, sustainable sourcing and waste management (Annual Report, 2009). Premier Inn also announced that they would build green hotel. The 60 bedroom Premier Inn, starting the business in autumn 2010, will use the best level sustainable construction materials to reduce 30 carbon emission and 40 water savings. 3. Evaluation on the Strategy Used by Premier Inn A PEST analysis is an outline that classifies environmental influences such as political, economic, social and technological forces (Camisà ³n, 2000). The analysis inspects the impact of each factors on the business (ÃŽÂ ¤ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ±Ãƒ Ã¢â€š ¬ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ±ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ½ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ Ã‚ ÃƒÅ½Ã‚ ·, 2009). The results can be used to seize the opportunities or to make contingency plans for threats when preparing business and strategic plans (Byars, 1991; Cooper, 2000). In this part, we will use PEST analysis to evaluation the strategy adopted by Premier Inn. Owing to the limited understanding of the technology, we will focus on the political, economic and social factors. At the end of this part, we will give recommendation on the strategy used by Premier Inn. 3.1 Political Factors Government policy is a major influence factor; its policy will influence the company directly and indirectly, but they also offer chances and challenges. After the global economic downturn in 2008, the government has issued a series of policies to boost economic growth. However, the policy aimed at hotel industry or tourism industry is very rare. But when the United Kingdom general election of 2010 was held, the three parties all put forward many programs to promote the tourism industry. Meanwhile, the British Tourism Association and Hospitality Association has lobby the government to issues some policies that are positive to tourist industry and hotel industry. Besides, in 2009, Prime Minister Gordon Brown offered the proposed program Low Carbon Industrial Strategy, which plans to provide more than 1.4 billion pound for the low carbon sector and those already adopted, and outlay 10.4 billion pound for low carbon investment over the next three years (Plesch, Austin Grant, 2005) . Based on these political factors, this paper considers that the strategies Premier Inn adopted are valid, especially the operating strategy. First, the operating strategy in Premier Inn is aggressive which just meet the political situation. Second, the Premier Inn has launched Good Together program which aims at CO2 reduction. These practices not fit the proposal the government advocated, but fit the societys environmental demands. 3.2 Economic Factors Economic factors influence how easy or hard it is to be successful and lucrative (Thompson, 2002). The UK government has held a serious of international sporting events in 2009, such as the Ashes and the ICC World Twenty 20. These events may promote visitor numbers and then boost the hotel industry. In addition, the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games will hold in London. This will provide the Britain hotel industry with a huge chance. Obviously, Premier Inn has already seized the opportunity because it has already developed some hotel which is adjacent to the Olympic Stadium. And the new website will play a significant role in convenient the consumers. Actually, the marketing strategy that Premier Inn adopted has already worked. From the annual report of the Whitbread, Premier Inn outperformed its competitors during October 2009. Regional income was down about 6.4 last year, compared to a decrease of 8.5 in the regional hotel sector and a decline of 9.6 in the whole regional hotel industry (Annual Report, 2009). 3.3 Social Factors Social factors also play an important part in the development of enterprises. Living conditions, income distribution and lifestyle all have tremendous influence on the operating methods of enterprises. With the improvement of living conditions, people are willing to spend more money in enjoying life and choose to relax after working, because their work are so busy and they have rare spare time. Therefore, the services provided by high-level hotels just meet the demands. But after economic crisis, the domestic demand has been weak, and an increasing number of British people choose to travel aboard instead of domestic travel. These social factors are clearly not advantage for the hotel industry. The marketing strategy Premier Inn adopted, as we described above, does not aim at this social situation. In the authors opinion, these strategies have more concern about the external market other than the domestic social conditions. But on the other hand, the increase in the number of non-profit environmental organizations indicates that publics sensitivity to environmental issues has significantly increased. The society has become more anxious and critical about the environmental practices of firms. Good Together program of Premier Inn not only shows the efforts made in environmental protection, but also enhances the corporate image and upgrades its enterprise competitiveness. 3.4Technique Factors Technology is widely recognized as an important competitive advantage (Chu Choi, 2000). As the hotel industry, technique factor seems have little relationship with the hotel development. But sometimes new and proper technology could provide unexpected harvest. From the strategy we mentioned above, Premier Inn have adopted the new website that now attracts over three million visits per month. Moreover, the company has used streamlining management to reduce the internal cost. In general, we think the strategy used by Premier Inn is very appropriate under the current situation. But the problem is that it is too much reliance on the international tourist industry. Once the outbreak of the economic crisis, this mode of operation is very dangerous and company may get into trouble. Actually, the domestic business and conference market is a buoyant sector for hotel (1996); meanwhile the economic gradual recovery will help to stimulate the hotel market. So Premier Inn should make some strategies to attract these potential consumers. To serve these high standards clients, Premier Inn should offer amenities services to meet the highest requirements. High quality and multi-functional rooms equipped with latest communication facilities, such as online 3D conference, will be very attractive. In details, based on what the businessman needs may different from the common consumers, the quick and facility services are obligatory to them. Such as the office supplies, fast printers and speedy laundry facilities are all very important to these consumers. 4. Conclusion In this paper, we focus on the strategies used by Premier Inn after the serious economic crisis. The article mainly analyzes the marketing and operating strategies with PEST analysis in the current situation. In general, we consider that Premier Inn has adopted appropriate strategies to boost its development. But the problems in the strategies were pointed out that the company has not paid enough attention on the domestic market. In the authors opinion, Premier Inn should pay more attention on its domestic market.

Saturday, January 18, 2020

Simul8 in Supply Chain

[pic] PLYMOUTH BUSINESS SCHOOL COURSEWORK COVERSHEET GROUP WORK NAMES and NUMBERS of students in the group (2 Students): 1. El-Iraki, Youssef (10448517) 2. Badr, Noureldin (10445226) MODULE CODE: MBM5204 MODULE NAME: Logistics, Supply Chains, Systems and Methods Lecturer: Professor Dongping Song DEADLINE : 11th February 2013 WORD COUNT: 1,657 By submitting this piece of assessment the group confirms that all the work is thoroughly and adequately acknowledge and referenced, and has been completed in accordance with the University and Programme Regulations.Table of Contents 1. 0 Introduction3 2. 0 Current Simulation Model3 2. 1 Clock Options3 2. 2 The warm-up period3 2. 3 Results collection period4 2. 4 The number of trials used4 2. 5 Results analysis4 3. 0Pooling Resources5 3. 1 The impact of pooling resources5 3. 2 Comparison between initial model and pooled model6 4. 0Usefulness of Simulation Model in Business Context6 4. 1 Simulation and decision making6 4. 2 Researcher Recommendat ion8 5. 0 Bibliography9 6. 0 Appendices:11 1. 0 IntroductionSimulation is one of the three quantitative analysis solutions and it is essential in logistics decision making (Ghiani, et al. , 2004). Simulation model can answer what if questions in existing system as for this case, the business needs to know and evaluate performance if two warehouses and four drivers can be pooled to compare the results and the influence of the supply chain performance, in order to give an optimal supply-production-distribution system decisions. The researchers used SIMUL8 program to run the simulations and draw the predictable models needed. . 0 Current Simulation Model 2. 1 Clock Options The business is working daily from Monday till Friday by which the shifts are starting from 9:00 till 17:00 (8 hours/day), and the time is set up in hours to monitor the start time and the length of each day. 2. 2 The warm-up period The warm-up period is crucial when building up simulation for manufacturing models, b ecause there is no work-in-progress in such industries at the beginning of the process (Concannon et al. , 2007).Robinson (2007) stated that there are various methods to determine warm-up period in the simulation model such as the model of run-in for a warm-up period until it reaches a steady state and then the data are deleted and the model of a realistic initial condition at the start of the run. The first model was taking into consideration when determining the warm-up period and has shown that the warm-up period is 280 hours. It is worth adding a 20% to the normal warm-up period as a safety margin (SIMUL8, 2013).The table below shows the exact warm-up period after running and monitoring the simulation model. Figure (1): Warm-up period [pic] 2. 3 Results collection period The result collection period is usually chosen to reflect an appropriate operating period. In this model the period set to 1600 hours = 40 weeks. The researchers decided to choose 40 weeks as statistically n ? 3 0, it is important to use large sample size to be more accurate and it is necessary to produce results among variables that are totally different (Freeman, et al. , 2010). 2. 4 The number of trials usedAfter running the simulation model, it was important to generate the results required to help the company analyse the output data accurately. The more trials used, the more accurate the results will be. Approximately 3000 trials for both initial and pooling models are conducted to give sufficient accurate results needed for the company. 2. 5 Results analysis Appendix (2) illustrates the results that conducted after running the simulation of model 1. The average time in system is 110 hours due to many reasons in the supply chain which affects production plan that lead to poor delivery performance.Although the main objective of any manufacturer is to decrease lead-time in order to satisfy customer and achieve better delivery performance. Driver’s performances are 91% and they are considered as an important resource to deliver finished goods to end customers at the right time. The waiting percentage of the available vehicles is set to be 2% which cannot be considered as a factor that hinder the efficiency of customer delivery. However, the working percentage of vehicles can be enormous factor that affect customer delivery.As shown in appendix (2), vehicles are only operating at a 79% of its total working ability. Since the warehouses hold finished goods and is considered to be an inventory, therefore it is crucial to minimise the capacity of the warehouses to achieve greater financial success. Appendix (2) shows that the average queue size of both warehouses is nearly 16 units whereas the maximum capacity of the warehouses is 50 units, thus the capacity of the warehouses are efficiently used. Average queue time of the available warehouses is another factor that must be taken in the prior considerations.An average of 34 hours is spent to deliver orders from w arehouses to customers and this can be nearly 30% of the whole time spent in system. The rule of thumb declares that once the goods are manufactured, it must be delivered as quickly as possible to reduce storage costs and to satisfy customers. Pooling Resources 3. 1 The impact of pooling resources Pooling resources is a possible method to improve service performance without adding any other resources. Pooling help to reduce the variability of data collection, however pooling of customers adds variability to the system and no efficiency will be gained (Vanberkel et al. 2010). Furthermore, it helps to reduce the average queue time in system for the products; it is optimal to schedule the shortest job first and to give priority to short jobs (Downey, n. d. ). Thus, it can reduce inventory holding period and costs. This method used in the model is called FIFO (first-in first-out). 3. 2 Comparison between initial model and pooled model 1- There are dramatic changes after pooling warehous es, the queuing time dropped from 34 hours to 15 hours while queue size decreased from16 units to 15 units.As a result the average time in system declined from 110 hours to 88 hours, thus it can lead to better customer service, saving storage costs and save time as well. 2- After pooling the drivers, it has influenced the waiting times of the vehicles to increase slightly from 2% to 2. 4%. While driver’s utilisation has improved significantly to rise from 91% to 93%, therefore drivers after pooling can respond quickly and flexibly to customers. Usefulness of Simulation Model in Business Context 4. 1 Simulation and decision makingThe simulation model can help the real-world companies to provide efficient production and distribution systems as stated by Tunali et al. (2011). SIMUL8 has become the preferred tool as it brings solutions for production planning and scheduling to thousands of engineers that have complex supply chains and distribution systems such as Chrysler, GM, Fo rd etc. (SIMUL8, 2013). SIMUL8 is easy to use and support numerous critical decisions making every year because it enables to create accurate and flexible output more rapidly.Moreover, it helps bridging the ERP gap by creating new and feasible production plans (Concannon et al. , 2003). Analysis and assessment of business processes; development of what if scenarios and export to implementation platforms, such as workflow management and ERP systems are the key advantages of simulation modelling, because it enables the integration of these functions easily and more accurately (Verma et al. , n. d. ). As a result, decision making can be easily overtaken and this is the reason why thousands of companies use simulation modelling to optimise their supply-production-distribution systems.Chrysler saved $5 Million by using Simul8 software which helped them to identify the best performance and bottleneck lines, thus it assisted them to slow it down. Simul8 also reduced the manpower on these a ssembly lines which have saved $ 600,000 per year as labour costs. On the other hand, the researchers could not identify the best performance and bottleneck lines because it needs Simul8 professional software which is used in real world companies and the need of historical data is crucial to be more realistic when identifying the bottlenecks in the supply-production-distribution systems (Simul8, 2013).The researchers used Simul8 education software in this case and they found out after pooling warehouses and drivers, significant results are achieved such as reducing inventory (from 16. 7 units to 15. 5 units) and the time of finished goods spent in the warehouse was also decreased significantly (34. 5 hours to 15. 9 hours). As a result, the lead-time dropped from 110 hours to 88 hours. Furthermore, driver’s utilisation increased from 91. 1% to 93. 6% after pooling the resources (drivers).Thus, the business could react more responsively to customers and achieve enormous financi al success because of their drivers’ flexibility (Velverde et al. , 2000). According to McLean and Leong, simulation models can help manufacturing and operational departments to determine which new technologies need to be used, organise labour shifts and materials management required for each production stage and modelling of supplier relationships (McLean and Leong, 2001). Table (1): Usefulness of Simulation Model Usefulness of the Simulation Model | |Business Context |Current Simulation Model | |Support the operation of supply chain through â€Å"what-if† |A trial of approximately 3,000 runs were conducted to compare the available | |manufacturing model |results | |Perform capacity planning analysis |Available capacities for warehouses in the initial model were set to 50 each, but | | |it was planned to pool both warehouses together to have a capacity of 100 which | | |delivers enormous results.Maximum batches for trucks and availability% of drivers| | |were set which helped for planning the distribution process of the model | |Establish the required resources for production and material |Determine and manage the required raw materials needed for assembling the product | |handling |(How many raw materials needed from each supplier) it can also be set on which | | |statistical distribution used to supply these values materials as the simulation | | |runs | |Ability to evaluate overall firm performance |Every stage of the production and distribution process are evaluated such as | | |working%, waiting%, utilisation of drivers, queue sizes, queue times, etc. As a | | |result, this can elp evaluate the performance of the company and assist the top | | |management in taking the right decisions | 4. 2 Researcher Recommendation By using SIMUL8, the researcher suggested to add value to the company even after pooling their resources which affected in significant results. The researches created new model and recommended to add one more vehicle with the same amount of resources that are available (drivers, warehouses) to compare with the previous results. The following table shows even more effective results as customers received their orders in less than the time spent by using only 2 vehicles.It has also shown that driver’s utilisation increased significantly from 93. 2% to 97. 9% and this is due to a huge reduction in waiting times of drivers. Finally, warehouses queue size and queuing time have decreased to meet nearly the maximum efficiency by which slight amount inventory holding and very tiny amount of time is spent inside the warehouse where most of the finished goods are ready for delivery to customers once arrived. Table (2): Results of adding extra vehicle [pic] 5. 0 Bibliography †¢ Concannon, K. Elder, M. Hindle, K. Tremble, J. and Tse, S. (2007) Simulation Modeling with simul8. [online] Available at: < http://www. visual8. om/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/simulation_modeling_with_simul8_web. pdf > [Accesse d on 26th of January 2013]. †¢ Concannon, K. H. , Hunter, K. I. & Tremble, J. M. (2003) SIMUL8-Planner: Simulation-Based Planning and Scheduling. [online] Available at: < http://ieeexplore. ieee. org/stamp/stamp. jsp? arnumber=01261593 > [Accessed on 28th of January 2013]. †¢ Downey, A. B. (n. d. ) Using queue time predictions for processor Allocation. [online] Available at: < http://www. cs. huji. ac. il/~feit/parsched/jsspp97/p-97-2. pdf> [Accessed on 27th January 2013]. †¢ Freeman, J. , Shoesmith, E. , Anderson, D. R. , Sweeney, D. J. & Williams, T. A. (2010) Statistics for business and economics. 2nd ed.Hampshire: South-Western Cengage learning. †¢ Ghiani, G. , Laporte, G. and Musmanno, R. (2004) Introduction to logistics systems planning and control. Chichester: Wiley. †¢ McLean, C. and Leong, S. (2001) The Role of Simulation in Strategic Manufacturing. [online] Available at: < http://citeseerx. ist. psu. edu/messages/downloadsexceeded. html > [Accessed on 30th of January 2013]. †¢ Robinson, S. (2007) A statistical process control approach to selecting a warm-up period for a discrete-event simulation. European Journal of Operational Research [online], 176 (1). Available at: < http://ac. els-cdn. com/S0377221705005643/1-s2. 0-S0377221705005643-main. pdf? tid=65d0a6b8-6edb-11e2-94b5-00000aacb35e&acdnat=1359990116_8f49ecb58acc4020e744141def925d90 > [Accessed on 26th of January 2013]. †¢ Simul8 (2013) Warm-up Time. [online] Available at: < http://www. simul8. com/support/help/doku. php? id=gettingstarted:techguide:warmup&do=show > [Accessed on 26th of January 2013]. †¢ Simul8. (2013) Chrysler projected to save $5 million using SIMUL8. [online] Available at: < http://www. simul8. com/our_customers/case_studies/chrysler_line_balancing. htm > [Accessed on 28th of January 2013]. †¢ Tunali, S. , Ozfirat, P. M. & Ay G. (2011) Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory. Setting order promising times in a supply chain networ k using hybrid simulation-analytical approach: An industrial case study. 9, (9), p. p 1967 – 1982. [online] Available at: < http://ac. els-cdn. com/S1569190X11000888/1-s2. 0-S1569190X11000888-main. pdf? _tid=9efcdf7a-6a48-11e2-a658-00000aab0f01&acdnat=1359487271_e121e9fba1ca576f0e980d12317a80a9 > [Accessed on 29th of January 2013]. †¢ Valverde M. , Tregaskis O. & Brewster C. (2000) International Advances in Economic Research. Labor Flexibility and Firm performance. 6, (4), pp. 649-661 [online]. Available at: < http://link. springer. com. up3xt5ae3w. useaccesscontrol. com/article/10. 1007/BF02295375 > [Accessed on 31st of January]. †¢ Vanberkel, P. T. Boucherie, R. J. Hans, E. W. Hurink, J. L. & Litvak, N. 2010) Efficiency evaluation for pooling resources in health care. OR Spectrum [online], 34 (1), pp. 371-390. Available at: < http://doc. utwente. nl/67543/1/memo1902. pdf > [Accessed on 27th of January 2013]. †¢ Verma, R. , Sharma, A. & Gupta, A. (n. d. ) Role of Simulation Modeling in Business Process Re-engineering. [online] Available at: < http://simvehic. com/admin/rpapers/Role%20of%20Simulation%20Modeling%20in%20Business%20Process%20Reengineering. pdf > [Accessed on 28th of January 2013]. 6. 0 Appendices: Appendix (1): Initial Simulation Model [pic] Appendix (2): Initial results [pic] Appendix (3): Pooled Simulation Model [pic] Appendix (4): Pooling Results [pic]

Friday, January 10, 2020

Med School Essay

I had a long discussion with my dad today about religion, but I also got a touch of his childhood. As the discussion progressed, I came to the realization that I know nearly nothing about my father my whole life. This was one of the first times he actually spoke to me about his past in any sort of detail at all my whole life. The only thing he would tell me as I grew up was that his father passed away when my dad was nine and that his father was an honest man. I still have much, much more to learn about my dad’s past, but the things he told me have made me so grateful to be born in America and  to have such high hopes for a brighter future. Today I found out that my grandfather went to college in the number one university in South Korea to study electricity, but he didn’t know a thing about light switches. My grandfather was a coal worker who participated in the strikes of 1987 that swept the nation off its feet. Unfortunately, he passed away nine years into my father’s life for reasons my dad has yet to tell me. Following my grandfather’s death, my dad’s family had a really rough time, moving around the country and being dirt poor to the point where malnutrition became a health concern in his  childhood. There were days when he would be out for a walk and he’d suddenly collapse on the spot due to intense stomach pains. People would pass by, but no one ever helped him up. After lying on the ground for God knows how long, he would rush back to the house to poop, only to find his efforts futile. He couldn’t afford a doctor and his mother was too busy trying to make ends meet. On top of that, he had two older sisters and, later, two older step-sisters. He attended college in Korea, where he started to form his smoking and drinking habits, which he  still carries to this day. Despite having friends who all started smoking and drinking in high school, he was always the one who stayed clean. I guess college changed him. (On the bright side, he promised me that he would quit smoking starting January of 2015. I told him that if he continues to smoke, that I would start smoking too. Wish him luck! ) In his twenties, he moved to the states with his mother in hopes of a better life. I guess he moved to the wrong part of America though because he had a lot of trouble with the people he interacted with  everyday and a colossal language barrier that prevented him from truly appreciating life in the states. He told me that he didn’t truly get the opportunity to live a normal life due to having to work long hours every single day just to get by. When he was thirty, he had me. A little bundle of hope that would be raised to live a life nothing like the one that my dad had to live. So why am I writing all of this? I honestly do not know. But if there’s one thing I’m damn sure of, it’s that I want to make sure my dad’s efforts aren’t in vain. My whole life I’ve been careless and a bit too relaxed about everything. I failed through middle school and I got suspended a grand total of four times. I had the same work ethic in high school, but I managed to get by with a 3. 7 GPA. My SAT score was a lifesaver in getting me into NYU, the school that I am currently attending. But even now, I feel as unmotivated and carefree as I was in middle school and high school. I volunteer every opportunity I can with children. Before today, they were the sole reason that I truly found a passion  and enjoyment in life. But now, all I can think of is becoming a pediatrician in the future. I don’t want any child to live as my dad did when he was a child. I want all children to have the same opportunities that my dad has worked so hard to provide for me. My goal is now med school. It may seem unrealistic for a guy with my personality, but I want to make a difference in my life and my dad’s life. I have decided to start hitting the books and to work as hard as I physically can to achieve these dreams. POWERED BY TCPDF (WWW. TCPDF. ORG)

Thursday, January 2, 2020

7th Grade Math Course of Study

The following list provides you with the basic 7th grade math  concepts that should be attained by the end of the school year. Mastery of the concepts at the previous grade is assumed. A standard seventh grade course of study includes numbers, measurements, geometry, algebra, and probability. Heres a breakdown of the specific topics. Numbers Give factors, multiples, integer amounts and square roots for numbers.Compare and order decimals, fractions and integers.Add and subtract integers.Be able to perform multi-step word problems for all of the above operations.Add, subtract, multiply and divide fractions and convert between fractions, decimals and percents.Explain and justify a variety of procedures for the above related concepts in problem solving. Measurements Use measurement terms appropriately, be able to measure a variety of items at home and at school.Be able to solve more complex problems with measurement estimations an problems using a variety of formulas.Estimate and calculate areas for trapezoids, parallelograms, triangles, prisms circles using the correct formulas.Estimate and calculate volumes for prisms, sketch prisms (rectangular) given the volumes. Geometry Hypothesize, sketch, identify, sort, classify, construct, measure, and apply a variety of geometric shapes and figures and problems.Sketch and construct a variety of shapes given the dimensions.Create and solve a variety of geometric problems.Analyze and identify shapes that have been rotated, reflected, translated and describe those that are congruent.Determine if shapes/figures will tile a plane (tessellate).Analyze different types of tiling patterns. Algebra/Patterning Extend, analyze and justify the explanations for patterns and their rules and a more complex levelBe able to write algebraic equations/expressions and write statements to understand simple formulas.Evaluate a variety of simple linear algebraic expressions at a beginning level-- 1 variable and first-degree.Be able to solve and simplify algebraic equations with the 4 operations.Substitute natural numbers for variables when solving algebraic equations. Probability Design surveys, collect and organize more complex data and identify and explain patterns and trends in data.Construct a variety of graphs and label them appropriately and state the difference between selecting one graph over another.Defend your choices of graphs.Make more accurate predictions based on data.Understand the importance of statistics on decision making and provide real life scenarios.Describe collected data in terms of mean, median and the mode and be able to analyze any bias.Make inferences, predictions and evaluations based on interpretations of data collection results.Be able to predict possible outcomes based on background information.Apply the rules of probability to games of chance and sports. Course Topics for All Grades Pre-K Kdg. Gr. 1 Gr. 2 Gr. 3 Gr. 4 Gr. 5 Gr. 6 Gr. 7 Gr. 8 Gr. 9 Gr. 10 Gr.11 Gr. 12