Last week, 7 Pioneer began their second case study in the ‘Stand Up!’ expedition. We spent the beginning of the week getting to grips with the world – what is a continent? How many continents are there, where are they and what are they called? What’s a country?

This brought our attention to focus on the continent of Africa with its vibrant, diverse and wonderful physical and human geography features. This sets the context for case study 2 and 3 in our expedition. Students were in groups with different expert texts which focused on the 4 major biomes of Africa and their characteristics. Once the students had read their own expert text it was over to them to complete the notecatcher for each biome by teaching each other the information they had discovered.

Next up – human features! The students had a range of information about the different countries of Africa or of averages about the whole continent. Students soon realised the variety between the different countries and how there were many similarities and differences between the UK too. This was completed using a GoGoMo protocol – a personal favourite!

We then zoomed in on two countries in Africa, Nigeria and Somalia, by watching documentaries and news reports. The students learnt how Nigeria is the richest and most populated country in Africa and completed a notecatcher based on the different human features of the country. It was clear to see the inequalities between the multi-millionaires and the slum-dwellers of Lagos  We then compared this to Somalia, a country which faces the challenges of civil war, drought, famine, poverty and piracy – focusing on Mogadishu and the changes that it has undertaken in the last few decades. Students were asking really thought provoking questions about the countries, it’s been a fantastic week!

7 Pioneer had extended study last week and here are some of the results!

There was fantastic effort and hard work put into these pieces of work – it is clear Aaron, Jacob, Ava, Charlie, and Dylan focused on their Craftsmanship and Quality when creating these beautiful pieces of work.

A reminder to all that extended study should be completed with the same focus on the HOWLs as work completed in school – students need to Work Hard and Get Smart when completing extended study. Pioneer we’ve still not had 100% hand in rate for a piece of extended study – we can do this!

This week, 7 Pioneer’s lessons focused on 1930s America. We learnt all about the Great Depression, the Wall Street Crash and the standard of living for the people of America during this time.

This was to aid understanding of the context of Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ – which is the anchor text to our expedition ‘Stand Up!’. This expedition’s guiding question is ‘when is it right to make a stand?’ and we will explore topics of slavery, racism, prejudice and discrimination throughout the expedition. 

One of the activities during this week’s lessons was mapping the Deep South of the USA -from memory! The students were in four teams, each member of the team had 20 seconds to memorise the map of the Deep South and feedback to their group the states they could remember. A fantastic effort from everyone!

A special mention to Junia and Denim, who in their own time, have completed extended learning about 1930s America and the Great Depression. This is a fantastic way of showing they are working hard and getting smart by taking responsibility for their own education – impressive!

Last week, 7 Pioneer worked hard to uncover the message behind the text ‘The Rainbow Creation’. Students worked with a level of understanding and maturity that was beyond their years. I saw students show respect and understanding, challenge each others ideas with well articulated arguments and demonstrated a deep level of understanding of the text that they were working to decipher. There was a highly insightful, engaging discussion around the concept of identity, using the ‘popcorn’ protocol – I was genuinely moved by the comments and opinions of Pioneer students. 

I am incredibly proud to be able to support the learning of a fantastic group of young people. It’s great to see their eagerness to learn in their new Humanities expedition ‘Stand Up’

Below are just a few examples of Pioneer’s interpretation of the text – these were written by year 7 students, Dylan and Alice.

Keep up the hard work crew !

We’ve had another fantastic week in Pioneer during Hums! We have started to work towards answering the guiding question to our expedition: ‘Does war unite or divide?’

We first started to bring together all the ways that war unites and divides us, drawing from HUMAN and STEAM lessons, particularly focusing on the Great War. A part of this was looking at examples of unification and division in War Horse (which is the anchor text to our expedition). Each group had a different extract of the text and had to identify where and explain why unification and division took place.

Next, the students became teachers! They taught each other about the extract they had, the examples they found and why they had chosen them. It was great to hear how eloquently the students summarised their chapter to each other and how they could provide evidence from the text to support why they had identified a section as either unification or division – or sometimes both!

I can’t believe we’ve nearly finished this expedition, it’s been immensely rewarding watching the students of 7Pioneer grow academically and socially over the last few months and I can’t wait to begin our next one in the new year.