7 Pioneer have celebrated the beautiful poetry they have created about the First World War in their lessons this week.

After working hard, drafting, redrafting, critiquing and finally writing their final piece, Pioneer have presented their poetry for the whole class to enjoy.

It is fantastic to hear how imaginative and empathetic each pupil is and celebrate the determination shown in finding specific words and figurative language to use in their poems. This resulted in the poems conjuring imagery about the horrors of the war.

The pupils practiced their poem in groups of six and received critique to help them project their voices and speak with interesting intonation.

All pupils showed courage and compassion when reading their poems and listening in the  audience to each other.

A big congratulations to all!

This week C25 have been learning about conduction, convection and radiation. To consolidate our learning further, in pairs students produced beautiful posters to explain what they have learnt.

We then shared our learning with the class and took peer feedback to address any misconceptions. A fantastic end to a week of hard work.

Today 7 Pioneer have been set HUMAN extended study, due 16th October. They need to research what life in the trenches was like for soldiers in the First World War. This will complement our fieldwork to Hyde Park Cemetery and will be vital in the students work in lessons next week.

There are resources for students to use on Google Classroom (accessed by students logging into the school website) and I have given them a paper copy of the notecatcher in today’s lesson – it is also available on Google Classroom if students would rather type their homework.

They are welcome to attend extended study to use the school’s devices (I will be there to help on Wednesday). If students are confused about what to do, they need to speak to me and I will offer support.

7 Pioneer have had a fabulous week in HUMAN, continuing our expedition ‘Over the Top!’.

They began the week writing a WW1 inspired poem as a class. Each group had the responsibility to create a stanza of the poem. The effort and hard work put into this by the pupils was fantastic!

Here’s 7 Pioneer engrossed in the planning process – the pupils were given the challenge of including language devices such as similes, metaphors, onomatopoeia and alliteration – they definitely succeeded with this.

For example, “Fear sweeps through me like a tidal wave” and “Squelch, stomp, we tremble through the bloodthirsty field”

On Thursday we left school to go on fieldwork at Hyde Park Cemetery in Doncaster.

We were fascinated by the lives of soldiers who had taken part in the First World War and are buried in Doncaster.

Our expert, Andria, a member of Friends of Hyde Park Cemetery, which protects the cemetery, guided us around to the graves of the brave men. She informed us of the lives of the men and how they met their tragic end.

We heard about the conditions in the trenches and found that some men were killed in action, whereas some were killed in accidents which occurred in their training or died of diseases such as TB whilst in the trenches.

It really put it into perspective how lucky we are to not have experienced the horrors of the Great War.

What a start 7Pioneer have had on their first ever expedition at XPEast!

It is a pleasure to teach 7Pioneer in Hums. We’ve had an exciting start so far to our expedition ‘Over the Top!’ which focuses on the Guiding Question: ‘does war unite or divide?’

We began Immersion week exploring different aspects of WW1 such as the causes and context, followed by our Gallery Walk which looked at the themes of unification and division. Pioneer had some excellent ideas, notices and wonders about the content in the first week and made some brilliant links to draw it all together. We also had our first Expert in, bringing artefacts from the First World War. The pupils enjoyed handling the artefacts and discovering information about how they were used and work. Every pupil asked an interesting and thought-provoking question to find out more. 

At the beginning of our second week, we started to explore the qualities and characteristics of the soldiers of WW1. We discussed how they showed determination, loyalty, friendship and courage, to name a few, and linked this to how we can show these qualities in our everyday lives.

The variety of roles soldiers had in WW1 was also explored. Pupils researched the responsibilities and skills needed to be a medic, engineer, and infantry, for example. We not only looked at the roles of people in the Great War but also pigeons!

This resulted in a visit from our second Expert and his homing pigeons. The pupils learnt all about the pigeons and how they were important for carrying messages and communication. We then attached our own messages from the ‘front line’ to our pigeons and sent them on their way. All three of our messages and pigeons made it back to their home!