Today in HUMAN, 7Explorer celebrated 100% of extended study being handed in and completed with excellent standards of Craftsmanship and Quality.
We celebrated by sharing our beautiful work during a Gallery Walk and appreciating the hard work that has obviously taken place.
Well done, Explorer!
Now, take a look for yourselves…
E24 have been Working Hard learning about biodiversity in ecosystems through the use of diagrams to illustrate data: food chains, food webs, pyramids of number and pyramids of biomass. Brendan was really proud of the effort he had put into his food web, drawing coloured circles around each organism to show whether it was a producer or different types of consumer; Theone’s food chain incorporated colour coding and a key; Mackenzie’s pyramid of numbers was a good example of a scale diagram drawn with a pencil and ruler.
A reminder to all students in E24 Explorer that the portfolio piece showing at least three of the four ecosystem diagrams (food chain, food web and pyramid of numbers) is due tomorrow in your STEAM lesson. The lesson slides are on Google Classroom if you need support.
Many thanks, Mrs Townson
C24’s X-Block product has finally become a reality thanks to help from our expert Hannah from Sheffield Print Club, and I am delighted to say I absolutely love how they have turned out!
This Monday and Tuesday the Year 8 groups have been in a screen printing workshop, picking up new skills and creating more beautiful work to contribute to their final product. Their learning target for this term has been ‘I can create a 2 layer screen print of a Doncastrian building’ and it has required weeks of preparation. Our product started in immersion week, where we took a gallery walk to check out the local architecture, taking pictures as we went.
Since then, in Art C24 have been creating detailed drawings and fact files of a building of their choice. Seven images were then shortlisted to be the top layer in our screen print designs for the product. We took inspiration from Andy Warhol’s screen prints, and his fascination with creating artwork from the everyday, from items such as soup cans and brillo pads. We used this theme to bring some old, and in some cases rather rundown and underappreciated buildings across Donny back to life.
I’d like to say a huge thank you to Hannah, who was with us for the two days and managed to pull off a small miracle, creating 250 prints, with 49 students in the short 3 hour workshops. It couldn’t have been pulled off without everyone pitching in during de-gunge. All three sessions were a delight to supervise, and I was immensely appreciative of the year 8s for making this such a success.
It’s felt impossible choosing which prints ended up on this blog post, I was so happy with all the work that has been created. Seeing C24 produce such high quality work just goes to show how many budding artists we have here at XP East.
Also, getting to specialise in a digital-free and rather uncommon trade, in an age where technology is involved in most of our everyday processes has been really refreshing. We discussed how unique each students 5 prints truly were, and that if we’d done this using computer aided design or manufacture, the work wouldn’t be as special.
I’ve always dreamed of owning my own Warhol pop art print, but I have got to say, that I think I’d rather hang a few of these up in my living room instead.
We have been working towards answering our guiding question ‘What does it take to build a place of our own?’ Part of that consists of looking at what we already have. Doncaster is rich in cultural and architectural history, and it has been wonderful being able to appreciate that in this expedition.
Stay tuned for more info on what’s coming up next for C24 and their final product launch!
Today in HUMAN, 7Explorer have been grappling with our first historical source analysis using World War One propaganda posters.
After using the source to make notices and wonders, and text-coding a WAGOLL, we are now working hard to answer the question, ‘What is the message behind Source A?’
The levels of productivity from 7Explorer are brilliant, with all of us being focused, thinking hard and challenging ourselves.
7 Pioneer threw themselves into their first source analysis today. The ability to analyse sources will be central in their Hums expeditions and into GCSE. Sources are analysed in detail to help us gain an insight into the context and attitudes of a certain period in history – in our case, we looked at the recruitment propaganda posters from the Great War to gain an insight into society’s attitudes and expectations of men during this time.
We first looked at the features that we would be looking for in a source, for example, body language, facial expressions, language and hidden messages. We then explored how these features tell us a message about the source and the historical period it was from.
It was fantastic to see how focused Pioneer were when analysing the sources. They were really thinking deeply into how and why the images and language of the posters were portraying a message. I’m excited to hear the wonderful insights the students have about the other sources we will look at. Judging by the annotations they’ve made in today’s lessons, their full written source analyses will be brilliant!
Keep up the hard work Pioneer!
Following our brilliant fieldwork to Leeds Royal Armouries as part of our expedition ‘Over the Top!’, 7Explorer have spent time debriefing and critiquing our visit.
Using our fieldwork ‘Norms’ checklist, we reflected on the following aspects:
Now, we can’t wait until our next fieldwork which will take place straight after the Christmas holidays. Watch this space…
This week, C25 have been exploring local data of the soldiers that fell in their postcode in the First World War. They have been using the following source from the Imperial War Museum, an interactive map (A Street Near You), which presents fact files about the soldiers, their death, their rank, and any other records that are on file.
The year 7 classes have then been populating their own personal data set with information on the soldiers in their area, which we will be using this week to calculate averages, create frequency graphs and bar charts.
There were some really fruitful discussions about why some streets did not have any records, and some students noticed that they may have found brothers, or soldiers who had died just days apart. Seeing the map made us all reflect on how devastating the war must have been on our community.
Florence even found one of her ancestors at an address near her current one. We also found records for Arthur and Ernest Hickson, Miss Hickson is going to do a little research to find out if she is related to them.
I’d just like to appreciate C25 for being so respectful and working hard on this, and I’d like to remind Explorer to have it completed by our next lesson on Tuesday so we can start our research.
Pioneer had a great time at the Leeds Armouries – they all got involved and took their learning into their own hands. It was fantastic to see the focus they had when asking and answering questions, recording information about the weapons used in the Great War, and taking part in the workshops. 
When we returned to school we discussed our highlights of the fieldwork which included increasing their knowledge of weapons from the Great War, watching the soldiers fire their rifles, and seeing some of the different exhibits of weapons and their use throughout history.
I’m already looking forward to our next fieldwork!
Today in HUMAN, 7Explorer have been revisiting the learning we have covered about Propaganda and Propaganda posters which were used during World War One to encourage men and women to enlist in the army and ‘do their bit’.
Using the protocol ‘GoGoMo’, which stands for “Give one, Get one. Move on’, we traded facts and information and then used this to help us answer questions on an Exit Ticket.
Zach said, ‘This is a really good way of working. Can we do it again?’
Ruby and Leoni gathered over 30 useful pieces of information. Brilliant!
