This week our C24 Explorer Spanish students asked and answered the question: “¿Qué deportes haces?” (“What sports do you play?”). Having grasped the concept of verbs that describe sports done and played, our C24 students then conducted a survey, in Spanish, to determine the favourite sport. More able students then extended their responses to state the sports they play, the frequency, who with and the reason(s) why. Bravo a todos.
We’ve recently started a new expedition slice during X-Block called ‘Inside/Out’, looking at how being active can improve our social, emotional and physical well-being. We’ve lots of activities planned which will involve us being outside. This week, we’ll be taking a “mindfulness walk” to the lake.
As summer is rumoured to be making an appearance this week, please make sure that students come to school with a sun hat/baseball cap and sun-cream on Wednesday (for X-Block group X1) and Thursday (for X-Block group X2) as we will be spending the full session outside with no shade.
We’ll keep you updated with our activities on our X-Block blog.
Thank you!
The final week of last term contained two Celebrations of Learning (CoL) from 7 Pioneer and 7 Explorer, and as a school we were delighted with both events.
For those of you who may not have attended a CoL, our expeditions always culminate with a public event where students present their learning to a wider audience. We believe that this brings an element of authenticity to proceedings. Furthermore, our expeditions always have a product, and this represents in some way students’ learning and connect with the wider world.
Such an authentic wider audience also ensures that students step up to the plate in terms of working hard, and working as a Crew as students have to show courage and integrity in being able to articulate their learning to parents and visitors. As a result of this, every single student (regardless of ability or background) was able to stand up and formally address those who came to the CoL.
The Guiding Question (GQ) for Y7’s expedition in STEM was ‘What has chemistry and physics got to do with cooking?’ and was entitled ‘Chefistry‘. The CoL consisted of students explaining their understanding of the GQ by using subject specific language and terminology. Parents were also given an ‘Exit Ticket’ where they too had to answer the Guiding Question. The centrepiece of the CoL revolved around students taking orders for a meal and a team of chefs boiled eggs, prepared toast and a served a drink with ice. Essentially, students were able to use their understanding of Physics and Chemistry to explain how cooking works, and whilst this was a very ambitious CoL, our students pulled it off!!
A special thank you to Mr Smith who led the Chefistry expedition with support from Mr Pearson and Mrs Duffield. Sine FM also deserve a special mention for supporting the students’ recording of the audio in their professional radio station studio. P.S. Check out the final product videos from 7 Explorer and 7 Pioneer here.
Today Explorer have been in the lab again, learning how to use a microscope and investigating plant cells. Students looked at onion cells under different magnifications looking at the structure of the cells.
On Monday the 12th March 2018, C24 went out on fieldwork to The University of Leeds as part of their new expedition for STEAM. Students got an insight into what life was like on campus, and they discovered the huge variety of courses available to study at degree level.
Mark Patterson of the University of Leeds organised the morning around exploring characteristics for different career paths, and existing students from the faculty of medicine and dentistry hosted our fieldwork and supported students throughout. They took part in different seminars around exploring various aspects of higher education whilst the afternoon was more focused on immersing students in the next expedition.
After lunch, students took part in a lecture with Student Dr. Tom learning about bacteria, pathogens, and different types of diseases. Spending such quality time with an expert is a key aspect of our expeditionary learning model, and it allowed them to engage with high quality expertise in the field of medicine. This part of the day was also designed to provide an element of mystery around what expedition students would be learning about next (this would not be revealed until the following day.)
As you will see from the photos and video, our immersion fieldwork to Leeds was a fantastic day and a great experience for our students.
TKAMB in Spanish sessions!
Last week our C24 students used technology to create and describe facial features in Spanish using a series of composite faces that they had created on a specialist language learning website.
This week they developed their responses to include details such as physical build, height and personality. Before returning to their original composite faces they applied this new knowledge to describe Atticus, Scout and Jem Finch – three key characters in their current anchor text “To Kill a Mockingbird”.
Stand up! when you can describe others’ faces, build and character in Spanish!
In Art, we have been looking at the different techniques and media used by different artists when creating portraits.
Holly: I like Frida Khalo’s self portrait because of how it links with nature. This could represent that she is not afraid to express her true self.
George: I like how Andy Warhol has used bright colours to bring the portrait of Marilyn Monroe to life.
Corey: I like how Lichenstein has used pointilism for the skin and how it looks like a comic book.
It was great to see 15 of our students in voluntary Extended Study today!
As you may be aware, our expedition in STEM is entitled ‘Chefistry‘, and students are busy finalising their work for the forthcoming Celebration of Learning on Wednesday 21st February 17:00-18:30 for 7 Pioneer, and Thursday 22nd February 17:00-18.30 for 7 Explorer.
Remember, students may attend Extended Study as a place to complete their homework, or work on anything that will help to improve their learning. It is open Monday to Thursday until 4:30pm.
During X block sessions students have been making the links between chemistry and cooking, they have spent 2 hours in the kitchen learning how to work in the safely, they have also been figuring how long it takes to make a ‘good’ boiled egg, cooking eggs for 2, 4, 6 and 8 minutes then comparing their findings. Their have been many discussions about changes to states of matter, whether changes have been chemical or physical and how heat transfer has taken place. Well done to all students for 4 weeks of eggcellent X Block work.
7 Pioneer are preparing for the first assessed piece of writing of the current expedition. They will be describing the key facts and characteristics about one of the main characters from ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’
Mr Portman is making sure that the class know exactly what is expected from them: they have been zooming in on the rubric, defining the terminology and developing their understanding of words like ‘analyse’ and ‘identify’; they have unpicked a model introduction as a WAGOLL; and they have also been able to peer critique Dakota’s first draft (a fellow student from 7 Explorer).
All this scaffolding ensures that all students know exactly what is expected from them, and gives them all the support they need to go above (and beyond!) their MEGS.
