Pioneer Are So Socratic!

By A Brown31st January 2019

What an afternoon with year 8 Pioneer! We headed over to use the seminar tables in the music room and had a full session of discussion using the Socratic Seminar protocol. Amazing contributions from the whole class – focussed, attentive, respectful.

And the session was so successful because of the hard work they’ve been putting in leading up to it, and being persistent when challenging themselves to investigate and understand Shakespeare’s language.

We explored 3 questions:

Was Macbeth’s imaginary dagger an invitation or a warning?
Was Macbeth free to choose whether to kill Duncan?
Was the murder of Duncan Macbeth’s peripeteia?

Take a look at a brief moment from this afternoon.

Year 8 HUMS Home Learning

By A Brown30th January 2019

Task

LT: I can analyse Shakespeare’s use of language to present Macbeth’s state of mind

Complete at least 2 paragraphs of analysis answering the following question:

To what extent is Macbeth’s vision of the dagger an invitation for him to kill the king?

You must include:

evidence from the text;
an explanation of the language used;
focus on at least 1 key word and its effect;
A comment about historical context.

Due date:

Wednesday 6th February

WAGOLL:

Immediately before Macbeth murders Duncan, he begins to hallucinate and sees a dagger floating in front of him. Macbeth is confused by this and immediately begins to question whether it is an invitation to kill Duncan, or a warning to follow his conscience and “proceed no further in this business”. At the beginning of his soliloquy he notices “Is this a dagger I see before me, the handle towards my hand? Come, let me clutch thee” This insinuates that Macbeth feels the dagger is encouraging him to hold the handle as it points towards him so that he might hold the handle and follow it to his victim, led by a power greater than himself. The verb “come” also implies that Macbeth wants to hold the dagger because he is driven by his insatiable greed for power and murder Duncan, as if his ambition is too strong for him to hold back, despite the severe consequences for his actions.

However, Macbeth shows that he is immediately confused and sees that the dagger could in fact be a warning, created by his guilty conscience. For instance, he refers to the hallucination as a “fatal vision”, implying that Macbeth thinks it will bring his own death and tragic demise for his sinful actions against both the king and God himself, as in the Jacobean era people believed in the Divine Right of Kings. He perhaps realises that this vision “cannot be good” Alternatively, Macbeth perhaps could infer that the vision foreshadows the death of Duncan and is simply showing him his fate, as the witches have already told him at the beginning of the play.

Support:

Use your notes from your lesson to help you explore this extract.

Click here to find the READING SKILLS LADDER to help you structure your paragraphs.

Challenge:

Try to cover a range of quotations from across Macbeth’s soliloquy, embedding your evidence as you analyse. Remember, you won’t necessarily fully explore every quotation you come across, but when you use one that is loaded with interesting language connotations, make sure you explore them!

Year 8 HUMS Home Learning – Due 30.01.19

By A Brown26th January 2019

TASK:

Complete a QUOTATION EXPLOSION as we have previously practiced in class on the following quotation from act 1 scene 5″

“Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under’t” – Lady Macbeth

You have creative freedom on this – do it in your books, on a device, use free mind-mapping online.

DUE DATE:

Wednesday 30th January

WAGOLL:

Does yours look like this? If it does, then you’re probably working at 3.0+ for WORK HARD.

SUPPORT:

Click here to watch a video guide to help.

CHALLENGE:

Want to go above and beyond and EXTEND YOUR LEARNING FURTHER? You could turn your notes into a paragraph of analysis about how Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth’s manipulation of Macbeth.

E24 STEAM: Biodiversity in ecosystems

By J Townson4th December 2018

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.

How do we build an Eco School of our own?

21st November 2018J Townson

E24’s most recent STEAM Learning Target was “I can evaluate to what extent my school meets the criteria to become an Eco School”. The Guiding Question for this joint HUMAN-STEAM expedition is “How can we build a place of our own?”

They researched what it takes to apply for Eco School Bronze Accreditation and presented their findings to E25 students; consequently they drummed up so much interest we now have 47 nominees for 8 positions on the new Eco Committee!

E24 students then carried out their own Environmental Reviews of the school, identifying what we are doing well and what we could improve on across 10 topic areas. Thank you to all the staff who helped in answering questions ranging from “do school meals use fish from sustainable sources?” to “what steps have XP East taken to reduce energy usage?” All of this builds on the work we have been doing since September on energy usage, sustainability and efficient building design.

Finally the students each created their own Action Plan with suggestions which the final Eco Committee may take forward in the real whole-school Action Plan. Here are photographs of a selection, including Nathan’s, which considered increasing student intake of fruit at sporting events; through live class critique of his work on the board Nathan could share his original ideas as well as gain constructive feedback as to how to improve his answers in the ‘monitoring’ column.

Watch this space to learn more about who is selected by their Crews for positions on the Eco Committee as well as the Committee’s final three focus topics for the school Action Plan…

E24 Pioneer/Explorer Extended Study: Sustainable building design write-up

By J Townson11th October 2018

Both 8 Pioneer and 8 Explorer have an extended writing task for which the deadline is next Thursday 18th October. The question is How was XP East sustainably designed around the principle of…? – the students complete the title by including their personal area of interest following the visit from XP East’s architect, Leanne Stamp, last week.

All the resources to support this task, including the assessment rubric, are available on Google Classroom and students have been given time in a number of sessions this week to begin their writing, with peer-critique of their work and class-critique of WAGOLLs to support their development of ideas.

The majority of students will type their final draft, but if they have limited access at home to devices they will be permitted to handwrite their work in their book.

Please do email me if you have any questions.

Mrs Townson

8 Pioneer let the pen do the talking!

By A Parker10th October 2018

8 Pioneer are well into their reading of ‘Of Mice and Men’ and have now been introduced to the characters of George, Lennie, Slim, Curley and Curley’s Wife.

Today we started to map out our ideas about the different characters, in preparation for a more in-depth character analysis. We did this using a Silent Discussion protocol, where we use the pen rather than our voices to express our ideas. This protocol allows for everyone’s “voices” to be heard within the group discussion.

A big well done to Callie who backed up her comments with quotes from the book. Great stuff!

C24 Expert visit from architect, Leanne Stamp

By J Townson7th October 2018

Last week we had the pleasure of welcoming Leanne Stamp, the architect who designed our school, to XP East. It was not the first time Leanne had visited the school, but she expressed her joy at finally seeing the school full of students, staff and furniture and being used just as she had envisaged!

Both 8Pioneer and 8Explorer demonstrated excellent focus during each of her two hour sessions, in which she detailed her role as an architect and explained where it fitted into a wider team; she also shared with our students the design principles behind developing a building from concept to actual use, before setting up a group activity for them to apply these principles to the design of XP East.

This week we have followed up Leanne’s visit by consolidating our notes, using marketplace activities to share our learning from the group work sessions. 8Pioneer students have each chosen an area of the design principles which interests them and 8Explorer will identify their own areas of interest next week. Each student will use this area of interest as the focus for a piece of extended writing on how XP East was sustainably designed and how we could develop it in the future.

Many thanks to all of our students for their questions, keen interest and for demonstrating the Character Traits during Leanne’s visit, particularly those of Respect and Craftsmanship and Quality. I really enjoyed the day and I know it was a turning point in the expedition for many of our students, as it really brought the importance of sustainability to the fore.

C24 expert visit from Leanne Stamp, Architect

By J Townson1st October 2018

On Tuesday 2nd October C24 will work with Leanne Stamp, the architect who designed XP East and who is the expert for the next learning target in our Expedition, A Place Of Our Own. We have prepared for her visit by learning new key words such as ‘innovation’ and ‘sustainability’; considered how emotion could be linked to different architectural styles; discussed heating and lighting techniques to minimise energy consumption and have written questions about her role and rationale for the design of XP East.

Watch this space to hear more after her visit!