Our expeditions have final products that drive our learning and should wherever possible ‘connect with the world.’ The first expedition that we undertook back in Y7 was ‘Society, Steam and Speed’ where we embarked on fieldwork to York Railway Museum, Hyde Park Cemetery and Hitachi Rail Europe in Doncaster. We studied the science of railway development, mathematical concepts concerning speed, distance and time, and developed our literacy skills via descriptive and analytical writing.
We also learned about local history via enquiries into the workers who lived and died in accidents during the Industrial Revolution. We could only have achieved this via the superb support of our local expert Andria Johns from the ‘friends of Hyde Park Cemetery’. We also created pieces of art around the town’s rich rail heritage: the ‘Flying Scotsman’ and the ‘Mallard’, and explored arguments for the controversial HS2 scheme which represents Doncaster’s future in the rail industry.
The book culminated in historical written accounts, investigations, scientific reports and artwork from every single student that was involved. The launch at Waterstones was a special moment because it represents the fact that our work is beautiful and good enough to be bought and sold in a shop full of such quality!
Check out the video of the book launch below and don’t forget that you can purchase the book here.