Hello everyone! Wow! Already at the end of week 3 of the last term. Here is a look at what has been going on in class this week.
This week in English, the students developed their understanding of war poetry by drafting, editing, and improving their own poems before performing them and creating video presentations using WW1 imagery to enhance meaning and emotion. They then returned to analytical work, exploring poems such as War Girls by Jessie Pope, Base Details and The Hero by Siegfried Sassoon. To deepen their understanding, students took part in an engaging “trial” activity, putting officers on trial and using quotations from these and previously studied poems to support their arguments. This encouraged students to think critically about different perspectives on war while developing their ability to use evidence effectively.
This week in Geography, students explored the Silk Road and how it connected different parts of the world through trade. They investigated the physical challenges traders faced, such as deserts and mountains, and considered how people from different regions had to collaborate to successfully transport goods. Students also examined how trade led to the exchange of cultures, ideas, and languages, helping them understand how geography and cooperation shaped global connections in the past.
In history, students explored what life was like for enslaved people on plantations after the Middle Passage. Using a range of historical sources, they investigated daily routines, living conditions, and the strict systems of control in place. Students also examined how enslaved people responded to these conditions, including different forms of resistance and ways they supported one another.
In Science, students started creating a model of the solar system, focusing on the relative sizes of the planets. They began to apply their knowledge of each planet to build a scale model and will continue by labelling the exact scale sizes and distances between them. This will help students develop a clearer understanding of how scientists represent the vast scale of the solar system and the challenges involved in modelling it accurately.
Maths
This week we have been finishing our unit on constructing, measuring and using geometric notation. The end of unit assessment will be on Monday. After this we will start our unit on developing geometric reasoning.
Year 8
Students are learning Area of Trapezia & Circles,which includes:
- Calculating the area of triangles, rectangles, and parallelograms
- Finding the area of a trapezium
- Solving problems involving the perimeter and area of compound shapes
- Exploring and calculating the area of a circle
Students are encouraged to practice regularly and revise formulas to build confidence.
Year 9
Students have been learning Solving Ratio & Proportion Problems, including:
- Inverse proportion and its applications
- Graphs of inverse relationships
- Solving ratio problems (given a whole or a part)
- Best buy problems
- Applying ratio in algebraic contexts
The assessment has been completed, and I am pleased to share that students performed well.
