Even though we have been preparing our pupils to get back to the Senior school classrooms, all of our pupils have worked incredibly hard in their lessons this week!
Classics
In the Classics Department we have been following a huge range of activities this week: from rescuing the Golden Fleece from a dragon with Year 7 to watching a clip of Fellini's "Satyricon" with Year 11 to learn more about the excesses of a Roman dinner party. The Lower Sixth have been getting to grips with the complex family tree of the early Roman emperors, and the GCSE Latin set has escaped from the Fall of Troy with Aeneas, only to find that he has left his wife behind. Year 10 have been covering the topic of Roman Baths: watch Mary Beard "Meet the Romans" on YouTube to find out what a visit to the baths really entailed!
Design Technology
Year 7 and 8 have been learning about the sources of papers and boards this week as well as how paper is made. Year 10 have been completing their final design proposals for their vegetable peeler project. I have attached some images as there was some really high quality work. Lower Sixth have been developing their individual projects researching their chosen product and generating design ideas. There are a range of projects being developed by them from takeaway packaging to a baby bottle that filters water for those in 3rd world countries. This week, our Upper Sixth have been experimenting with different revision techniques including making their own online quiz games to test each other and me.
Space Club
On a starry Monday night space club went out to do some astronomy. We “met” at 8pm in our back gardens to look upward in awe at the stars. We used Google Meet to chat and a star finding app on our phones.
We started by using the plough to locate the pole star (or North Star) so we could begin navigating using the stars. We then looked South to find Orion and looked at some of the interesting stars in this constellation, notably the Red Supergiant Betelgeuse and the Blue Giant Rigel, in addition to the three stars of Orion's belt and the star-birth nebula that lies in the sword. We then used Orion as a direction finder to locate Sirius the dog star, the horns of Taurus the bull, the twins Gemini and the Pleiades cluster. We also looked at Mars and discussed the rover that landed there last week. We then looked at a few more zodiac constellations before our hands got rather cold and we decided to call it a night.
History
Year 8 historians were putting themselves in the shoes of Neville Chamberlain and deciding what to do when confronted by a series of scenarios. Should they appease Hitler and risk him asking for more, or go for an early full out attack that they simply weren't ready for? The class was split over when exactly to declare war, but they agreed September 1939 was leaving it a bit late! In addition, our Year 10 historians built domino runs to illustrate a part of the Cold War.
