This time of writing is extremely busy regarding Year 10. We have the Assessment Cycle 2, Careers Week and of course the upcoming Adventurous Journey.
Assessment Cycle 2
Pupils have begun their Assembly Cycle this week and I have definitely noticed an improvement in their preparation for their assessments. This indicates that pupils have begun to plan better in regards to revision which will hopefully encourage them to revise topics regularly in order to reduce any cramming techniques.
Careers
With the approaching of Careers Week next week the pupils have begun work on this aspect of their future lives. Monday's guidance session was led by Mrs Watson who is responsible for Higher Education at NAIS. She introduced the pupils to the different visitors that we have this week and posed interesting suggestions of what they should be considering at this stage in their education. The Year group were certainly engaged and enthusiastically signed up for the sessions on Acting; Dentistry; Human Resources; Engineering and Hospitality. This all culminates with the Higher Education Fair on Wednesday 15th March. This will have over seventy stalls from universities, to summer programs to SAT preparation. All Secondary students will be given the opportunity to browse the stalls and speak to admissions tutors and parents are welcome to join us at any point between 13.30 and 16.00. Come along to Sports Hall B, there promises to be a great buzz and a warm welcome.
International Award
With the Adventurous Journey just a week away we have been working on the final aspects of their preparation. The pupils have now formalised their routes, created menus of food and completed some basic first aid sessions. On Monday they will bring in their camping bags in order to ensure that they are packing the right clothing and that their bag is not too heavy. This is vitally important and will allow a few extra days in case anyone realises that they have not got the proper equipment. In all the guidance sessions on camp craft the pupils have been fantastic and I am fully confident that they will head into next weekend prepared to deal with all aspects of the journey. I will be emailing you all regarding other aspects of the trip such as timing and emergency details.
Regarding the skills, service and physical recreation elements these will continue after the Journey until pupils have completed their 3 and 6 month requirements.
Shakespeare Week: Monday 20th - Friday 24th
"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking it makes so. "
The school is having a week to celebrate the life and work of William Shakespeare. This week starting on Monday 20th will involve daily fun activities such as Where's William; writing sonnets; creating Shakespeare insults; live performances during lunchtimes and a final Shakespeare dress up day on Friday 24th.
Student reporters
The following pupils have written about the preparation that we have been doing for the Adventurous Journey
For the past few weeks in guidance, in our IA groups we have been collectively discussing not only what types of food to bring but also why, and weighing up both the pros and cons of different meals. After a couple of lessons we had finalized our ‘menu’ consisting of a breakfast, two lunches and dinner. It was decided that we would have pasta and tomato sauce as our main meal in the evening as its light in weight (to carry) and everyone likes it :). For lunch we decided to have snacks such as crackers and cereal bars, and for breakfast: dry cereal. Within our group we split up who was carrying the food considering both the weight and bulk of it.
Abby Cartwright
In guidance we have been in our International Groups. We have been doing route planning for our adventure journey. We had to be very careful when planning our route as we wouldn’t want to be walking up and down hills. We also had to make sure that we didn’t take a long route and it taking too long for us to get to the checkpoint and to the campsite. We also had to think about what the aim of our journey would be. For example if it was talk to at least two people in each village, if that was our aim we would have to make sure that we walk through at least 5 villages so that we can complete our aim. For our route we had to decide where we would stop for rest and whether we would walk all around the lake or just around a small part of it. For our route we decided to take mostly flat land even though it would be slightly longer it would be easier than if we were walking up steep hills. We also had to decide how long we would spend looking around the different areas and stopping for snacks. This all added up to the total amount of time it took us to reach the campsite.
Katy Sapsford
During guidance we have been preparing for the adventurous journey. In our groups we have been planning our route that we are going to use during the journey. We have calculated the amount of time we are will take and when and for how long our breaks will be. Furthermore we have picked the topic of looking at the animals around and their habitats which we are going to present in a video. We have spent a lot of lessons on preparing what food and equipment we are going to have for hike. We were considering of bringing light foods that can last at least one day.
Chloe Legodec