Students enjoy a packed Curriculum Enrichment Week

Listen

Curriculum Enrichment Week

 Year 7

On Monday and Tuesday, Year 7 spent the day Team Building. This was an excellent opportunity for students to work within their tutor groups, and chance for many to build upon the friendships they have already made, or foster some new ones with people in their form that they do not usually work with.

The students completed a range of problem-solving tasks both as whole tutor groups, and as subgroups within their class, with their scores for communication, cooperation and general team work being calculated as they competed against each other. The winners across the two days were 7C and 7F respectively, with the overall winners being 7F for scoring a marginally higher total.

A great couple of days where I was really impressed with the maturity, attitude and team work of the Year 7 students.

Curriculum Enrichment Week Year 7’s – written by Boris Pugh (Year 7 student)

The two days of house competitions and team building were the active part of the week. One day was house competitions and the other was team building activities.

House competitions
The boys took part in several sports including including rugby, basketball and dodgeball. The girls took part in Netball and benchball. All students entered into the spirit of the competition and played hard but fairly.

Team Building
There were different activities in team building days. In the water challenge the students had 3 pieces of rope and one bucket and cone and they had to find a way to fill a tube with water using only the equipment given. When the tube is filled up the whistle will appear so you can blow it to gain points for the team.  Another activity was working together to cross the sports field using two planks of wood and rope, without stepping on the grass. Last but not least the block building involved building a tower using wooden blocks, moving each block as a team with a hook held by numerous ropes.

By Boris Pugh 7F

Plymouth Aquarium

Year 7 students spent the day exploring the oceans creatures and taking part in workshops. Students took part in a work shop to investigate the impact of pollution on larger wildlife. This involved dissecting a hammer head shark (although not a real one) and discovering the contents of its stomach in order to work out why it might be seriously ill. Students pulled out polystyrene and plastic and discussed the impact of littering as well as why it is important to avoid products that contain micro beads, also fatal to sea life.   The day ended with students participating in a STEM show looking at food chains within our oceans and some of the detrimental effects of over fishing, trawling and disposing of waste incorrectly.   A really exciting day of discovery had by all.

CEW Maths Mastery

Students in Year 7 have completed a Mathematics Mastery sessions based on the heading ‘We are not your Average Students.’ Students looked into the data cycle and started by planning out an investigation regarding height and handspan as well as other information of their choice. They went around and asked each other their specific questions to complete their frequency tables. As you can see in the poster by Emily Cartwright-Lomax the students also learnt how to draw pie charts, bar charts and scatter graphs throughout the day. They completed the data cycle by testing their hypothesis and concluding their investigation.

STEM

On Friday the year 9 students had a STEM day, this involved a sessions on topics related to Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. ‘Next Steps’ provided a range of visitors who worked with our students on these themes. Our visitors included Paul Bennet who talked about Engineering in Space. Alex Osbourne and Gemma Cleasby ran sessions where students explored issues connected to building a wind turbine. Merlin Allen and Neil Freeman looked at Engineering and flight while Gemma Gilbey talked about the progress of technology in our homes. Dr Pete Keen from Gooch and Housego ran a session on light and using it in lighting displays. Gavin Deymour looked at how our body moves and Ann Gout spoke about construction. Our initial presentation involved a science show by Ian Dunne

 Year 8 Fieldwork

Year 8 have been doing fieldwork in Plymouth this week. They’ve looked at a variety of aspects of the city in order to answer the question ‘Is Plymouth a vibrant city?’. They’ve been looking at the variety of shops and the street entertainment. They’ve even assessed the smells of the town centre!   The staff have been impressed with the attitude of the pupils, and the thoughtful questions that they have asked during the trips.

Shakespeare

This week, Year 7 have been exploring the world of Shakespeare with the English department and laying the groundwork in advance for Cycle 3. They have participated in a range of drama and craft activities to give them an understanding of Shakespeare’s plays and time period, whilst also developing their team work skills!

Students on Tuesday focused on Twelfth Night, looking at the identity confusion caused by Viola and Sebastian and creating puppets to represent the characters. They also acted out scenes from the play to give them a greater understanding of the plot. Their two other sessions were devoted to creating raps about Shakespeare characters (some even in iambic pentameter!) and building miniature versions of the Globe Theatre.

Finally, the Tuesday students were treated to a wonderful performance of Twelfth Night by Sherwell Valley, who had recently taken part in the Shakespeare Schools Festival in the Princess Theatre. All the students were very excited and gave our guests a huge round of applause at the end.

Friday’s cohort focused on Romeo and Juliet, their Cycle 3 play, studying the Capulet ball scene and making masquerade masks to go with it. They also acted out parts of the play and took part in the non-play-specific rapping and Globe Theatre activities. It’s been a great week and Year 7 have really given their all each day – a brilliant show of effort from the year group!

 Year 8 Science

This week Year 8 have had the opportunity to further their science knowledge with a trip to ‘We the Curious’ science museum in Bristol. Whilst there students were given an exciting lesson in ‘Colourful Chemistry’ underpinning key knowledge of the atom, reviewing some wonderful chemical reactions and developing their understanding of why different elements react in different ways. Students particularly enjoyed the science of fireworks and the lovely luminous Luminol reaction.

Students were also given some time to explore all of the amazing exhibitions on display including creating animations, understanding the science behind tornadoes, the magic of bubbles, the journey of the developing foetus and the marvels of visual illusions to name just a few. In particular students and staff alike enjoyed the Contouring sand box which used XBox technology to help contour the landscape using sand.

Overall a thoroughly enjoyable day for both staff and students!

CEW House Competitions

The PE department ran Year 7 and 10 house competitions at TA this week. The main focus of the days were to promote maximum engagement through enjoyable competition. We also aimed to embed an understanding of house identity in the students.

The sports that students competed in were rugby, football, netball, benchball and dodgeball. The days went extremely well with intense competition running throughout the events. Students throughly enjoyed the activities with all victories celebrated with great enthusiasm!

The week has been extremely benificial in developing the TA sports house system. We believe it will have a significant impact in the future partipation levels of upcoming competitions.

Year 7’s will be able to register for our house table tennis open next week. The event will be held on Wednesday 6th December.

Results

Dodgeball winners
Boys-Darwin
Girls-Christie

Football winners
Nearne
Brunel

Rugby winners
Christie
Nearne

Bench ball winners
Christie
Harrison

Netball winners
Fawcett
Christie

Ten tors update – Training Walk 18-11-17

In slightly more challenging conditions, the teams once again ventured out onto north Dartmoor in the area around Okehampton Army Camp. Despite the cold and the low clouds they all returned in good time proving they’ve got what it takes. Follow @OutdooredTA for updates and more photos.​

Exeter University Medical School Research Project works with TA Sixth Form

A group of Y12 and Y13 students voluntarily took part in the Shakleton Research Project on Wednesday 15th November. The project looks at key skills for relationships and these skills have come from research in adults who have been in long term relationships.  Our Sixth Form students participated with enthusiasm in a workshop that asked them to consider and to rank how important they think some of these skills are. The work of our students will help prioritise skills that the project will use when creating education resources.

A big thank you and well done to all those Sixth Form students who participated and were actively involved today. The feed-back from the visitors was really complementary of our students (of course!)

Team TA Sports Roundup

Georgia Davies Year 9 proudly showing off the three medals she won at the Devon County Sportshall Athletics Championships last weekend. They medals were for:

Silver in the 2 Lap Hurdles
Bronze in the Speed Bounce
Bronze in the 2 Lap Sprint

Georgia was competing against girls a year older than her so an excellent effort and hopefully she will be rewarded with selection to represent Devon at the Regional finals later this year. Well done Georgia.

Swimming Success

It has been a good month for Angus Graham, firstly winning our Year 7 House Triathlon Championships and then winning 5 medals at the Paignton Swimming Club Annual Championships last weekend. Well done Angus this is just reward for all the hard work you put into training week in and week out.

Tree Planted in Memory of Anne Rochford

Anne Rochford was a governor at the school for over 30 years and had a great input during this time and she sadly passed away last year.  Yesterday we  were joined by her daughters, Helen and Marie, for the planting of a memorial tree.