Blog week ending 25th March

Mrs Dhaliwal lead a special Epistemic Learning Celebration Event with our Year 7 students and their parents and carers.  Epistemic learning links knowledge across subjects and disciplines building understanding as students move up through school and beyond.  We were delighted to be joined by some VIP guests from Canterbury Christ Church University’s LASAR Centre who have been working with us on the Epistemic Insight work, the Director of the centre Professor Billingsley and her team were really impressed with the students that they spoke to who really demonstrated a high level of understanding of this complex field of study.  The LASAR Centre, have donated an Epistemic Insight Challenge Cup which they are going to award to the top winning poster, to be announced once they have had time to go through all 86 posters!

A key part of the students’ work has been to use the EI approach to tackle some of life’s ‘Big Questions’ exploring how this accrued factual knowledge engages with a person’s values and beliefs.  During the course of the evening students presented their research and response to a number of ‘Big Questions’ including ‘Will humans ever evolve again’, ‘What defines sexuality’ and ‘Will robots ever replace humans’.  We were all incredibly impressed with the articulate and considered presentations of our students.  Each group created a poster to highlight their key points and findings – and all 86 of them were on display around the hall – an incredibly powerful visualisation of the students thinking and conclusions.  An excellent evening, where we all considered ‘life’s big questions’ together.

Pictured, Mrs Dhaliwal with a selection of Singh House posters.

Pictured below, students making final preservations to their presentations ahead of the evening.

Our Year 10 students took part in an archery skills team competition during PE.  Archery promotes focus, mental fitness, physical fitness .. and it’s a lot of fun!  Students learned the basics of shooting a standard ‘recurve’ archery bow as well as safety measures.  They practised shooting techniques, target accuracy, then in teams, worked together competing in a game of archery relay!

It was World Maths Day this week.  Our Maths Department certainly embraced the celebrations .. joining with students across the world to log in and complete live maths games.  Students from over 160 countries took part in the online event, between them answering a record-breaking 1 billion maths questions!  

Our Year 7 Mathematicians have been understanding target markets and consumer demand during their finance and enterprise lessons.  The lesson challenges students to develop their critical thinking and business analysis skills.

Thank you for the many donations that we have collected on behalf of the Ukrainian civilians caught up in the conflict in their country.  Your generosity has rather overwhelmed us all and only with very careful ‘Jenga’ style loading did we manage to fit all of your donations into the van and our minibuses!  I can confirm that the lorries are on their way, and as the lorries and are being driven by Ukrainian nationals and have Ukrainian number plates they will be allowed into Ukraine and delivered to those who are literally at the front line of the conflict and in critical need of our help. 

Thank you to Mr Powell from WGSB and Mr Rana (our WGSG Admissions Manager’s husband!) for driving the donations from our schools to the loading depot in Folkestone and to the many students who sorted and loaded the donations.

Cambridge University Roadshow.  Students from Cambridge University visited our Year 11 and 12 students to introduce Cambridge as a potential destination as they consider their further education options. The students talked about the different Cambridge colleges and their own study experiences to give a sense of what it is like to study at Cambridge and how to apporach the application process.  The Cambridge students were very keen to make Cambridge feel accessible and to reach out to potential students answering any questions and providing practical and relatable advice.

Congratulations to Jaedon Lynch of WG6 who has been selected to represent Jamaica at the Carifta Swimming Championships, to be held in Barbados in April.  Jaedon was selected based on his swim rankings in the UK and is one of 34 talented young athletes to represent the country at the international meet. 

Jamaica’s national head coach Wendy Lee says “I think the team selected is very impressive. It's fantastic that the selection committee and council of the ASAJ were able to identify 34 talented young athletes with the strength of character and determination to represent our country in a manner that will make all Jamaicans proud.”

Well done Jaedon!

Year 10 GCSE Food Technology students put their food processing theory knowledge into practice by making their own mozzarella cheese.  Using milk, rennet, citric acid and salt the students first separated the curd from the whey, removing the excess moisture then forming the cheese into a ‘ball’.  All expertly demonstrated by Odun below.

Forthcoming; we will break for the Easter break on Friday 1^st April and will be returning on Tuesday 19^th April.

Finally, a forward notice that on Wednesday 30^th March, we will be having our cultural own clothes day.  This is a day when we encourage students to dress in their own cultures dress, or indeed to dress in the theme of a culture that they admire or want to understand more about.  This is a great opportunity for us to celebrate the huge range of cultural diversity in the school, whilst also encouraging students to gain better understanding of another culture.  So, time to think about what to wear.  The cost for the day is £1 which will go towards the House charities and school appeals.  I look forward to seeing all of the diversity of our school on this day.

Best wishes,

Michelle Lawson

Head Teacher