DRAMA
In Drama for the next 2 weeks, students will be learning how to tell a story using photos. The have been tasked with telling us about an event in their day, from the mundane to the exciting. They have been working on how to use various angles, light sources and closeups to enhance their photos and make them more exciting and vibrant. It will be a great activity and we are looking forward to seeing the results.
ENGLISH
This week Year 9 have been taking some reading and writing tests to assess their progress throughout the year. They have shown a lot of maturity and discipline, and so far the tests are demonstrating a lot of improvement from the students. Year 10 and 11 have been continuing with their literary studies and preparing for their next exam period in May. Year 12 have begun to read Shakespeare's Othello and have been analysing the famous villain 'Iago'. Year 13 have also begun to study one of the most famous English language plays ever written: Hamlet.
MATH
This week Year 9 students have started topic Trigoniometry and discovered three main trigonometric ratios and how trigonometry is applied to real life problems, such as measuring the height of tall objects. The Year 11 students have been practicing with simplifying surds and expanding expressions with surds as well as applying a method of rationalising the denominator to fractions with surds. Year 12 students have completed the Pure 2 module of the course and have been practicing with the past exam papers. In Statistics they have started Normal Distribution topic and learnt how to calculate probabilities using the bell curve. Year 13 students continued to study topic Vectors in 3D and learnt how to find equation of the line in vector form.
SCIENCE/PHYSICS
Welcome back to everyone to our new exciting term three. It is going to be our busiest and most important term leading to our summer holidays. The year 12 and 13 excelled in their recent mock exam and are now in their final unit Practical Skills 1 and Practical Skills 2. They are working very well and will achieve good marks if they continue to strive in this manner. The year 11 also produced pleasing results in their mock exams and there was a general improvement in their results.
The KS3 also hit the ground running and are eager to learn more science. The year 7 are finishing of their chemistry unit and learning more about acids and bases. A few demonstrations were done and students noted colour changes in neutralisation reaction. We also did a few reactions involving acids and metals. The year 9 have started an important section in Physics dealing with Motion. They are also getting familiar.
FRENCH
We finished our topic about "La francophonie". We studied where we can speak French around the world and what is the official situation of French language in these countries. We particularly studied the place of French language in Louisiana and the history of the Cajuns/Cadiens.
Aftet that, we started a new topic : the prepositions of place. We learnt how to say in French " on/under/next to/behind/above etc "We studied a picture and we had to describe and to explain where are located all the things on the list. Of course, we had to explain in French and write the sentences properly.
In Year 10, we kept speaking about "Food". We read a text where 4 teenagers spoke about their culture and their lunch. We had to understand their point of view and what they think about the food of their country. After that, we listened to an audio and we had to understand and answer to the questions about local food. Then, we saw how to write properly the adjectives if the word is masculine or feminine.
ICT
This week in ICT Year 8 were exploring the Negative Aspects of ICT and researching into different types of viruses and what they do as well as copyright laws. Year 10 were doing data analysis in Excel and creating a poster on how to be safe online. Year 7 were looking at the benefits of Computer Networks and continued with some HTML (Hyper-Text Markup Language) designing their own website. Moreover Year 13 were looking at some sample past paper essay questions.
MUSIC
In Secondary, Year 7 have been learning about Folk music. The students learned the history, themes, instruments and features of folk music. We learned the folk song “The Wellermen’ Sea Shanty and tried to accompany it on keyboards.
Year 8 started new a unit ‘All that jazz’. The students explored the history of Jazz and Blues and learned about features and themes of it. We worked on Primary Chords and Triads in the Twelve-Bar Blues in the Scale of C Major.
Year 9 have begun exploring the origins of Reggae music from Mento, Ska and Rock Steady and looked at the famous Reggae musician, Bob Marley, and his influence on a worldwide audience. The students sang the ‘Yellow bird’ song in unison in class and practising melody line for this song on the keyboards.
GEOGRAPHY
Year 7
This week year 7 have been learning about weather forecasting and we have discussed about the different between weather forecasting methods during the old age and weather forecasting technique during the modern time with development of science and availability of equipment like thermometer, barometer and wind vane. Students have also learned about how improvements in weather technology have saved lives by providing advance and warning of natural hazards such as hail or storms.
Year 8
Year 8 have learnt about Ecotourism and it’s implication to any tourist attraction. Students have discussed the positive and negative effect of ecotourism in their group and did a presentation. Some of the information that students presented on the positive impact of ecotourism is that, local communities are getting employment and income opportunities when they are working or engaging themselves in the ecotourism projects.
Year 9
This week year 9 students have been learning about negative and positive effect of the volcanic eruptions. With the aid of YouTube, video students demonstrated their general knowledge and understanding of the hazards and opportunities posed by volcanic eruptions. Students explained one interesting fact about the positive effects of the current volcanic eruption in Island whereby most of the people have seen in the video doing a volcano tourism in Island.
Year 10
Year 10 students have learnt about the threats of river by looking at how river flooding as a natural hazard can cause loss of life, hunger associated with washing away crops in the farm and destruction of the land, washing away roads, bridges, railway tracks and buildings. We have discussed about flooding in river Mississippi and its accompanying impact on people and environment.
Year 11
Year 11 have been learning all about Population and this week we have covered about population pyramid and population structures of the Low Income Countries (LICs), Middle Income Countries (MICs) and High Income Countries (MICs). Students have discussed about the composition of a population pyramid that is gender, age, active population and dependent population. In addition, students have learn about China’s One Child and its implication to the current population structure. Using different sources like pictures and journals students have identified the positive and negative effects of one child policy.
HISTORY
Year 7
Year 7 student have started the new term with a new topic which is Industrial Revolution in Europe. Students have had an opportunity to demonstrate understand on how the means of production was changed during the Industrial Revolution, which began around 1750 to 1900s. In addition change in the living condition among people during Industrial revolution was addressed in this week lessons whereby, students learnt about why people migrate from rural to urban areas during this period of Industrial Revolution in Europe.
Year 8
Year 8 students have started learning about French Revolution of 1793. We have discussed that the administrative system during King Louis XVI was divided into three group with the vast majority of French society being part of the “third estate which experienced a huge oppression by the ruling group. Studying about French Revolution enables students to think about the inequality levels among different groups in society.
