Extended Learning Day 5
On Tuesday last week all pupils took part in our fifth and final ‘Extended Learning Day’ of this academic year. ‘Extended Learning Days’ (ELDs) are organised throughout the academic year to enrich the curriculum and provide pupils with a greater variety of learning experiences.
Year 7 experienced a day finding out about the opportunities available to them within some of our uniformed services. They received some careers advice and learned how to carry out basic life support from the NHS using the resuscitation dummies. They also worked with the RAF and Army cadets finding out about the different activities they could get involve with and the skills they could develop. They also had a session about appropriate online behaviour, particularly focusing on the language they use and how everyone is worthy of respect and dignity, both online and in real life.
Year 8 pupils enjoyed a day of English and Computing themed around the choose your own path adventure game books of the 1980’s. The English department worked with pupils to write their own adventure game book, creating haunted rooms, devious traps and dangerous monsters. Pupils were able to draw upon their work on gothic literature from earlier in the year to help them craft a eerie set of descriptions of the contents of the gothic mansion the adventure takes place in.
In computing, using the groundwork that the English department had done surrounding the character, trap, monster and treasure, the pupils used booklets to fill in gaps in the first piece of code for their own ‘Choose your own adventure’ book. The booklet then gave them the code that they had to use for the choices that the user would make, some with syntax errors in that they first had to solve. This task helps introduce the theme of sub-programs to the pupils so that each door choice is its own separate piece of code. The pupils were given their booklets to take home and, with access to a laptop or PC, can now complete the game in their own time with their file saved to their OneDrive account.
Despite the rain, Year 9 pupils visited Liverpool. Prior to the visit pupils have learned about the regeneration of the centre of Liverpool in their geography lessons. To support their learning in class, pupils visited the site of the new Everton football stadium to compare this to other areas of Liverpool which have been regenerated.
Pupils completed an Environmental Quality Survey and a Pedestrian Count at the Albert Dock to see if regeneration has had a positive impact on Liverpool. Pupils also visited the International Slavery Musuem. As a result of the visit to Liverpool, pupil’s were able to see how Liverpool city centre has improved as a result of a variety of regeneration schemes.
Year 10 spent their extended learning day with the RE department studying the final sections of their GCSE component 2 course “Life and Death”.
Pupils had sessions looking at Euthanasia, Eschatology, the Roman Catholic funeral rite, symbols of the resurrection and artefacts such as the sarcophagus of the passion. Through the day groups had a chance to test their knowledge in a Seneca learning online competition and reviewing their key word knowledge from their section of the course.
Pupils ended the day with a walkthrough mock exam with their RE teacher talking through exam questions from past papers so pupils could apply their knowledge and understanding from the day.
