"Money Can't Buy"

Planning for this term’s projects includes a cookery book based on what’s already in your cupboard.  Each section of recipes colour coded to match the chopping boards many of us find in our kitchens (red for meat, blue for fish, green for vegetables and white for pasta and grains.

Pupils will choose, write, illustrate and then publish their cookbooks digitally (with a couple of hard copies being selected for display in our library)

We throw away so much unwanted and unused food each week that we want to encourage pupils to think about working with what they’ve already got at home

This is a link to the World Population Clock (click for live feed)

This is a link to Internet statistics (click for live feed)

Pupils in the Prep School have participated in the UK Bebras Challenge 2018

The tasks are fun, engaging and based on problems that Computer Scientists often meet and enjoy solving. They can be solved without prior knowledge but instead require logical thinking.

​The aim is to solve as many as you can in the allotted time.

The results are now in – and certificates of Participation, Merit and Distinction will be awarded once the school exams are over.

It’s the first time we have taken part, and we are really happy with the results.

Well done, one and all – and it’s worth mentioning that as a number of our pupils achieved scores within the top 10% of their age group nationally, they will additionally receive invitations to participate in the TCS Oxford Computing Challenge.

Pupils in 2H/2R (Year 4) are working on a series of stop-motion animations, to mark the centenary of the end of World War I

This short animation features one of the most popular tunes of the day – ‘Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag’ taught to pupils during their class music lessons this term.

Rubber Duck Debugging is an actual ‘thing’.  You’re coding, you’re stuck.  You read your code aloud, line by line, to your duck (or in our case Little Pig of Happiness). Amazingly, it does work. Pupils today proved it to themselves.  They also went online to read more about this phenomenon at rubberduckdebugging.com .  You can even talk to a duck if you feel so inclined.  AI at hand to answer those searching questions (you’d be amazed what pupils asked…)

If this still isn’t enough help – just balance your duck (pig) in her/his rubber ring to call for a teacher’s assistance.  Snout up is preferable!

PS – a word to the wise.  It is a seriously good idea to ‘de-squeak’ your drove of pigs or flock of ducks before releasing them into the classroom .

A pupil in U6 (Yr 8) this afternoon drew our attention to yet another item that apparently money simply can’t buy.  We like his sense of humour.

Today, on World Mental Health Day   focused our attention on the  mental wellbeing of young people (it’s a phrase which we discovered pupils could better relate to than ‘mental health’ or indeed ‘mental illness’).  During their Art/IT lesson this afternoon, we asked a group of M6 (Year 8) pupils to create a ‘wellbeing’ version of the classic game of Scrabble.

Their designs are as shown and were created first online, and then printed out as a large wall display for our top-floor landing, between our respective classrooms

With National Poetry Day but hours away pupils in Year 8 combined preparations for the event with their first Python lesson of the academic year. During IT, favourite poems were reworked  in Python.

The turtle library , time and random were used in their coding .

This is Wilfred Owen’s Dulce Et Decorum Est

Two books that have  been introduced to pupils, who are encouraged to read or listen to the stories and then discuss.