Yesterday’s Kaleidoscope Day saw each year group engage in all sorts of exciting and interesting activities as they threw themselves into learning unique skills and embracing new experiences.
Year 7 jetted off to the River & Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames. There, they explored the wildlife found on the riverbank at the museum and carried out some Geography fieldwork as they took a walk along the towpath and drew some fantastic field sketches.
Year 8 spent the day looking around the Corinium Museum in Cirencester. Corinium was the second biggest Roman town in Britannia and there have been some amazing archaeological finds, including beautiful mosaics and impressive statues. The pupils enjoyed looking around the museum, finding out about how the Romans lived and who they traded with. They also took part in a workshop, in which they handled artefacts and had to work out who might own different possessions. They also got to dress up as different types of Romans! The last activity was to go to the remains of the Cirencester amphitheatre which could hold 8,000 people – the whole population of the town!
Year 9 also enjoyed a day out as they visited the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley. The focus for the trip was the Industrial Revolution, and the students got to experience a canal trip through the limestone mines and tunnels. They even got to attempt ‘legging’, which is moving the barge through the tunnel (normally, before engines, horses were used to pull the barges, but there was no towpath in the tunnels).
Year 10’s Kaleidoscope Day was focused on Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) and built on the presentations given to the whole school by The RAP Project last academic year. The enthusiasm for the day was all the more evident as, for the first time in many months, an outside speaker and workshop leader worked ‘live’ with the students, with staff from the Brook organisation delivering talks and Q&A sessions on healthy relationships within the context of sex, the law and consent, as well as STIs and contraception. The day also contained workshops on self-defence, led by Stepping Stone Performing Arts, where the students got to learn and practise (safely!) some self-defence techniques.
Year 11 were huddled in the Main Hall as they took part in the Model United Nations General Assembly (MUNGA). Divided into small groups, each group was assigned a nation to research and represent. The day saw passionate debates about climate change, and it was a fantastic opportunity for the students to find out more about what each nation was doing to combat the climate crisis, highlighting tensions and the difficulty of negotiations with some nations due to their strong ties and motivations (not to mention their economic status and other previous agreements). After a short break, even more heated speeches were interchanged when it was announced that an emergency situation in the South China Sea had arisen! After much persuasion, deep analysis of facts & others’ motives, and protection and help offered to those in vulnerable situations, it was voted that an investigation into the matters would take place.
Finally, our Year 12 and 13 students took part in an ERP Festival in the Ada Benson Building for their Kaleidoscope Day. Read our separate article to find out more.