Lockdown restrictions have challenged our ways of teaching and learning, particularly on those projects that involve more than one ‘bubble’ working in collaboration with each other.
To mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on our usual team projects, Year 6 and Year 9 have been using ‘Teams’ to work together this term. 12 Year 9 students volunteered to lead groups of Year 6 pupils in researching and compiling presentations on the Wildlife of Australia.
In their first ‘kick-off’ meeting, all students were given an informative talk by Mrs Beswick (Senior School Art Teacher) on the subject of Australia with a focus on climate change and the extinction risk to their native species. From her experience of having lived there for 7 years she was able to impart some first-hand experiences of recycling water and how a lack of water was affecting the country’s wildlife.
Although this was a new way of working for all of the students involved, everyone worked fantastically well and managed to overcome the additional challenges of collaborative work presented by meeting virtually. For the Year 9 students, this was a brilliant way of developing their leadership skills, all of whom rose to the challenge magnificently.
On Tuesday this week, all groups gave their presentations to an audience of other pupils and several teachers, including Mr Burke and Mr Lewis from the Senior School.
Giving public presentations tends to be a somewhat daunting task, even for most adults but Year 6 took it in their stride! Fantastic technical ability was demonstrated in the presentation slides with fancy transitions surprising the audience on a regular basis. All the pupils spoke with confidence and clarity and the quality of their research was clear to see.
A huge congratulations to all on the completion of a fantastic project!
