Diary Entry - January

January continued to be busy and the team worked very hard to plan and implement our Year 7 Crime Week. Two hundred and thirteen students thoroughly enjoyed investigating the Crime Scene which was set up in the Library. A number of lap tops had been stolen and a ransom note had been left for the Headteacher. Pupils used various techniques to uncover the owner of the pen who had left the ransom note.

Our coaching programme progressed further and coaches continued to observe each other’s lessons and practise coaching conversations. Ideas included: planning for differentiation, effective modelling, delivering the teaching sequence for writing, AfL in Science, and monitoring and dealing with low level disruptive behaviour. Next month, after some further training, coaches will be ready to begin work with other members of the Science Faculty.

On the 28th January, the local press came to school for the afternoon and worked with 16 winning students from Year 8. The pupils used the knowledge they had gained from Crime Week to write an article for the Chronicle and Echo. There were five teams and the winning team saw their photo and news story appear in the paper the following day.

As part of developing transition within our project, a group of Year 10 students helped to organise and deliver a Forensic Science challenge to one of our feeder primary schools.  The students gave up their lunchtimes to prepare and practise the experiment before visiting Harlestone Primary School on Friday 29th January.

The first part of the session included an explanation of chromatography and how it can be used to separate the colours in a pen.  After lunch the scene was set – a ransom note had been left after some computers had gone missing – three suspects had been found near the ransom note.  They all had a pen that could have written the note, but who was it?  After carefully extracting the ink from the note and using the suspects’ pens, every member of the class used the technique of thin layer chromatography to determine the culprit.  All of the students really enjoyed the day and made thank-you cards for the Moulton students who helped them.  We have been asked to visit again soon! For all involved this was a great way to link our Rolls-Royce project with building on our long term aim of community cohesion and primary liaison.

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