Year 7 went storming Norwich Castle

Over the last week year 7 have all been out to Norwich Castle to learn more about the time when it was stormed in 1216 by rebels who wanted to overthrown King John. As well as learning about history year 7 also got the chance to show off their maths skills over the course of the day.

Over the course of the day students took part in four sessions as follows

Siege Life

Year 7 got to investigate the water supply in the well and calculate how much water was available to those defending the castle.

 They got to handle and assess a variety of medieval objects

They also played medieval strategic games;

Siege weapons

Students got to handle, measure and assess weapons used to attack and defend a castle;

 Siege financing 

 Students planned and calculated a budget for the siege

 
They got to strike their own coins

measuring the keep
 The students learnt about medieval measurements and used them to measured the keep to calculate its scale.

All in all we had a brilliant day. Thank you to Norwich Castle and their wonderful staff for organising everything for us and running such brilliant sessions. A huge thanks too for our lovely finance department for booking everything and sorting paperwork so we could go out.

Year 7 castle building

This half term year 7 made castles for their homework project. Here are a selection of some of our favourites.

Make More Noise

Make More Noise is a brilliant collection of short stories of girls standing up for themselves and generally being awesome. The list of contributors is a brilliant line up of YA authors I love and I thoroughly enjoyed every inspiring story. 

My favourite story in the book was focused on the suffragette cenus boycott of 1911 by Sally Nichols which I really loved because it was a snippet of history I'd not really ever heard about before. 

I also loved Emma Carroll's World War Two story focusing on land girls and Katherine Woodfine's story looking at the inequality within Edwardian society for young girls in service. I also found Catherine Johnson's story about the 43 group particularly fascinating. 

If you've enjoyed learning about the Suffragettes or interested at look at women's history this book is definitely for you.

Hearts and Minds by Jane Robinson

Hearts and Minds looks at the stories of the ordinary women of the suffrage campaign with more of an emphasis on the work of the suffragist movement. I loved it because it gave me a real insight into the suffragist campaign which I never knew much about and having read this book I was all the poorer for not knowing more about them. Their efforts and resilience was amazing and I was over awed learning about the efforts they went to to secure women the vote, tackling the issue in a calmer manner than their militant counterparts in the suffragettes. I particularly loved learning about the role of Elizabeth Garrett Andersen in the campaign having only come across her previously as the first women to qualify as a doctor in the UK when we look at Medicine through time

I also loved this book because of the stories of individuals involved with the campaign, both suffragette and suffragist such as the story of the suffragette who refused to wear her prison outfit as a protest for not being treated as a political prisoner and sat in her cell naked and when they authorities tried to put her in a straitjacket as a punishment she was so slim that she just wriggled out of it.

If you enjoyed studying the suffragettes in Year 7 or are interested in women's history this is definitely the book for you.

Humphry Repton Competition

We are excited to be supporting a competition for The Repton 200 Festival. The competition is to design an A3 poster with information about Humphry Repton and the amazing things that he did. The prize for the best piece of work will be £50 with £25 for two runners up. Entries must be brought to Mrs Connor by 19th March and entries are welcomed from any student in school.