Following its successful inaugural event in November, schools from across Meridian Trust enjoyed their second Masterclass event earlier this week, which took place over three separate school sites.
The event brought together a number of secondary school students who enjoyed some engaging and brain-teasing activities throughout the day.
The masterclasses were held at Swavesey Village College, Stamford Welland Academy and The Ferrers School, covering a variety of subjects aimed at students from secondary schools across the Trust in Years 7, 8, 9 and 10.
A fantastic range of fun activities was led by Meridian Trust Curriculum Leaders in their specialist subjects, the purpose of which was to get students thinking about their career interests and possible specialisms in the future.
A summary of the day’s activities is below:
Science Masterclass– Escape Room Challenge
Students from Stamford Welland, Sawtry Village Academu, GPUTC and Nene Park Academy tackled several Science problems to solve 4-digit padlocks.
The challenges used students’ scientific knowledge and understanding and challenged them to think outside of the box!
In teams of 4, students worked through a series of practicals and questions to solve a padlock on their own wooden box. Inside the box was a small prize plus clues to solve and unlock the treasure chest!
Towards the end of the competition, it became quite competitive as a number of groups had solved their own box and were racing to win the competition and unlock the treasure chest… huge congratulations to a team from Sawtry who cracked the code in a record time!
James Brown, Science Curriculum Director for Meridian Trust said “It was a wonderful to see students flourishing in the competition. I’d like to particularly thank the Science teachers and technician from Stamford Welland for being such great hosts!”
PE and Sports Masterclass – Handball
Swavesey Village College hosted a handball tournament for students in year 9 who have not represented schools in other competitions.
Northstowe, North Cambridge Academy and Ely were the visiting schools with both girls and boys tournaments taking place.
For many students, this was their first competitive experience of handball, so this was a fantastic experience for those involved.
Greg Hodgkinson, PE Curriculum leader for PE & Sport at Swavesey Village College said “It was great to see students play with enthusiasm and energy – all of them displaying excellent sportsmanship throughout the tournament. Well done to all involved!”
Geography Masterclass – Hazard Management
Year 7 students from The Ferrers School, Lincroft and Sharnbrook Academy had the opportunity to take part in hazard management masterclass at The Ferrers School.
During the session students learnt about the different types of natural hazard and how the impacts and responses vary depending on the nature of the event and the development of a country.
Students worked in teams to complete a decision making exercise in which they had to provide shelter for as many residents as possible in a village hall in Nepal. The masterclass then focused on the features of aseismic building design and concluded with students creating their own earthquake-proof building using spaghetti and midget gems.
Alan Lovesey, Geography Curriculum Area Lead for Meridian Trust said “It was great fun to bring natural hazards to life and the students enjoyed our simulated earthquake, to show which types of buildings are able to withstand this kind of trauma.
Charlotte Brimer, Geography Curriculum Director for Meridian Trust added “Seeing how much the students enjoyed working together in teams was wonderful. I’m really proud of them for their engagement and enthusiasm in the decision-making exercise too.”
Careers Masterclass – Design Challenge – Rocket Cars
Sixty Year 9 students from The Ferrers School, Sharnbrook Academy, Lincroft Academy and Stratton Upper School participated in an exciting Design Challenge – Rocket Cars.
Students developed their engineering skills by designing and building a prototype air-powered rocket car. The sessions allowed students to experience and learn from the engineering cycle, testing their solutions and improving them interactively.
Teamwork was key to achieving the best possible solution (within the given constraints) to solve the problem of whose car could travel the furthest distance. A team of young engineers from Stratton Upper School was crowned ‘the winners’ with their engineered rocket car reaching 11 metres.
Students gained great insight into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Careers which is increasingly referred to as STEAM with the ‘A’ standing for ‘Art’ – a key factor when thinking about the aesthetics of a new product brought to market.
Angela Manley, Careers Lead & Meridian Trust Director of Careers said “It was wonderful to watch the development of workplace skills today.”
History Materclass
The History Masterclass was held at Swavesey Village College and was attended by 60 Year 10s from North Cambridge Academy, Ely College, Northstowe Secondary College and Swavesey Village College.
Students took part in a workshop led by staff from the education teams across Cambridge University Museums. They learned about a current museum project to create a collection of objects that aims to tell a more empowering story of the transatlantic slave trade and stories of exploration and exploitation.
During the session, the students got to handle objects from across the museum collections, including coins from the Haitian Revolution, wooden combs from Benin and a strategy game called Oware from Ghana.
The students were asked to answer questions about the objects and explain how the object could deepen our understanding of the slave trade.
The Masterclass also gave an insight into the work of curators in museums who are trying to find new ways to make objects and artefacts communicate about their complex pasts.
A few comments from Year 10 students: “It brings a greater perspective”; “it gives people a voice who didn’t have one before”; “It humanises the very people who were being dehumanised by the slave trade”. Some of these quotes will be incorporated into the exhibition when the new collection of objects goes on display later this year.
Emily Oakes, Curriculum Trust Director of History said “The students were really positive about their workshop experience and it was great to give them the opportunity to think about familiar history in new ways.”
Maths Materclass – Code Breaking
Students were challenged to solve a mathematical puzzle that had been enciphered using various different ciphers. Collaboration with students from other schools was key to winning the race to solve the puzzle!
Students also learnt about the mathematics behind creating strong passwords and one very savvy student managed to guess the teacher’s password correctly!
Charmayne Leggett “There are certainly some skilled codebreakers among our Meridian Trust students and it was lovely to see the cross-trust collaboration today!”
Visual Arts – Gelli Plates Printing
At the Visual Art master class year 7 students learnt about an exciting technique for printing making using Gelli Plates. They used a range of found materials to create textures by pressing them into the surface of the ink, including bubble wrap, leaves and feathers. By layering different coloured inks and textures they created original experimental imagery with some fabulous results!
Students developed their ability to select, explore, review and refine their ideas and had a lot of messy creative fun!
Modern Foreign Languages – Challenge Quiz
MFL students from across the 3 schools took part in a Languages Challenge – think University Challenge meets The Chase! In their mixed school and mixed language teams, they had to answer questions in French, German and Spanish and also about cultural aspects of the countries where those languages are spoken.
After round one, students had a break where they had the opportunity to talk to students from the other schools as well as to take part in a song titles quiz. The music quiz proved very popular.
Finally, the teams competed in a second round, when the translation got trickier… The final winning team had 2700 points!
Ines McMahon, Trust Director for MFL said “We are looking forward to bringing the challenge to the next group of schools as the students really worked hard together and were very competitive!”
Students can look forward to more masterclasses across the Trust in May 2023.