Events

As part of this year's independent learning initiative at Dane Court, students of all ages are collaborating on a range of exciting challenges over four days.

Students in Barcelona House have been set the task of developing a greater understanding of the country, culture and language of the city their House is named after. One of the highlights of the four days will be the cookery workshop led by a fully qualified, London-trained Latin American chef who will teach the students about the history of tapas and demonstrate how to make various dishes.

Students in Delphi House are equally busy working on a project to explore and celebrate the wonderful Thanet coastline. They have already had the opportunity to spend some beautiful days conducting beach surveys at Stone Bay in Broadstairs, and to enjoy walks and field studies along the north Thanet coast and at Pegwell Nature Reserve in order to complete their research.

Helsinki House students are faced with the challenge of designing, pitching and advertising the first edition of a wildlife magazine for children aged 8-16 years for the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation. Their preparation included a trip to Howletts on Wednesday where they completed research, found facts about their chosen animals and took photographs for use in their magazines.

Neuchâtel House has become the fashion capital of Dane Court for their project on 'Junkyard Fashion'. Their four days started with a trip to London where they were able to visit the Victoria & Albert museum, the National Theatre Costume Archive and the Fashion Textile Museum to gain insight and inspiration ahead of their return to school where they are working in groups to design their own clothes, prepare for the final fashion show, create a fashion magazine and produce a short film.

Sorrento House are embracing the Olympic theme this year, producing a number of fabulous 'bids' for Thanet to hold its own sporting events. In preparation for the final bids, students had the opportunity to take part in a thrilling trip to Twickenham Stadium, where they were able to enjoy a stadium tour, visit the museum and complete a workshop run by the team at Twickenham on stadium design. Back at school, the students are working exceptionally hard to design their stadiums and parks; create inspiring pitches; generate promotional videos; and ensure they have developed a legacy strategy which would set their bid apart from the others. The final bid presentations will be viewed on the final afternoon.

Last but by no means least, Tallinn House are involved in outreach work with two local primary schools. After a trip to Howletts which helped prepare the students for the rainforest project element of the activity day, Tallinn students then returned to school where they are now designing and developing a whole day of events for year five pupils linked to the key stage 2 programme of study which they themselves will deliver to the 100 visiting primary pupils and even provide lunch for all.

The House Projects are a proving to be a huge success all round. All our students are working really hard and developing some amazingly creative solutions to the problems they have been posed.

Thursday 12 July 2012

Friday 13 July 2012

Tuesday 17 July 2012