Student Work

Rowhill School Primary Queen Elizabeth II presentation

Design and Technology 2019 / 2020

Rowhill offers D.T. to primary pupils and secondary students up to key stage 3. With a broad and varied coverage of practical skills, the learners develop, knowledge and understanding of the designing and making principles.

All learners are encouraged to work creatively; using different tools and materials, when learning about a given topic. Learners, will often discuss their understanding of a topic and the correct use of tools. The aim is to encourage staying safe in a group and develop fair and respectful working social skills.

All pupils and students are required to develop their practical knowledge, starting in September and reviewed again at the start of each term, Health and Safety. This is paramount for the smooth running of each lesson.

Since September, the learners have learned about types of timber, (Natural and Manufactured), polymers (plastics), electronic and mechanical systems (simple machines). Below are photographic projects and skills the learners have shown in lessons.

T2 learning about what makes a good friend and effective communication

Making meaningful friendships is something that our young people can struggle with, particularly if they have ASD.

Understanding their own wants, desires and emotions is the first hurdle each student needs to cross. In order to do this the school uses a zones of regulation system which helps students identify emotions, their triggers and ultimately how to regulate them. Whilst working on understanding their own feelings learning to understand and recognise that others have them too is another very significant step. When students begin on this path, normally the first emotion that they can recognise in each other is sadness and anxiety. Emotional states that are highly significant for them as they have to deal with on a daily basis. Next, when they are beginning to understand these processes is happiness. A very interesting stage as more often than not an individual will try to make their ‘friend’ enjoy the activity that they so enjoy themselves. This introduces us to the concept or indeed problem of double empathy. Understanding each other’s intention to be nice may be missed as the young person trying to share their passion for a particular subject or activity may not be shared, but ‘I enjoy it so you should too’ is all too familiar and can, despite good intention, lead to arguments.

In T2, there is a strong desire to make steps forward in personal and emotional development, the boys want to make meaningful friendships, so work hard to learn to understand their own emotions and communicate more effectively without altercation. Every one of the students in T2 has had their fair share of arguments, fights and disagreements, learning to avoid these with the added benefit of eliminating the loneliness and ‘no-one understands me’ state of mind is some thing they all want to do.

Pythons Class – Talk for Writing

Pythons Class learned a story called ‘The Papaya that Spoke’ from a story map. As a class, we then wrote our own version of the story called ‘The Banana that Spoke’. We created our own class story map and included some actions to help us tell the story to other students.

The children went on to story map their own versions of the story and created their own story maps. They shared their stories with students from other classes.

Weekly listening skills - Scorpions

Students to give and listen to instructions
Social: developing personal qualities and using social skills
Social: participating, cooperating and resolving conflicts
Spiritual: using imagination and creativity in learning

During a series of lessons in Listening Skills the students were paired up and sat back to back and were given identical pieces of Lego or building blocks. They were given the task to see if they could give and listen to instructions from their partner to build something identical with these pieces. The task involved partner 1 giving precise instructions including colour, size, position and preposition of the Lego to partner 2 without either being able to see what was happening.

The skills needed were concise and clear information and the ability to stay calm even if they were frustrated. Partners could ask for the instructions to be repeated and to confirm when they may have misunderstood. All the students participated with some good results and equally good discussions about why some found it harder than others.

Some students performed better at giving instructions because they could imagine the outcome of what they were building. Other students were better at listening to what was being said and were able to ask questions relating to the task. All the students enjoyed this and thought they worked well with their partners. When we talked about this lesson the students understood the need to talk competently and to be polite when they may have misinterpreted what they needed to do. This is a skill we are continuing to work on using varying objects and variations of the lesson.

Lockdown 5km Challenge Ryan Keenan

During this lockdown one of the pupils at Rowhill has used this time to strengthen his physic by attempting to run 5km in under 35 minutes. So far he is on target and doing extremely well.

GB para-athlete John Smith has heard of his challenge and has offered his support.

"Tell him from me I think he’s doing fantastic and in my opinion he’s a conqueror and an achiever already for the effort! Tell him that in any distance we race or run, the home stretch is always the hardest but always the most rewarding when you cross the line or in his case the 5k mark"

"Ryan has already conquered the first 4K and now it’s time to dig dip, run harder and faster and smash the home 1k stretch!

"A champion doesn’t give up, he gets up and tries again and again"

Ryan will be raising money for the charity Mind.

https://www.mind.org.uk/

Dragons Class

Primary nurture class has been looking at castles, particularly the first castles that came over to Britain from Normandy by William the Conqueror in 1066. The pupils have been working on their own motte and bailey castle project and I am very proud with what they have made and am pleased it is able to be displayed on our website.

Kandinsky was a Russian painter who’s main focus was on abstract art. Throughout his work Kandinsky incorporated various different shapes, lines and colours. We each created our own interpretation of Kadinsky’s work.

British science week is a 10 day celebration of Science and Technology (5th-14th March 2021). To celebrate national science week we have carried out various different fun, exciting experiments which we have all enjoyed taking part in.