In July, our Year 7s will have the opportunity to spend a day studying flight for our fantastic Science Super Learning Day!
They will be looking at the adaptations of birds of prey, courtesy of staff from Kielder Birds of Prey Centre, and they will also spend the day building and testing rockets and helicopters.
The English department with Year 7 during the World Book Day awards assembly.
The 20th anniversary of World Book Day took place on Thursday, and Marden were active participants as usual. Staff, Year 7 and Year 8 students were invited to dress as a literary character for the day. There was also a lunchtime quiz and Key Stage 3 students took part in literary activities and writing competitions with the English department all day.
In total, £200.30 was raised for BOOK AID. Well done to everyone who took part.
To coincide with the 340th anniversary of the determination of the speed of light, Year 8 students took part in our second Super Learning Day of the year on the theme of light.
Activities included a visit to St. George’s Church to look at stained glass windows and then students made their own windows with a Christmas theme and decorated the school entrance and LRC for the annual Christmas concert.
Some students produced scenes using light boxes which were also displayed in the LRC. The school is now looking very festive as a result of all their hard work.
On Wednesday 30 November the whole of year 7 took part in our first Super Learning Day of the year. The title for the day was “What Makes The Coast Special?
The year group were divided into three different groups each following a different cross curricular theme.
The science theme focused on adaptation of living things to survive in a coastal environment. The students visited the Blue Reef Aquarium where they answered questions about the exhibits and got to meet a few of them up close and personal! They particularly enjoyed the Touchpool Experience and meeting the seals. Back at school the students researched the adaptations of various sea creatures and used their ICT skills to create a set of Top Trumps cards based on the survival characteristics of these animals, justifying the score given in each category based on their research. To quote two of the students, (Owen Morrow and Harrison Reay), “This was the best day at school ever!!”
The Media group worked on producing a marketing campaign for the North East coast; designing websites, storyboards, posters and leaflets and pitching their ideas to each other at the end of the day.
Media students design their marketing campaigns.
Art students responded to this question through illustrations of objects, items and places that made them think of the coast. After a morning of planning work and analysing artwork from a local artist, we trekked down to the beach. Equipped with cameras and a clear idea of what objects each group wanted to photograph, students set about their challenge. After lunch, our groups of art students had 2 hours to create their own collage landscapes, now inspired by their own photographs. With an aim to use bold colour and striking illustration, designs soon came together, ending with a presentation of very successful work at the end of the day.
Inspired by some former pupils at our open day, pupils coming to Marden in September photographed lots of interesting details of our current school during a Transition lesson.
Each group had a specific area of the school to focus on and photographed: walls, ceilings, floors, furniture, fixtures and fittings.
For those students not going to Lightwater Valley yesterday there was a series of Super Learning Days. Year 7 took part in a cooking challenge. Check out these photos of their day!
The final time we light up this building, crowds of Year 8s and their parents gathered in the shadow of our new building to witness the lighting up of the East block of Marden High School, a culmination of their Science-themed Super Learning Day.
Here is a slideshow of images from our Year 8 trip to High Borrans during our Activities Week last week term.
Year 11 students Lara and David made this video about the STEM Super Learning Day at Marden, when we were visited by a fleet of electric cars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdbuZOdWUEw&feature=youtu.be
