A day out at Teentech

Eryn Allerston-Brockwell, Work Experience

On the 10^th July, a small group of Year 8’s set out to the KC stadium for the annual ‘TeenTech’ event. Students used their STEM (Science Technology Engineering Maths) skills to apply themselves to different situations and solving problems. A range of businesses were at the event and they all had their different stalls and activities for over 200 12-13 year olds to participate in throughout the day which would test their abilities to the maximum.

From disabling a ‘bomb’ to building bridges, the event offered a huge amount of interactivity for the pupils, making the excitement increase by adding prizes , from as little as a certificate, to a JVC Boom blaster and an iPod touch. The first event of the day was construction, which saw the girls’ team finding out how ‘STEM’ properties could be applied within the real world and after their discussion, they had to answer questions about their new taught knowledge and when they got the answer right, they were handed a piece of a jigsaw puzzle, applying their construction skills. Afterwards, they entered a different room which saw them creating an ‘egg rover’ that would have to hold an egg and drop it from a height without the egg cracking. One out of the four teams managed to create basket like carriers that prevented the egg from cracking, beating two other student teams and even a teachers team too.

The girls then went to an events room which held approximately 16 different companies that were showcasing what they could do and what skills are necessary. The girls were given a rota and enjoyed speaking to people who told them more about where their newfound ‘STEM’ skills come into different situations, including being in the army, creating modern technology at JVC, and making ‘windmills’ for a chocolate bar. This event happened until lunch, where the final ideas for the ideas wall were placed. The ideas had to be about something that could either improve life or make their current life better. The winner of this would receive an IPod touch so the stakes were high.

After lunch, Malet’s students were tested against other schools’ students to make any app that they want. They ranged from healthy eating apps to games where you could ‘bite Suarez back’. The 12-13 year olds pitched their ideas at the end of the 30 minute creating time, having just 60 seconds to persuade the app designers to choose theirs as the winning one. After every team in the room had pitched, all groups were re-united to see who won the prizes of all events, which saw Talitha Marshall who beat a KC employee at Mario Kart, winning a £10 Amazon voucher. After the prizes, the pupils watched video from the previous TeenTech, showing students from this event travel to Buckingham palace for the grand final of the TeenTech event, which also influenced the students to think about applying for roles working with ‘STEM’.

Malet came away with one certificate from the app designers as the winners of the best pitch, with their jingle ‘Reduce Your Excuse’ which was a first for the TeenTech completion ever.

‘It was amazing, unbelievably amazing and the best day of my life.’ –David

‘I found it quite interesting today and I would do it again any day’ –Alex

Malet will hopefully be entering again next year to the TeenTech event, and seeing what creations and ideas that our current Year 7’s can come up with.

First Blog Post

Hi, my name is Eryn and I’ll be writing all abot my work experience journey and what me week will entail. I hope to get new skills and learn new things and hopefully will be able to use my new found skills in real life.

Day 2 of Work Experience

Yesterday was Day 2 of my on week work experience and I think it’s been amazing. I’ve interviewed more people, added more articles to the website and even started to create a Year 6 student brochure to inform them about Year 7 life at Malet. I took lots of photos of the new BTEC Art Sculptures and put them in a gallery on the school’s website which you can view here:

– BTEC Art Sculptures

I also wrote an article called ‘How to be Outstanding’ which is already published on my blog and is accessible through this link:

–How to be Outstanding

This article will be on the website by the end of today.

Finally, I took some photos of the I.T rooms that we have at Malet so new students will be able to see what some of our classrooms are like, the link to these photos will also be added later today along with the link for the article on the Malet Lambert website.

How To Be Outstanding

How to be Outstanding

On the 8^th July a group of Y8 Humanities students got to experience a taste of China, quite literally, to enhance their learning abilities and also develop their outstanding learner skills.

The Y8’s spent some of their morning creating presentations about the benefits of China and whether they would like to live there or not. This encouraged teamwork skills as the pupils were paired with people that they usually wouldn’t work with or even talked to. The students also learned what it meant to be an independent learner as they were exposed to different cultures and beliefs which they may not be familiar with. This led to thought provoking questions such as ‘Would you like to live in China?’

When asked, these Y8 students had some comments to make about China from their morning experiences. “Today I’ve learned about the army fighting against their people and about the culture and geography of China. I’d go on holiday there but I wouldn’t live there because it gets so busy and crowded.”-Abbie

“I wouldn’t live there because people don’t have enough rights”. “The culture is too different but I think I’d go for a short trip. I didn’t know much about China before today’s lesson and it’s been so interesting.” –Kayleigh

Organised by teachers Miss Dent and Miss Robinson and assisted by Miss Beilsten, the 13 year olds made impressive presentations that showed clear information about China and went into great detail. This showed that they had been an ‘active listener’ throughout the lesson and were already applying their new found skills. The Y8’s learning didn’t stop there. For their lunch, they had the opportunity to try food from China and they were pleasantly surprised by the varied tasty snacks. They had to discuss with the people next to them all the different ideas they had learnt which stimulated verbal communication skills and also enabled them to reflect upon their work, both of which contributed to being an outstanding learner.

When speaking to Miss Beilsten, we found out more about what it meant to the pupils to have this lesson and show them how to be outstanding; “The students were exposed to a different culture today which they had no knowledge of prior to the lesson. Not only were they able to research different beliefs and ideas, they were also able to experience them first hand as well. Through this different way of learning they were able to obtain new skills that will be extremely beneficial to them in the future.”

The students all informed us that they would like to do another event like this as they loved the environment and really enjoyed this way of learning. This is the second time that an event like this has been run, and building on the success of these lessons the students hope that they will be continued in the future.

Day 1 of Work Experience

Today I started my Work Experience and was pleasantly surprised with what the job entailed. I took photos and wrote stories about what is happening at my school on a daily basis too. I have enjoyed my first day and can’t wait to see waht the rest of the week will bring!

Malet’s Work Experience

Eryn Allerston-Brockwell, Work Experience

Apart from myself, there are a few other students taking part in their work experience at Malet. These placements range from P.E, to I.T and to Art. All of the placements are ‘beneficial for the future’ as they give the opportunity to have an insight into what their desired profession entails. There is a lot for these students to do inside of the school, and they will learn skills such as being independent and using their creativity to have a productive work experience.

“I chose to do my work experience in P.E because I already do GCSE P.E and I will get a bit of experience of what it’s like to work with other people in the department.

“I hope to gain a lot of communication skills because I’ll be working with a variety of people, such as staff members and kids, which will benefit me in the future. I also hope to gain teamwork skills and how to teach people new things.

“In the future I would like to go to college and university and train to be a teacher and my work experience helps me because I’ll be able to gain a lot of experience from what it’s like to teach others and how to help students improve in the future as well.” –Tiegan Clark talks about her work experience in the P.E department.

I also asked Kate who is taking her work experience in the Art Department some questions and these were her responses;

“I chose Art because I want to either be an Art teacher or an Architect when I’m older and this placement will help me decide if it’s what I want to do and also, help my achieve my goals.

I think I’ll learn more independent skills but also teamwork because I’ll be working with other people doing their work experience in Art too.”

Personally, I hope to gain more people skills and have a more detailed insight into what goes on behind the scenes of the website and running of Malet on a daily basis.