THIS WEEK'S THEME - MURDER MYSTERY!This week, pupils turned up to Step Up to discover a crime has taken place at Oasis Academy... Read on to see how they solved the murder in their sessions! Numeracy - Today in numeracy, students worked incredibly hard to challenge themselves with some complicated code-breaking. We used decimal places and place value in order to work through a table of suspect names, and narrow down the killer. Literacy - Continuing our murder mystery theme, we first had a discussion about crime stories. We then investigated our suspect list - all of the Heroes! Students explored the fact files hidden around the classroom, noting down any important clues they found, in order to start to put together some ideas about who murdered Rosie in our epic, terrifying story. Creativity - For Creativity, we worked as a team to discover the murder weapon! After cracking a complicated code about our mission, we then investigated the list of items to discover which one was used in the crime that's taken place. See below for some evidence of our detectives in action:
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THIS WEEK'S THEME - PIRATES!Our second week of term was pirate themed, and we also were lucky enough to be joined by Gareth Clayton, who works at SHINE, the education charity that funds Step Up and makes this programme possible. Numeracy - this week, we kicked off our numeracy session with some difficult co-ordinates questions, as well as some adding and subtracting challenges. We then put our coordinates skills to the test, by trying to locate items on a map - most importantly, some pirate treasure! Literacy - in literacy, we extended last week's activity of using powerful describing words and adjectives. We described the islands we'd been stranded on using interesting vocabulary, and also looked at some items abandoned by an old explorer who was captured by pirates, in order to continue their adventure! Creativity - today's task was a race! We split up into teams, to answer some maths-based pirate questions. Whichever team got the question right gained a head-start of one of a series of races we joined in with. Students tried everything from running and hopping to hula-hooping and dribbling with hockey sticks. See our pirate crew taking part in the day below: THIS WEEK'S THEME - SUPERHEROES!Today we welcomed this year's new Step-Up group - all of the Heroes and Staff have had a fantastic first day working with them, and we're all excited for the rest of the year! To the new parents and carers reading this blog - welcome to Step Up, and we hope your child has a fantastic time here. This blog will be updated every weekend that Step Up runs. In the same way Step Up ran last year, students will engage in three sessions throughout the day - Numeracy, Literacy and Creativity - plus a break time with sports activities. Here's what they got up to in their first week: Numeracy - Following our week's 'superhero' theme, students had to defeat evil villains in this session, by using multiplication to work out how many superheroes were needed. Afterwards, we split into small groups to design a numeracy based game - some of us created prototypes based on classic board games, and some of us made up some inventive new ideas! Literacy - after playing a 'guess who' game as a whole group, we put our descriptive writing skills to the test! Miss Caine read us a detailed passage about a story character, and using all of the descriptions mentioned, we drew what they looked like in our heads. We then swapped it around - picking favourite fictional characters, and describing them in our own words. Creativity - this was where we created our own superheroes! After reading about some well known comics and movie characters with Miss Smith-Henry, students set off designing their dream superhero - based on somebody, or completely made up. After writing a profile about our superheroes, including their story, strengths and weaknesses, we then designed their costumes using Marvel's online superhero generator. View the slideshow below to see our students enjoying their first sessions! It's hard to believe we're about to begin our third year of Step-Up! This programme has gone from strength to strength, and everyone on the team is excited to see what this third year will bring.
We cannot wait to welcome new year seven students into our Saturday sessions and see them grow and develop - there are so many great things in store! To our new parents and students - welcome to Step Up. We hope you're as eager as we are to get started. Below is this year's calendar. This highlights every Step Up session, as well as our special events, the Winter Showcase and Graduation. Please note that Hero training is for Heroes only, not year seven pupils. See you on the 24th! It's hard to believe the second year of Step Up is finally over! And what a brilliant 27 Saturdays it's been. Today was the graduation ceremony, followed by the fete we've been preparing for this term. After much excitement in the morning, pupils headed to try on their purple graduation gowns, before joining their parents in the main hall for the ceremony. Miss Lee opened with a speech about how pleased she was to see such great progress being made in year seven. Several speeches followed that, including some from Mr Canvin, various pupils, and a special guest from Shine, the charity that funds this programme. Everybody collected their certificates, then watched a highlights reel of the whole year - before heading out for a group photo! After some individual and family photos were taken in our photo booth, everybody met up on the tennis courts, for our Step Up fete! All of the people who created probability-based games for the fete were excellent at running them. We also had lots of other fun stalls, from a bake sale, to splash-the-hero, henna tattoos and face-painting. It'll be exciting to see how much money we've raised for charity. This year has been such a great success, and all of the teachers and heroes here at Step Up are incredibly proud of all of your hard work throughout the last few months. You have all come incredibly far, and we cannot wait to see you go on to achieve many more fantastic things later in your journey at Oasis. (And, of course, we cannot wait to hopefully welcome some of you back to Step Up in a few years, as Heroes yourselves!) Lastly - today has been a sad last day at Step Up for some staff as well as the pupils. We're saying goodbye to Mr Canvin, our fantastic project leader, who has been here since the start and has helped shape Step Up into what it is today. We're also saying goodbye to two of our longest-serving Heroes, Desree and Shammila, who were co-ordinators this year. Step Up wouldn't be what it is without their incredible hard work behind the scenes every week! Thank you to everybody who has contributed to such a successful year. WATCH THE FINAL GRADUATION VIDEO HERE: https://vimeo.com/166485574
VIEW ALL GRADUATION PHOTOS: http://bit.ly/1TdmbiC This week was our last normal week of the 2015-16 Step Up year! We spent our time preparing for our graduation ceremony and fete next week. In literacy, we took part in some engaging activities in a circles, involving memory games. In numeracy, we finalised our ideas for games stalls at the fete, and made finishing touches to the things we've made. Our activities range from lucky dips, to mystery games, to a money tree - it'll be great to see them in action at the fete next week, helping to raise money for charity! In creativity, we made the last of our decorations to bring next week's events to life. Half of us finished the posters advertising the activities, stalls and games at the fete, whilst others made some paper chains that will decorate the hall during our graudation. In literacy this week ,we began practising our acting skills after having created our theatre masks. We split into smaller groups, and read from a script about the story of King Midas, each pupil taking on a role and learning how to embody a character through stage actions and the way we project our voices. In numeracy, we began brainstorming ideas for some of the stalls for our upcoming Step Up Fete! Our numeracy activities at the fete will be based around probability - so, given that theme, groups formed their own incredibly creative ideas for fun games to raise money for charity. Everyone's ideas were fantastic, and the plans look amazing! In creativity, we continued our crafts projects to prepare for the fete. This week, we created huge banners to advertise all of the activities that will be open on the day, after some mini-games to understand what made a great, eye-catching poster. REMINDER: Next week is our penultimate week of Step Up, and our graduation ceremony and fete is in two weeks!
Make sure you attend Step Up next week, to make sure your attendance is fantastic and so we can finish our plans for the graduation. On Sunday, a handful of lucky pupils had the chance to see Crystal Palace play at Wembley! Read below for an account of the day by three of them: The Wembley Trip On Sunday 24th April 2016 we went to Wembley stadium to watch one the biggest matches of the year for Crystal Palace. We were chosen by our 6th form Heroes because we were outstanding because of our work on Saturdays and had good attendance. We met at East Croydon at 13:50 and took the train soon after to London Bridge. At London Bridge is was packed! Then we took the tube which was really squashed but worth it though! When we reached the station we walked to the actual Wembley stadium and people kept shouting “Eagles” and singing and shouting and clapping. We finally got to the entrance we got searched and had to walk past the well-dressed footmen. We arrived at our special box which was really relaxing and cosy. When we opened the doors to the stadium there was so much shouting and crowds. Having our own space felt it was really posh. We felt welcomed and special, like VIPs! We felt really special because out of all the people we were chosen and we had the best view ever. The match was really exciting and tense. When they scored everyone was shouting and happy, you could see that everyone was really competitive. The crowd has very loud, it was a happy scene. We got these great badges which are now pinned on our school uniforms. It was all very luxurious. We would like to say a big thank you to SHINE for letting us have this great opportunity to watch the semi-final. We really enjoyed it, particularly the snacks! We are going to continue to work hard and help others to be picked for these kind of opportunities in the future. By Adenya, Crystal and Khyri In literacy, we created our own theatre masks, incorporating what we learned about ancient theatre last week. Everybody made some really awesome, colourful creations. Next week will be all about performing with them! In numeracy, we tested our budgeting skills with a farm activity. After reading through a list of instructions, groups created their own farms by working out costs and profits. We also played lots of fun minigames, such as Battleships. In creativity, everybody created their own poster to advertise the Step Up Fete, which will be happening after our graduation ceremony in a few week's time. There will be lots of fun activities and food - so we've all made great posters to advertise this to the rest of the school. You'll be able to see them all up around the Oasis building next week! Today marked the start of our last term of Step Up this year! In creativity, we set to work with the first of our preparations for the Step Up Graduation at the end of term. Miss Oliver brought in lots of craft materials, and we created some brilliant looking invitations for our families and carers, as well as for some special guests. |
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