Taking Strike Action

15th April 2025Gordon Wilkinson

To hook us into our learning, we are going on STRIKE! Today, we have learnt all about the coal mine strikes and the reasonings as to why these took place. We were shocked to find out that 142,000 people actually went on strike when Margaret Thatcher tried to close 20 mines in 1984. Did you know that people who didn’t go on strike were called scabs?! Inspired by what we have learnt, we are planning our own strike! We have decided that school uniform should be a thing of the past! This afternoon, we have designed and created placards which we are going to use when we go on strike later in the week. Keep your eyes peeled – we may just march past your house!

Art, Portraits and Deep Thinking.

24th February 2025Gordon Wilkinson

We began our second case study (Art) by evaluating and analysing works of art by various artists including some works by Jonathan Yeo. We discussed as a class What we liked about certain portraits and why. During a gallery walk, we then delved deeper into the choices the artist made e.g. the medium the artist used to create the portrait and why as well as questioning the colour choices and the impact these have on the overall composition. To finish, we began to think about why these people were chosen to have their portraits made and, if we were to make our own, who would we choose?

Expedition: MLK Speech and research

23rd January 2025Gordon Wilkinson

Today, we worked with our shoulder partners to skim and scan for information (as well as retrieving knowledge we already knew) about Martin Luther King Junior, why he was important and what change he instigated. We discussed and witnessed how captivating he was as a spokesman for equal rights. His language is full of metaphors which we broke down and put them into our own words.