Events
News
Book Buzz
On Wednesday 2nd May, the school librarians held the Book Buzz event. A while back, we each got to choose a book from a list of twelve. After receiving these books we had to read them by the time of Book Buzz, for the themed activities. However, the day it was meant to be held, we were all at home looking out at the endless acres of snow. Then after a lot of planning and rescheduling, the event was postponed to the 2nd May.
We went to separate rooms with other students who chose the same book as us, and took part in activities. You could recreate the book cover, write a section from the point of view of a side character, or plan a film version of the book you chose. At the end of the afternoon, prizes were awarded to students with the best interpretation of Miriam’s novel.
This year a special guest came in to give us an inspirational talk about her book. It was Miriam Moss, author of Girl on a Plane. This was by far the most popular book, chosen by 88 students to read. She told us about how she turned her terrible experience of being on a hijacked plane into a novel. She showed us interesting footage of the plane and read us a sample of her book.
Her book is available to borrow from the academy library for those of you who have not read it.
Thanks should go to Mrs Coggan and Mrs Allan for organising this event and also to Mrs Hopkinson for funding it.
Primary Games 2018
The Priory Academy LSST played host to the Primary School Games on Tuesday 12th and Wednesday 13th June.
This annual event encourages the Lincoln and surrounding primary schools to enter a team to take part in an Olympic style athletic schedule. Pupils compete in track events as well as long jump and throwing events.
Over five hundred people attended over the two days and it is fantastic to enrich the primary pupils' experience by sharing our unique facilities with them.
This year the House Enrichment Team provided refreshments and sweetie games to raise money for their charities. We are delighted to announce £204 was raised for Air Ambulance and Water Aid.
CCF Navigation Exercise
On Monday 4th & Tuesday 5th June forty Year 8 and 9 cadets completed their two day navigation exercise. The aim of the event was to give the cadets an opportunity to learn and test their navigation skills in the real open environment. They were based around Sherwood Forest over the two days, walking on average 15km a day whilst learning to navigate. They camped overnight at Walesby scout campsite and learnt what to and what not to cook in a trangia for your tea after a long day of walking. The weather was kind if not sunny, and they finished the two days at Clumber Park being treated to an ice cream.
Mastermind Champion 2018
We are pleased to announce Mr Rees as our Mastermind champion for 2018! It was a closely fought contest with all contestants scoring highly in their specialist subject area and with Mrs Hopkinson kindly asking the questions. Mr Stones and Mr Sleight scored 10 points with their specialist subjects of Japan and Lincoln City. We have been informed that Mr Stones was so dedicated with his revision that he was revising minutes before! Mr Taylor and Mr Rees then scored 11 points with their subjects of Liverpool and the Vietnam war. The tie break of how many metres Steep Hill is was asked and Mr Rees was the closest. The picture above shows him with his prizes!
Thank you for your support. It was an enjoyable event and one we hope to repeat next year.
If any of you would like to reply with what you think the tie break answer is please feel free and we will award a prize to the closest.
Kind regards,
Your Enrichment Team
Leeds Thackeray Medical Museum Visit
On Friday 11th May a group of Year 9 GCSE historians went to Leeds for the day and visited the Thackray Medical Museum. In Year 9 we are currently studying 19th century surgery as part of the history of medicine and this is what the museum is all about. Two coaches left the Academy at 08:00 and embarked on a two hour journey to Leeds. On arrival two groups started with a talk called “Pain, Puss and Blood”, a reference to the three problems most associated with surgery: bleeding, infection & pain. We got to smell some very pungent smells from an operating theatre in the 1800s such as: ‘BBQ’ from the cauterising of skin, ‘cigar smoke’ from when the surgeons smoked during surgery in order to get rid of the “bad air”, and ‘rotting flesh’ from infected skin. This was soon replaced with the scent of carbolic soap which we wouldn’t want to wash our hands with today. The other groups at this time went around an interactive exhibition regarding the human body before taking a tour of the development of medicine during the Industrial Revolution and beyond – completing a booklet to help with our revision in the future. In this part there were lots of things to do such as testing your strength to see if you could be a surgeon at that time as well as artefacts from the development of medicine. Later we carried on upstairs to watch a video on very young Hannah Dyson having her leg amputated! After this, the group all went round together on a walk around the old streets of England and they got to be character who would be living in that time and say what they could afford in terms of medical treatment and how they would live. We gathered and learned lots of information on Robert Koch, Louis Pasteur, and many more. By Pip Burrows-Hodge
Cologne Adventure for Y9s and Y10s
From the 4th to the 9th of May 50 Year 9 and 10 students went on a trip to Cologne, Germany. After a long and tiring coach journey, we arrived in Cologne on the Saturday and set about exploring the city centre. Everyone was in awe of the beautifully intricate spires of the cathedral and we all enjoyed the sunny weather. We were then given a two hour long tour of the city and, despite being rather exhausted, we were still all fascinated by what our tour guides had to say.
The next day we set out to discover some more of the Rhineland. We visited the very scenic Marksburg Castle and were given a tour in German. We all did our best to understand what our guide was saying and I think, on the whole, we were quite successful. That afternoon we visited a lovely little town called Boppard. Here we followed a town trail and, due to the heat, we were all extremely grateful when Mrs Rees offered to buy us all ice creams! A little later on, we went on an evening walk around Hiroshima Nagasaki park in the green belt of Cologne where we all enjoyed relaxing in the early evening warmth.
Monday morning saw us all heading out to the Sommerrodelbahn Tobogganing Centre in Altenahr. For many this was one of the highlights of the trip and was a lot of fun! This was followed by a visit to Bonn where our navigation skills were tested as we followed German directions around the main landmarks of the town. We were then shown a stunning new view of Cologne when we went on an evening river cruise of the Rhine.
On our final day in Cologne, we first visited the Ludwig Museum of Modern Art. This required us to view art in a slightly more imaginative way and some pieces made us think about things in a new way. We were then given some free time to wander around Cologne and to get lunch before visiting the Lindt Chocolate Museum. The guided tour here was much enjoyed by all as many free samples were available! We were then given one final opportunity to walk round the shops of Cologne. Our trip ended with an evening meal at the Hard Rock Cafe before we got back on the coach and headed home.
On behalf of everyone on the trip I would like to say a huge thank you to all the staff involved for providing us with such an incredible opportunity and an excellent trip. Danke schön!
Harriet
Mastermind Victory
This lunchtime saw a closely fought contest between our two Mastermind Teams. The team above were victorious in the first general knowledge round and will go on to compete individually with their specialist subjects next Wednesday for the Mastermind trophy. There were some controversial answers, not least Mr Taylor’s suggestion that Quicksilver was predominantly a brand for surfers rather than mercury! There was also a tense moment between Mr Strawson and Mr Sleight regarding Lincoln City. Thank you also to Mr Crocker and Mrs Porter for helping with the tie break and buzzer rounds and a big thank you to Mrs Hopkinson for being our quizmaster!
Winners-get revising your specialist subjects, (or in Mrs Hanson’s case, just watch TV!)
Spectroscopy in a suitcase
On the 8th and 9th of May, Dr Natalie Ben Alaya of The University of Lincoln visited us at the Academy and brought along two infrared spectroscopy instruments.
Our Year 12 Chemistry students were given the opportunity to use this equipment to test samples and then interpret the results to identify some unknowns. The students really enjoyed the sessions and, as Spectroscopy is a common examination topic, they should have really benefited from the hands-on experience.
Many thanks to Dr Ben Alaya for making the journey across. We hope to make it a regular fixture of our Year 12 teaching in the future.
Science Ambassadors learning to teach!
On Thursday 3rd May, a group of four sixth formers travelled to The Priory Witham Academy to take part in a Science Ambassador Day, led by the Institute Of Physics, aimed at introducing Year 8s into the world of teaching science.
As STEM mentors, our job was to facilitate a group of 8-10 younger students to complete various physics experiments which would lead to a presentation to the rest of the group at the end of the day. We could have never imagined the amount of experience that we would gain from one day, but fortunately we were proven wrong.
Not only did we help to encourage the Year 8s to complete a series of tasks, Jess and Emily also had the opportunity to do a presentation to the group about different presentation skills, including knowing your audience and how to give a presentation with confidence.
This whole experience was done to train Year 8s to teach the same content to primary school children (Year 5) in the upcoming weeks, so they can act at STEM mentors to the younger years.
Not only did this help to gain experience in Physics, it also helped with our confidence in talking to a group of students, as well as supporting other extra-curricular activities within the Academy, like the Introduction to Teaching scheme.
Sixth Form students
Millie Meyrav-Lawless
Deputy Head Boy Joe Haigh
Jessica Hulton
Emily Jago
Sixth Form Finance Workshop
On Tuesday 30th April, two members of the Lincoln branch of Santander came to the Academy to give a presentation to our Year 12s and 13s.
The workshop was aimed at those who'd like to learn more about finance, and those thinking about pursuing a career in the industry. Victoria and Abby discussed inflation through the ages, bonds, shares, and a range of other interesting topics.
Many thanks to our Sixth Formers for taking part and thanks to Santander for giving up their time to visit us.
Hopefully this will be a regular event, with different topics discussed each time.