The Maths department ran a Sparx Maths XP Boost competition last half term that finished on the 15th December. All students were are able to gain bonus XP on Sparx maths during this time by completing the mini games and XP Boost tasks each week.
Every Maths class competed against each other along with pupils competing for the XP Crown.
The top 3 Maths classes were:
The top 3 students in each year were:
Well done to all those that took part and congratulations to the winners!
As we come to the half way point in the school year, it is once again time for our Year 9 and Year 10 students to participate in the United Kingdom Mathematics Trust Intermediate Mathematical Challenge 2024.
This will be taking place on Wednesday 31st of January for students in sets 9H1 and 9H2 during their normal mathematics lesson during period 2 and for students in sets 10A and 10B during their usual mathematics lessons during period 4.
As ever, the department is looking forward to the considerable success usually achieved by PGHS students. Over 4000 schools regularly participate and the students will be competing against over 100,00 students from across the UK hoping to achieve the “Gold”, “Silver” and “Bronze” awards. Hopes are certainly high following on from the students result from last year.
I have attached an example question from a previous Intermediate Mathematical Challenge for anyone to try. There will be a small prize for the first person to come back to me with the correct solution.
As part of their study of William I’s conquest of England in 1066, Year 7 students have been learning about Anglo-Saxon resistance led by legendary rebel, Hereward the Wake. In lessons, students discovered the causes of Hereward’s rebellion against William in 1070 and the exciting story of how he was eventually betrayed by monks from a local monastery, surrounded by Norman knights and killed in dramatic fashion in the Fens. Students were given the homework task to create models, poems and artwork representing Hereward’s epic resistance against William the Conqueror. Here is a selection of some of the best submissions, including a Hereward the Wake cake!
Mr Herbert
Associate Assistant Headteacher and Curriculum Leader for History
Holocaust education features significantly in the history curriculum at PGHS. Students in Year 9 are currently studying in-depth about how and why the holocaust happened. As part of their unit on Germany 1919-1991, Year 11 students study the topic as part of their GCSE studies. This year, students in Years 9 and 10 watched a live webcast with a holocaust survivor which was organised by the Holocaust Educational Trust. Hedi Argent, born in Vienna in 1929, gave a fascinating and eloquent testimony of her experiences of the holocaust and how her family had been brutally persecuted both before and during the Nazi regime came to power in the 1930s. Hedi shared her experiences of persecution and discrimination from a very early age and how she witnessed the Jewish pogrom on Kristallnacht, in 1938. If you would like to read more about Hedi and her experience of the Nazi persecution of Jews, please click here: Hedi Argent | The National Holocaust Centre and Museum, or to watch her testimony, please click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2idsMcgIao
In March, 42 Year 10 students will attend a history trip to Krakow, Poland to learn more about the Nazi persecution of the Jewish people. The trip will include a full day tour of Auschwitz-Birkenau, a visit to the Jewish quarter of Krakow and the Schindler Factory museum. You will be able to read more about their experiences on their return.
Mr Herbert
Associate Assistant Headteacher and Curriculum Leader for History
Once again, a number of our students have shown huge ambition by going above and beyond in their quest to become the next Susie Dent in the world of words. Our top 10 wordsmiths are:
Student Class Points
Naomi S 9En2 948
Lily T 9En1 916
Lily S 10/Me1 812
Amie K 10En6 649
Eda M 7En2 607
Maayana C 8En2 599
Claudia B 10En6 598
Sophia A 7En6 593
Ellie B 7En1 566
Lucy B 7En1 533
All of these students will be awarded with a Head’s Breakfast.
This term, we are launching a new club in English called ‘Press Gang’. All students across the PGHS community are welcome to join the team. The ambition is that we will recruit enough students to form a team of journalists who will investigate, interview and report on events happening around school. This might include interviewing the actors taking on lead roles in our up and coming school show, The Little Mermaid, watching a rehearsal to report on progress and then being backstage or front of house on opening night to write a review. Additionally, we are look for sports journalists who will be responsible for reporting on the PGHS sporting successes. Our school calendar is packed with events that are worthy of press coverage.
Students who have an interest in joining the team should see Mrs Snowdon.
Before the Christmas break, a number of Year 8 students took part in some virtual fieldwork. This came in two parts; firstly they tested their theory that river bedload changes downstream by surveying some samples collected from the river Wyre and made available them in school. They then backed this up by using Google Earth to measure the width of the River Wyre along it’s course.
Both data sets were presented in some very fancy graphs! Well done, Year 8!
It’s a new year and a new term in the Geography Department with all lower school years moving onto new areas of study.
Year 7 are exploring world population, which now stands at over 8 billion and is still rising. They will explore the challenges this poses and even at 8 million, why some places remain virtually empty of people. There will also be a look at the hot topic of migration.
Year 8 are shortly moving onto a unit on mountain landscapes – where they are, how mountains form and the physical processes that change them. We will finish by looking at how people tackle climbing the tallest peaks in the world.
Year 9 are looking at marine environments, which involves work on why the coast is crowded, world trade by sea routes and destruction of marine ecosystems such as coral reefs.
Stories from Pakistan
A Year 8 class recently had a “Meet a Geographer” event when we were joined in school by Prof. Candice Satchwell and Dr. Jacqueline Dodding (both from UCLAN) as part of the “Stories from Pakistan” project that looks into differing perceptions and impacts of climate change in different parts of the world. The students took great interest in learning about the lives of students at the Mian Gul Model School in Peshawar, and went to great efforts to produce their sections of an eventual video that was shared with the girls at Mian Gul. We introduced them to our school and some students even used their bi-lingual skills to talk in Urdu. Very impressive!
This was a useful insight into the lives of others and an excellent piece of independent work when it came to the videos. Both Prof. Satchwell and Dr. Dodding were very complimentary about the students, and have indicated they plan to come back to do some further work in 2024.
