Life Skills Update
Year 7 have been looking at the Citizenship topic of ‘Democracy’. They explored the meaning of democracy and how students can get involved. They looked at the main political parties, their leaders and the four special features of a democracy. Students also looked at the law and voting. They gave their opinion on whether they think that the voting age is correct. They then investigated ways that they could participate in democracy in school, for example by joining the student council.
‘Shout outs’ to Vidhya P and Sasha H of 7H.
Year 8 are coming to the end of their finance lessons and have used the NatWest Money Sense resource to explore consumer rights. They used the interactive quizzes and video to test their knowledge and learn about the Consumer Rights Act and the responsibility of the consumer. They also had the opportunity to look at the student’s section with games and videos on money matters.
‘Shout outs’ to Abigail P, Victoria K and Gracie H for their great scores.
Year 9 have started to look at gender identity and stereotyping. They completed a key term match up game on the different gender identities. They looked at the meaning of LGBTQ and they investigated the meaning of stigmas and stereotyping and completed an activity on gay stereotypes. They also looked at ‘Lee’s Story’ that led them to possibly stereotyping and identifying Lee as gay, lesbian or homosexual, dresses like a boy and isn’t very girly, when in fact Lee is a girl who is heterosexual and dresses practical as she likes lots of sport. Students will continue to look at other areas of this important topic, such as homophobia, biphobia and transphobia over the coming weeks and have been given areas of advice and support such as the OK2BBE website, https://www.stonewall.org.uk/help-advice/coming-out/coming-out-young-person, and https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/coming-out.html.
‘Shout outs’ to Grace H and Naomi J of 9J.
Year 10 investigated drug classification, the law and consequences. The responses to the questions on forms was extremely positive with almost 100% of students knowing the different classes of drugs and over 90% of students knowing that you could be arrested if under 18 for drug offences. All students that responded could name a place of support or advice on drug related matters.
Year 11 looked at the pressures online and again, had a great set of responses on forms. Almost 100% of students knew to report to CEOP if they felt they were being put under pressure to have sex or being made to feel uncomfortable online.
As next week is ‘Safer Internet Week’, all students will be focusing on this as part of their Life Skills lessons, as well as in their computing lessons and other areas of school life.
KS3 students will focus on unreliable internet content and KS4 students will look at the role of influencers. In a world where internet usage has dramatically increased, it is more important than ever that students engage with this. The theme for this year is ‘together for a better internet.’
Mrs R Cahill
Life Skills Co-ordinator
