Devonport High School for Boys
History Department
As result of our membership of the Prince’s Teaching Institute, we have arranged for a number of school trips to enrich our curriculum. In the summer holidays, we took 30 boys on a visit to China. We saw the major sights in Beijing, Xian and Shanghai, and this allowed us to deepen our knowledge of the history of China, as well as appreciating the way that China is growing socially, politically and economically.
At the end of November, we are also taking A2 students to Ireland on a trip specially devised by a member of staff to help students with their research module on Britain and Ireland to 1922. The development of this trip was one of our targets for the PTI programme.
We are hoping to arrange CPD for Historians in all Plymouth schools for the autumn term 2010 that focuses on subject knowledge.
English Department
The pupils report on their school's Chinese Storytelling Scheme as follows:
"On the 7th and 13th of March, some Year 2 children from North Prospect Primary School came to our school for an enriching and exciting experience. They would be learning about Chinese culture in a fun and enjoyable environment. A class of Year 8 students were chosen to teach the children, and had to perform a Chinese story, before helping them understand the moral of the story and showing them some Chinese language.
The story which they performed was “The Golden Axe” in which a young boy is forced to chop wood every day by his evil master, and one day loses his axe, by dropping it in a river. He cries and out of nowhere an old man appeared, and offers to get the axe. First he draws from the river a Golden Axe, but the young boy honestly says it is not his. Next a silver axe was drawn from the river, and yet again the young boy says it is not his. The final time, the old man draws from the river the boy’s axe, and the boy truthfully says it is his. He returns to his master and tells him of this and the master decides to go up to the mountain the next day and “lose” his axe. He sat on the bank and cried and the old man appeared, offering to find his axe. The master tells him that the gold axe is his, and the old man throws the silver axe on the ground. As the master walks away, he picks up the other axe and sings a song, before falling into the river and drowning.
We then helped the children understand the moral of the story as they drew their favourite parts, which they labelled in Chinese thanks to the help of Tianyi Song. The children had a great time, as did the Year 8 students. We received a card from them thanking us, as well as some photos of the two events."
Devonport High School for Boys is a foundation grammar for boys aged 11-18, located in Plymouth, Devon. It has around 1,100 pupils and is a designated specialist school for Engineering and Languages.