Oakwood Park Grammar School
Joining the Schools’ Programme and exchanging ideas with the other teachers has provided the department with the impetus to follow through on projects which had been on the back burner for years and to seize opportunities for development that have come up since.
Using our Sixth Form History students and others from across the curriculum, our department took a group project on William Wilberforce (our local hero) to our feeder schools. It included a variety of approaches to the subject of Slavery, with each small group bringing a distinct piece of research to the final presentation. Following a cross-curricular approach, we had a group designing and performing their own spirituals (see photo left), another writing African creation myths (photo below right), a third researched the local history of Wilberforce and a more political approach was taken by the group working online researching the realities of slavery today.
Much of this material has been adapted and developed to be used in vertical Enrichment activities for our new House system which includes Wilberforce House.
Our department was much impressed by the other schools we met who made more use of cross channel links. As a result we jumped at the opportunity to represent Kent schools at La Coupole on Memorial Day (see photo below left). The programme has certainly provided us with the push we needed to organise more trips to London and our students have recently enjoyed a Tudor Walk around the City.
Talking with other teachers from the programme and my group leader has provided us with support in the implementation of our two year KS3 programme. This has been particularly true for the practicalities of running the project work. I came away from the last conference with a pad full of useful websites and resources! On that topic, the Princes Teaching Institute's website has also been an excellent mine of resources for both teachers and students.
This year we are following the programme’s lead by developing student voice. We intend to OFSTED-train some of our Sixth Formers so that they can observe teachers and give feedback. I look forward to finding out what others have been doing with their students at the next conference.
Oakwood Park Grammar is a High-Performing Specialist School, based in Maidstone, Kent, with specialisms in Mathematics & Computing, and Applied Learning. It is a boys' school, with co-education in the Sixth Form and a pupil age range of 11-18.