Year 8 recommended to watch Dispatches MONDAY 27th June - THE REAL PRICE OF GOLD

On Monday at 8pm on Channel 4 Dispatches is showing their programme on fair trade or to be more precise the not so fair trade gold that we buy in the western world. If you are able to it is definitely worth watching as although it looks at Gold it covers many of the issues and problems that we will look at in the current Year 8 unit of work called 'A Thorny Issue' albeit we are looking at the trade of flowers, in particular, roses.

A review of the programmme is below:

Dispatches reveals that British consumers are being given incorrect information by some of the biggest high street jewellery shops when buying gold. The programme believes that gold is still being sourced unethically,

RIVER BROWNEY TUESDAY 28th JUNE

Don't forget to bring EV4 forms on Monday, and Wellies and Packed lunches for the trip on Tuesday!

School Fair

Thankfully the rain stayed away and it was a really nice and successful day! I would like to thank those students who helped me out on my stall selling tombola tickets for the Lucky Jars, cupcakes, and bric-abrac! The cakes went pretty quickly and there were not many jars left! I am looking forward to seeing how much money we raised for charity. Miss Phillips and Miss Gibson both declined my invitation for them to go in the stocks, however it was good of Mr Brinton to go in for a while!! Lots of people joined in the Karaoke including Mrs College - maybe she should be in our next school production as she was excellent! The Yo sushi which had been arranged by Mrs Steven also looked like it was good fun and my daughter said that the bungee trampolines were fun! A BIG thank you to Helen D, Lorna, Rachel, Stephanie, Helen E, Daniel and Calum who helped me on the day and prior to that by helping in the organising and planning.

Thank you

Thank you to Lorna, Helen and Steph for coming into school on Tuesday to help plant flowers for the courtyard outside room 217. Some smaller helpers came in on Thursday to water them!


- Posted by Sarah Brooker

Tourism ppt

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Court yard cleared!

Thank you to all students who helped to clear the courtyard yesterday. It looks better already! Hopefully some of the plant in the greenhouse will be ready to plant when we get back after the holidays. Sam and Ashlee I am looking forward to your ideas for the next phase!

- Posted by Sarah Brooker

10 L&T Revision

10 L&T Revision

Look at your notes and the relevant pages form textbook (unit 1) Practice ansering exam style questions Look at ppt for summarised list of info that you need to know.

Durham World Heritage Site invites you to attend the following FREE activities

I am pleased to say that Seif ElRashidi (Durham's World Heritage Site Co-ordinator) has been in touch to let me know about the recent events that are coming up at Durham's World Heritage Site (the cathedral and castle). These include interactive performances in the cathedral to concerts of tudor music in addition to the family event - 'World Heritage Weekend'. I will be going on the Saturday for 11am so will hopefully see some of you there.

Please click on the link below to find all details.

Durhams World Heritage Site

Blackpool shaken!

A small earthquake struck Blackpool at 3.30am in the morning. It measured 2.2 on the Richter scale and caused cracks to appear in a bridge that was already classed as 'weak'. Some residents reported wardrobe doors being flung open and police at the nearby station felt the building shake.

World Water Day - Well done and thank you.

Firstly, thank you to Mr Sexton who allowed students to throw wet sponges at him at lunchtime on Thursday 24th March. In the 40mins over lunchtime that we held the event many of you took up the challenge with several being fairly successful at soaking him!

Congratulations to the winners of the two evian bottles filled with sweets. Winners were Victoria Bower (yr 10) and Josh Hugill (yr 11) who were both only 1 away from the exact answer for each bottle (410 and 386). Money raised from the bottles and in the 40mins spent throwing sponges at Mr Sexton was raised £68.09. This has been divided between the two charities we are raising money for this year: Wateraid and Cancer charities.

World Water Day

On 22nd March it is World Water Day and the Humanities department want to do their bit by having some fun and raising

money for Water Aid. All this week you can guess how many sweets are in the evian water bottles to win them for only 20p per guess. Also on the 24th March we give you all the chance to get your own back and soak Sexton. In the yard you can throw sponges at your beloved teacher for only 50p per 3 sponges at 12:45pm. We would like to raise this money as one child dies every 17 seconds from drinking dirty water. The money we raise will got towards helping places where water is scarce and are in need of simple water pumps and taps. Come and help us raise money.

York Trip 17th March 2011

Yr 11 Geographers and Yr 10 Historians went to York for the day. The History students were going to look at Viking life in detail to support their unit of work: Raiders and Invaders, whereas Year 11 were visiting York and looking at it from a tourism prospective. It was a great day - the dungeons were really scarey - I screamed a few times!! I would like to make a point of thanking all students who were on the trip for their fantastic behaviour and mature attitudes - you certainly helped me to have a great day - I hope you all did too.

Japanese Nuclear Disaster

Following the tragic events of the Japanese earthquake last week the situation has deteriorated as the damaged Fukushima Nuclear Plant is a very dangerous place. Because of the radiation caused by the plant the city has been evacuated however a small number of people are still there unable to leave and with the possibility of an imminent explosion they are crying for help. The Japanese have sent aid into the city and are doing all they can to stabilise the plant. Keep watching the blog for further updates.

Saturday March 19th - Sponsored Keep Fit!

Today at Sherburn Sports Centre, Year 9 and 10 students took part in a sponsored keep fit to raise money for their forthcoming trip to Barcelona. Everyone completed the minimum distance of 10km. Congratulations to Daniel Lamb, Danny Turnbull and Marcus Owston who completed over 35km! Well Done everyone!

Earthquake/ Tsunami in Japan

An earthquake of a magnitude of 8.9 on the Richter scale has hit Northern Japan triggering a tsunami. The quake happened under the sea at around 7:00am this morning and the number of people killed is yet to be confirmed. We will keep you posted.

Year 10 Coasts

I have just had a look on the internet and thought that I would share this useful website address with you. Currently in Year 10 we are studying coasts and my class have just looked at processes of erosion and the the formation of erosional landforms (Period 4) and also started to identify and find examples of coastal management which we will look at in more depth next week (Period 5). http://www.s-cool.co.uk/category/subjects/a-level/geography/coastal-processes I know it says A-level but don't let that put you off - it has lots of simple diagrams that are well explained - definitely worth a look.

Earthquake in New Zealand

On 22nd February 2011 an earthqauke with a magnitude of 6.3 on the Richter Scale hit Christchurch in New Zealand killing 65 people. 120 people have been rescued from the rubble and the relief efforts are estimated to cost £1.6 billion. The tremor caused mass devastation and hit at a relatively shallow depth of 3.1km below the suface of the earth. New Zealand's Prime Minister described the event as the countries darkest days. Helicopters pulled survivors to safety and extinguished the fires.

York Trip - 17th March 2011

Year 1o Historians and Year 11 Geographers are off to York on 17th March. We will be leaving at 7.45 in the morning and returning by approximately 5.00pm. Whilst there we will be visiting Jorvik in the morning and the York Dungeons in the afternoon.

If you want to find out any more information about these two visitor attractions click on the links below:

Jorvik

York Dungeons

Year 9 Geography Workshops

Some Year 9 classes have taken part this week in a workshop session presented by Rachel Jones. Rachel is currently studying Geography at Durham University and is a member of the Royal Geographical Society. Rachel has kindly agreed to deliver the workshop to all Year 9 Classes, as well as attend the Options Evening on Thursday 10th February in case either students or parents would like to discuss any current issues about geography, particularly studying it at further education level.

Year 9 Options Evening

Options Evening is an important event for Year 9's. It is held this year on February 10th at 7pm. I think that it is important that all of Year 9 students understand what their choices consist of in terms of the contents and assessment methods of Humanities subjects. Students should consider the methods of assessment in a course as well as its contents because this can often have a greater effect on the success of a candidate than the actual content. For example if you prefer longer-run coursework style tasks then perhap history would suit you best. If you prefer exams, with a small amount of coursework then Geography may be the best subject to pick. However, if you have no preference in the methods of assessment then try to think of which subjects you are already good at (at this will make your success at KS4 easier) and which ones you enjoy the most (this can make a huge diffrerence as you have to study these courses for two years). I have asked if current GCSE students will speak to Year 9 in assembly. The powerpoint below shows some of the information that they are going to talk about. I thought it was more important that they tell you about the subjects as afterall they are the ones studying it! If you have any more questions - please don't hestitate to ask anyone in the Humanities Department. I will put details of L&T and RE on the blog in the next couple of days.

Y9 humanities assembly updated for slide share

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Yr 11 Leisure and Tourism - UNIT 3 REVISION

Your exam is on Monday - you have plenty of time to read the power point below and complete the worksheets and past paper given to you earlier. NOTE: it is a large file so the ppt may take a while to download. To view it larger, it may be best to click on the 'view on slide share' box at the bottom of slide.

I HAVE READ THROUGH THE PPT I GAVE YOU A COPY OF - THERE WERE SOME RATHER SPECTACULAR AND SOME AMUSING SPELLING, GRAMMAR AND GENERALLY SOME REALLY ODD TEXT IN IT - I have quickly altered it, but there may still be some odd things left in it. I was trying out this new speech recognition software - it obviously does not like my accent as one of the most amusing mistakes was 'tour' being written as 'chewer'!!

Unit 3 – the l&t environment revision ppt

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Beamish 2010

Beamish 2010 Click on the blue link 'Beamish 2010' on the left to view some of the photos from our trip to Beamish! Like it says at the end it is now up to you. However, my message below is the main focus until the 12th January (year 10) and 17th January (Year 11) - REVISE, REVISE, REVISE!!

ALL GCSE LEISURE AND TOURISM STUDENTS

Yr 10 GCSE EXAM Tues 11th Jan Yr 11 GCSE EXAM Mon 17th Jan

Ripon Earthquake

Another Earthquake has hit the uk. On 3rd January 2011 at 9pm. Scientists believe the earthquakes epicentre was in Ripon, North Yorkshire and it was measured at around 3.6 on the richter scale which is still classed as a minor Earthquake which is quite common. People who live near the epicentre reported doors shaking and shelves shaking just for a matter of seconds, people in West Yorkshire,Cumbria and Leeds felt things like this. Although there were some minor tremors there is no major damage and thankfully no one was hurt. The earthquake was said to be about 6km deep and lasted around 4 seconds. The British Geological Survey are still investigating the Earthquake at this time. This earthquake is the second to have hit the north of England within a month.