Page 4 - PLP April 2023 Secondary

04 Highlights April 2023 Secondary Highlights
Listování
Early in December, we had the pleasure of welcoming two wonderful actors Věra Hollá and Lukáš Hejlík to Park Lane. They are both avid readers and love to share their pas- sion with people through their program called Listování (Page turning in English). Their repertoire included around 100 books for children, youths, and adults, and the format of reading-dramatisation was incredibly entertaining, captivating and worlds apart from your typical ‘book presentation lecture’. The two books they presented to our students, Jak být klukem and Jak být holkou (Being a Boy and Being a Girl by James Dawson and Hayley Long) were full of real life questions about growing up, changes, relationships, sex, how to be yourself and proud of it, and other important matters, The students visi- bly enjoyed the program, they were lively, responsive, laughing, curious and inquisitive. In later discussions the children expressed their appreciation about the honesty, open- ness and the fun with which the books were presented.
The Y6 students had a presentation on the book Šmodrcha (Jumble Cat by Archie Kimp- ton) and again, the hall was full of captivated children, interactive fun, laughter and suspense. Just with 2 actors, 1 book and 1 toy cat. As one student put it: ‘I expected it to be a boring lecture about a book and why it is important to read, blah, blah, blah... but
I loved it! I didn’t know presenting a book could be so funny!’
The Czech Department
The Senior Physics Challenge
The results for the Y12 students who took part in the on-line Physics Challenge are in! Despite this being only the beginning of their IB Physics course, the results that were achieved were amazing. They have yet again shown that they are a very tal- ented and knowledgeable group of young Physicists. So, congratulations to them all for such an outstanding performance. In all the students attained the following certificates:
▨ Commendation x1
▨ Bronze x1
▨ Silver x3, (with 2 participants missing
gold by one mark only!) ▨ Gold x3
Resourcefulness
at Park Lane
During January students learned about the amazing and inspiring resourceful- ness that went into saving the lives of the three Apollo 13 astronauts; Commander Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swiggert. They, along with the command team in Houston overcame multiple difficulties
to bring the three men home safely. Year 7 followed this up with a workshop on Resourcefulness. In pairs the students were given a limited amount of resources and asked to make something in 25 min- utes that could move. The students came up with an array of designs including
a parachute, various projectile launchers, a train, roller coasters and much more.
It was great to see how engaged the students were on the various projects. After the “build” the students took their finished projects to the hall to demon- strate and discuss how they got on. Some of the students were sad that their design was not successful, but we discussed that just as much can be learned from a failed experiment as from a successful one and what was learned from the experience. This was excellent practice for those stu- dents taking part in the Science Fair and I look forward to seeing many more of the Y7 projects.
Sue Gifford, Head of Y7