9learning January/February 2009
SECONDARYwww.cumberland-news.co.uk/learning
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Samuel King's School Specialist Technology College
Email: office@samuelkings.cumbria.sch.uk Website: samuelkings.cumbria.sch.uk
Samuel King's School Specialist Technology College
Church Road, Alston CA9 3QU Tel. 01434 381236 Fax: 01434 382082
A small welcoming school
State of the art technology
Transport available to students
to and from Alston
2003
2002
OFSTED November 2006
Samuel Kings is an effective school that
provides a good education for its pupils
within a caring and supportive environment.
Pupils enjoy coming to school.
They behave well in lessons and around
the building.
In class they are attentive and hard working.
Deciding on your future
after GCSEs?
Don't miss the next edition of
due out on Friday, 20th February
for Post-16 options.
year sevens bond and develop team-
building, creativity, work independently
and use their initiative.
The task was to design caf�s for
international athletes visiting the
London 2012 Olympics. The added twist
was the �25 budget. Split into groups,
each one adopted a different country.
Eleven-year-old school council
representatives Ciaran Bennison and Kia
Jamieson co-ordinated class 7MS and
designed a caf� for Japanese athletes.
Form tutor Mary Skelly said: "Ciaran
and Kia had to identify the strengths and
the possible risks of the exercise and
worked through the ideas with everyone.
Some people were then given the
responsibility for developing the right
music, others worked on creating the
right ambience and how to make it
welcoming for the athletes from Japan."
Tap dancers Sarah Allsop and Lucy
Hill choreographed a traditional routine
and designed kimono outfits to wear.
Other students practised origami to
decorate the caf�.
Sarah said: "It has been good learning
about another culture. Some people have
been learning the language, simple
words like hello so they could be used to
greet people."
Joint co-ordinator Kia was in charge of
the small �25 budget. "Some people have
been coming to me demanding that they
needed a certain amount of money for
materials," she said. "I've had to say no
and negotiate with them, asking them
what they really needed instead of what
they wanted. I had to explain that we
would not succeed in the task if we ran
out of money."
Ciaran helped to develop the music,
researching in the school library and on
the internet the traditions and meaning
of Japanese drumming techniques.
He said: "My dad recently came back
from Japan. He had to work out there
and he told me about different features of
the country so I was very pleased when I
pulled Japan out of the hat for this
project.
"My dad also taught me to say `good
afternoon' so I was able to pass that on to
my friends."
William Howard's deputy head Sue
Cheesman said: "Exercises like this
allow us to do a lot of things at once and
the pupils are picking things up without
really realising it. The theme days have
been helping pupils to cement their
Impact: Sue Cheesman, deputy head
at William Howard School. `Pupils
are learning without realising it'
It's a jungle in there: Year seven pupil Conner White, 11, from William Howard
School with a Bio dome that he made during a transition lesson
Japanese girls: From left, William Howard pupils Leah Noble, Emily Hodgson, Lucy Hill, Sarah Allsop, Nicola Jackson and
Laura Hodgson in the Japanese Olympic caf� they designed for the cross-curricular project PICTURES: STUART WALKER
CONTINUED ON PAGES 10&11
`We've learned some
simple words like `hello'
so we could greet people'

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