A few weeks ago, Year 5 were faced with the perilous task of facing fearsome dragons and trying to convince them to fund us to go on a perilous journey to the Arctic or Antarctic. We were randomly split into 12 groups and tasked with creating a PowerPoint presentation to show our route, equipment, intended objective and itinerary for when we got there.
We needed to work as a team and use our learning habits of collaborating and noticing to execute our expedition. Over the week, we had lessons which taught us how to plan a budget using a spreadsheet, discover about insulating material, how to use persuasive language effectively and even a VR session where we viewed the Antarctic landscape in 3D!
On the final Friday, Mrs Fraser, Miss Rockall and Mrs Pink whittled the first round down to just four and then the final was on! Our fearsome dragons included Mrs Orlovac, Mr Staines, Mrs Patel, Mrs McCabe-Arnold and Mrs George. They posed tricky questions and scrutinised our motivation. We were under pressure but remained calm!
The final winners, ‘The Aurora Sky Expedition’, received a copy of ‘We are Explorers’ by Kari Herbert, which tells the stories of fourteen women whose adventurous spirit and curiosity saw them discover the world.
Here are some of the girls’ comments:
Catherine: I enjoyed the computing element as we saw the amazing Arctic landscapes. We also spotted cute penguins – it was fascinating.
Sophia C: What I enjoyed about Polar Week was getting an answer from Emily Cunningham – a real polar explorer! I also enjoyed coming off timetable for a whole week.
Clara: I really enjoyed Polar Week! I think my team’s pitch went really well and although we didn’t win, it was a fun week. My favourite part was sorting out clothing and accommodation. I was chief officer.
Xenia: I enjoyed drawing the temperature graph in Maths. I was challenged by the polar pitch with my group because we worked well together and went through to the final round.
