Friday Headlines
the weekly newsletter from EHS
Year 9 Higher Projects
27 November 2020
This week, we take the opportunity to showcase a few more of our Higher Projects. The Higher Project is a one-year course offered in Year 9, where we were given the chance to plan, manage, develop and review a project of our own devising.
This project could literally have been about anything on the planet, and we all chose very different things to explore.
This project was excellent preparation for the challenges that we are facing at GCSE level in Year 10.
We learnt and improved a whole range of skills including how to complete independent research, finding guests for interviews and developing our analytical writing, editing and proof reading skills.
We also learnt the pitfalls of asking bad questions on a questionnaire meansing you get no useful data. We also had the realisation that not everyone you contact will give you an interview or even reply to your query. And we also gained the knowledge that a deadline actually is a deadline and we had to get everything in on time.
We took ownership of our projects over the course of the year, gradually building up a portfolio work. Finalists were chosen to present projects to a panel of judges to decide the winner of the Higher Project Cup.
However, it was not just learning about our topic that was important. The Higher Project also encourages you to learn about yourself. We understood what our strengths and weaknesses were and we could improve upon these as the project progressed. We are really proud of our final portfolios and proud of ourselves for persevering with the project alongside our studies. It is stressful at times but definitely worth it and we are already looking ahead to the Extended Project that we can do in Sixth form. We are already thinking about ideas we could research.
We have thoroughly enjoyed taking part and hope that Miss Hayday and Miss O’Hare will enjoy working with the new Year 9.
We will now give you an insight into the finalists projects and the most fascinating things that they found out during their study.
RUTH
My question was to explore the complexities of the teenage brain and investigate the different fast changing therapies and treatments available. I chose this topic because I am a teenager and I wanted to research in detail the human brain and find out why we feel these certain emotions and how they affect us and how also therapy or talking to someone can help. I liked the idea of knowing what happens insides of our brains sometimes and why. I am really glad I did this research because not only did I learn about this topic but I also learnt how I can change things in my life for the better and also help my friends when they are going through different experiences.
ABIGAIL
My title statement was An Explanation of the Theories Behind the Titanic’s Sinkage and I chose this topic because my little brother and I are obsessed with ships that sank. I looked at ideas presented in the 19th century and decided that the Titanic was the most interesting. I already knew some facts, like the idea that the Titanic was called the unsinkable beast and yet I knew there were not enough lifeboats on the ship to save everyone. However, I wanted to investigate some of the other conspiracy theories. I interviewed Tom Lynskey from the Titanic Honour and Glory organisation and one of the most fascinating things to discover was that some people believe that an Egyptian Mummy actually cursed the ship a year a long time before.
Year 9 Higher Project
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