Easter Newsletter 2022

525 SPRING NEWSLETTER 2022 HISTORY Follow us @tsc_history KS3 HISTORY CLUB This term we have launched a KS3 History Club every week on a Tuesday. This h as been a great success with students looking at topics that they’ve been studying in lessons in more depth. The students have really enjoyed the creativity such as designing their own Magna Carta for Thornleigh Salesian College, creating life-size Black Death victims and taking part in a Dragons’ Den activity trying to sell their treatments for the Black Death to an audience. The students still have lots more to look forward to such as portraits, letters to run a nation and family trees with plenty of opportunity for fun and prizes! SCIENCE Follow us @tsc_science From the 11th to the 20th of March, Thornleigh students celebrated British Science week! Our ta lented Science Leaders planned and delivered an assembly on this year’s theme of “growth”. They enthusiastically researched current articles in the news that interested them before creating a superb presentation. One group found it fascinating to discover how scientists have regrown the missing legs of an adult frog within 1.5 years using a cocktail of medicine and questioned whether there was a possibility of humans growing limbs in the future. An other group researched the development of graphene and its rapidly expanding uses. It was wonderful to see our students so engaged with the scientific world. Alo ngside our assembly, KS3 students undertook the science week challenge. The students had a mission to complete 7 scientific tasks under the guide of a scientist. However, one of the scientists was an imposter and was trying to sabotage the mission without being found out… The students were able to use their scientific understanding to spot that Dr Stern was lying when he challenged them to form magnesium chloride by burning magnesium in oxygen. The other scientific tasks involved making loud squeaky pop noises, viewing unusual structures with the microscopes and creating a bright yellow precipitate from two colourless solutions. However, the favourite task was definitely the polo mint explosion… A pile of crushed polo mints became a huge flame within seconds! BRITISH SCIENCE WEEK Year 11 have really upped the ante on their revision this term, having prepared thoroughly for their PPE’s. The Science department have responded to some feedback from the students, and on Wednesday 15th March, all students took part in a revision ‘Masterclass’. The session was organised by Miss McGuiness, with the help of Miss Bach, Miss Brett Andrew and Mr Hughes. Each member of staff had researched a revision strategy that has been proven to help long-term memory. These were presented to the students, who used deliberate practice in order to help them gauge how to use the strategy. Hopefully we will see the fruits of their labour in August on results day. BRITISH SCIENCE WEEK