News Stories

Six Year 12 students made a trip to Snowdonia National Park to complete their practice expedition as part of their Gold Duke of Edinburgh's Award.

With mixed weather on the first day and some tricky navigational elements in the forest, the group arrived at camp just before dark to fight off the midges and quickly get their tents up, make dinner and get some much-needed sleep.

After heavy rain during the night, the group were greeted with blue skies on the morning of the second day's walk. With support from myself and DofE Leader Mrs Sly, the group worked on their skills for navigating in wild country, using a compass to take a bearing in order to get to a significant point on the map. By lunchtime, the group were confident to use the morning's teaching to navigate themselves across the hills and rest of their route that day. The group made excellent progress with precise timings across the distance, reaching the check-point within minutes of their estimation, giving themselves a more relaxed evening cooking and relaxing with some card games (and a little exam revision) at the campsite.

Another night of rain before the final day did not deter the group to get up early and prepare for the final day's walk. A windy but spectacularly picturesque walk across Conwy mountain to finish the expedition left the group with a feeling of pride and relief before a sleepy minibus journey home.

Over the course of the three day expedition, all students were a credit to the school, conducting themselves with real pride and maturity which was commented on by a number of members of the local community. Well done Year 12!

The group will now begin to plan their final Gold Award expedition which we hope will take place in October 2022. 

It is an immense pleasure to have been working with President Kennedy School pupils. The Year 9s have shown themselves to be thoughtful, creative and caring young people and we have thoroughly enjoyed each session. Time seems to evaporate in that studio! We have a lot left to do but we are excited about what we can achieve.

Our project has used drama, dance and digital arts to explore the often gloomy and overwhelming topic of climate change. The pupils have been working as co-researchers, alongside the Warwick academics Dr Rachel Turner-King and Dr Bobby Smith as well as artists Charlotte Hale-Smith (Flux), and Luke Newbold from Lens Change Ltd. 

For the first few weeks, we explored our connections to local and global places, they used their bodies to interpret complex scientific vocabulary and we invited them to discuss key issues connected to climate change and environmental pollution. 

They have been producing mini-verbatim scripts about why different particular ‘lands’ matters to them and are devising group movement and experimenting with creative writing techniques. Throughout this process, we are developing their sense of playfulness, risk-taking, peer-peer trust and self-confidence – key factors in adolescents’ social and emotional development.

 Alongside this, we visited President Kennedy School's unique and inspiring ‘Curriculum Garden’. We were lucky enough to meet the gardener, Rob and the Year 9s interviewed him after their tour. Their questions were thoughtful and led to a rich conversation. We hope to meet with Rob again and continue to use the garden as a creative resource for our work.

Throughout this process, the researchers and artists are working with digital artist and web designer Ashley James Brown who, alongside videographer Luke, is documenting and translating the Year 9’s creative work into an online educational resource that can inspire other teachers, young people and arts practitioners. We are excited to be doing one of our final workshops with the young people at Warwick University’s new Faculty of Arts Building on Thursday 23rd June. 

It is also our hope that the young people will join us to share the first phase of this at an international conference held at Warwick University in July. Not only this, but the project is connected to a wider international research study into ‘eco-citizenship’ with other young people based in Canada, Taiwan, Greece, Colombia and India. Some of the President Kennedy School students have been invited to join a virtual Global Drama Club which involves meeting young people in India to share their different experiences and ideas about climate change.

  Rachel Turner-King, Assistant Professor,Creativity, Performance and Education, Education Studies, University of Warwick