News Archive

Year 7 had the fantastic opportunity of going on a residential at Bramhope Scout Camp.  Staying overnight for 2 days, the students participated in many activities including rock climbing, orienteering, mountain biking and a night time walk in the dark through the forest at Otley Chevin! Over the duration of the trip all students helped with preparing meals and the general upkeep of the facilities.  On hand to ensure everything ran smoothly were many members of staff and also a cohort of BTEC PE students who led many of the activities to gain credits in sports leadership as part of their course.  When it came to feeding time all in attendance were treated to spaghetti bolognaise, chicken casserole and enough hot chocolate and cookies to feed an army!  Luckily the weather stayed (mostly) dry, enthusiasm was high throughout the activities and a great time was had by all!

Those Year 7’s who were not on the residential worked with Year 8 on a programme called Flash! (photoshop in a flash).  By the end of the week the students had learned how to create a photomontage and manipulate photos using Adobe Photoshop CS5.  To show off their newly acquired skills, the students then showed some Year 6 students from our neighbouring primary schools how to make their own designs.  Some outstanding and innovative work was produced and all involved came away with helpful skills to aid them in many subjects across the curriculum.  Work from the sessions can be viewed online in the ‘Gallery’ sections of the workshop blog at:  www.lwaice.wordpress.com

Year 9 spent the week completing their GCSE Citizenship Controlled Assessment task, an extremely important piece of work as it was worth 60% of their final grade!  Their aim was to increase awareness of racial harmony within the academy and beyond through a variety of activities.  Magazines, posters and displays were made, as well as racial equality-themed songs that were composed and performed to younger students and staff.  All students put forth a great effort to complete the tasks and created some amazing work.  Well done Year 9!

Other Year 9 students tackled the ‘enterprise’ theme head-on:  Using a £10 ‘bank loan’, they created a business, made products and developed services to sell to over 300 of our neighbouring primary school students.

Each individual ‘company’ had to assign job roles to suit individual skills and then brand, promote and market their ideas using fliers, business cards and posters.  Students also had the opportunity to attend a range of business seminars e.g. ‘how to lead a team’, ‘the importance of innovation’ and ‘marketing to primary students’, to help them with their tasks.

On the day our visitors (from Raynville, Bramley, Valley View, Whitecote and Summerfield) were presented with a hot dog stand, an ice cream parlour, a dance mat challenge, nail art and face painting stalls and much more!  Over £400 was taken in the two days, with 9ALN being the most profitable, bringing in over £75!

The purpose of ICE week from a High School perspective was to allow the students an insight into preparation for their workplace in the future.  This also meant considering the variety of jobs and career opportunities they may find themselves in once they leave LWA. The main task focussed on designing and marketing a product - the target audience being the general public at a leading shopping venue in Leeds. The week however was very varied with four workshops/auditions based around the LWA dual specialisms (English and Performing Arts):  This gave students insight into what was needed to go into the Industries of Performing Arts or creative writing and magazine publication, and lots of skills workshops led by members of staff into particular areas such as ‘online job search’, ‘marketing’, ‘budgeting’, and ‘interview protocol.’ On the Thursday the Academy hosted a careers fayre where stands from all of the local Universities plus lots of local employers and industries were represented, including:

• The RAF
• The Construction Industry
• Voluntary services
• Script writing
• Oral health

Highlights of the week included:

• Seeing Year 12 and 13 students sorting out group roles and getting their hands dirty making bird boxes, candles, hair bands, wooden jewellery, calendars, chocolate chilli peppers, and just having the time to be really creative with their ideas.
• Year 11 students talking to University representatives about possible course choices for the future.
• Listening to Interplay Theatre Company talking through what they looked for in a good letter of application to join their company and listening to their feedback afterwards about the high standard of acting skills within Year 12 and 13 Performing Arts students.
• Talking to dance students about how hard they had had to work in their dance auditions.
• Listening to Mr Braidley’s talk on marketing strategies and tips on how to market the product each group was creating the prototype for.
• Planning the good and bad examples of a job interview using staff as guinea pigs for students to analyse interview performance.
• Observing the adult way in which students approached people at the Careers Fayre to talk to them about their job and the path they took through school, college or University to get there.
• Year 12 students going to the White Rose shopping centre and pitching their products and costings to the general public.
• Listening to Adam Lowe, who works as a freelance journalist, give advice to A- level English students about creating articles for magazines.
• The posters for the chocolate chilli peppers, and the sheer creativity of the glammed up bird boxes.

The final highlight of the week was the presentations given by students on Friday afternoon. Local ‘business dragons’ were invited in to judge the year 11 presentations and were bowled over by the confidence in presentation style and the creative abilities of lots of our students. The fantastic, professional presentations exemplified the huge range of workplace skills learnt during the week. There was not one sub standard presentation and it was incredibly difficult to pick a winning group. Eventually the panel decided on the hair band group because of:

• The range of products created
• The tireless way in which all group members rallied together over break and lunchtimes to continue working on their final presentation
• The stall they set up in the White Rose Centre with such close attention to detail
• The way in which all group members modelled their own products
• The fact they gave away one hair band to a particular little girl who asked if she could buy it!  

The group won a trip to Lazer Quest!

The week was incredible and a massive thank you should go to the staff who put in hours of preparation and planning!