Project Cards

Throughout the term, Tiferet class, along with the rest of Key Stage 3, studied the history of Ancient Greece and explored the ways Ancient Greek ideas and culture have influenced the modern world. Tiferet focused in particular on Greek stories and myths, including Theseus and the Minotaur and the story of Medusa. Students examined the key features of Greek heroes and villains and used this understanding to design and create their own characters for a Clash of the Titans–style game. As part of the project, students planned and responded to a design brief to create game elements such as figurines and gameplay components. They designed these independently and had the opportunity to model and produce their designs using a 3D printer. Throughout the project, students developed their creativity, decision-making, and understanding of gameplay, while also expanding their descriptive vocabulary and considering structure and sequencing when explaining rules and instructions.

Teacher’s Reflections

Overall, the project was very successful and engaging for the students. One of the main highlights was seeing students bring their ideas to life through designing their own characters and then producing them using the 3D printer. The link between Greek myths and the Clash of the Titans game helped students stay motivated and showed a strong understanding of the features of Greek heroes and villains. Students particularly enjoyed the creative freedom involved in character design and gameplay decisions. If I were to run the project again, I would introduce more structured checkpoints earlier in the design process to allow additional time for revisions before printing. I would also consider running small group workshops focused on 3D modelling skills. Overall, I would keep the core structure of the project the same, as the combination of history, creativity, and technology worked very well and resulted in high levels of engagement and learning.

– Aimee Harris

Students’ Reflections

“It went amazing and I loved it and I had a really good time and I just canʼt stop thinking about the project.” – Leon

“I enjoyed doing Minecraft and building my labyrinth on there.” – Efe

“the project taught me about teamwork when helping people with their Labyrinths. ” – Ari

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This summer term, Gefen and Rimon worked on an exciting project about minibeasts, a topic that has a real-world impact! We looked at different minibeasts, studied their life cycles and other interesting facts about them. This topic had a strong science focus, including venturing into our field area at school and the park to investigate the minibeast habitats and classifications. We will looked at how important it is to look after minibeasts which links to our big question ‘How can we protect and support minibeasts in our local environment?’ During the second part of our project, we presented our scientific knowledge about minibeasts by creating presentations and then acting as scientists to either present live or on video for our exhibition at the end of the term. This supported our speaking and listening skills.

Teacher’s Reflections

“I think this project went really well. The pupils in my class have created some truly incredible work. For instance, their insect posters are amazing, and I am so proud of their draft and critique process to create truly outstanding pieces of work. The most challenging part of the project was trying to collect data about the different types of insects we saw. Roxbourne Park is hard to find insects in, and I think that collecting data might have been a secondary focus instead of a primary one, and therefore, I wouldn’t do it again.”

– Kathlenn McEnallay

Students’ Reflections

“I like seeing the butterflies” – Eli F

“I learnt about life cycles of minibeasts” – Eli C

“ I enjoyed the seed planting” – K

This summer, students explored how art can reflect and reshape communities by studying the concept of negative and positive communities across English and the arts. Through novel studies, they analysed the features of disconnected or struggling communities and wrote powerful descriptions to capture their atmosphere. They also looked at how different forms of artistic expression—such as murals, poetry, and protest art—can bring people together and inspire change. Their final pieces combined writing and visual art to showcase how creativity can be a force for unity, empathy, and hope.

Teacher’s Reflections

“This project has been a real highlight of the term, offering our students a meaningful way to explore complex social themes through both creative writing and visual art. One of the most rewarding aspects was seeing how confidently they engaged with the concept of community, especially their ability to reflect on what makes a place feel united or divided. Their descriptive writing showed real growth in vocabulary and empathy, and their final art pieces were powerful and personal. The feedback from the summer fete, where we displayed and sold some of the studentsʼ work, was overwhelmingly positive. Many visitors commented on how thought-provoking and beautiful the pieces were. In hindsight, we would have loved to expand the sale beyond just the fete, perhaps through an online platform or gallery-style exhibition, to give students an even wider audience. Overall, the project successfully blended literacy, creativity, and real-world themes in a way that truly resonated with our students and the community around them.”

– Aymane Hamidi

Students’ Reflections

“Learning new things like the difference between a thriving community and a depleting community” – Aaron

“My highlight was making my artwork with lots of skulls. My skull artwork was really fun to make” – Gavriel

“The project taught me about art communities, and being a part of a community that you work in” – Bobbie

For our final project this year, we explored the messages behind a variety of art forms such as poetry, music, paintings and photography. Students enjoyed studying a range of art and were able to analyse poems really well as well as how fonts and effects convey emotion. Students then applied this learning to create their own poems and photographs that will be displayed in a gallery-style exhibition. Students were tasked with creatively thinking about how sound and light can add meaning and they have worked hard in thinking about blending more than one sound for their desired effect!

Teacher’s Reflections

“Exploring a wide range of art forms was definitely interesting and it was great to see that the students were so open to analysing the meaning of different art forms. Students enjoyed writing poems about their personal interests and did really well at ensuring there was still an important message behind their work. The launch was certainly a highlight as we transformed various rooms into different creative art spaces. Next time, I would consider having the exhibition in a bigger space that allowed us to create a gallery style and spend more time making the lighting meaningful.”

– Bethany Rentall

Students’ Reflections

“My highlight of the project was writing my poem” – Rosa

“I learnt how to write a poem” – Jonah

“My highlight was the launch because it was fun and we explored different types of art” -Yitzi

This term for PBL, students explored the rainforest, their geographical locations and the different layers within them, such as the emergent layer, canopy, understory, and forest floor. They discovered a range of animals that live in each layer and how these animals have adapted to their environments. They also looked at how humans adapt to life in the rainforest, particularly through the lifestyles and traditions of indigenous tribes, comparing our lifestyle with theirs. Students were scaffolded through the process of making classification keys based on their learning of animals and their adaptations in the rainforest. Alongside this, for our literacy focus students planned and wrote their own fables themed around the rainforest. To do this, they looked at the key features such as using an animal as the main character, creating a simple and engaging plot, and including a clear moral at the end.

Teacher’s Reflections

“This term’s project has been a fun one and really allowed the students to work on their creativity. They were able to think about how to make a fable that is meaningful to their own lives. I really enjoyed the practical element of taking the students to London zoo and having them see the animals first hand, making the content about adaptions and habitats more meaningful. My favourite part was the exhibition. I loved seeing the kids read to the younger children and the staff’s children. It made it so much more meaningful and enjoyable for the kids whilst writing”

– Emily Bacon

Students’ Reflections

“Making fables was my favourite part, I enjoyed creating and naming my own characters.” – AR

“I preferred the end of the project, where I got to make my fable after learning about the rainforest and its climate” – LK

“My highlight was creating characters for my fable and thinking about what they did in the rainforest” -YJ

In the Spring term, Zayit and Seorah class worked on an extended project across the two half terms. This focused on the topic ʻTransport and Spaceʼ and was linked with learning related to our big question ʻHow could we journey to space?ʼ In this project, the children designed their own alien friend who came to Gesher to visit us, and in return, invited Zayit & Seorah to visit them in space. We explored the theme of a journey to space and examined the different transport we would need to use to go and visit our alien friends. The different weeks were sectioned into the various parts of the journey. Within this project, the children looked at mapping different sections of the journey, identified different types of transport, wrote descriptive captions, created freeze-frame images of their journey, used a range of materials to create a rocket, and wrote a non-fiction report about space.

Teacher’s Reflections

“I think overall the project went well! I think it worked really well using the iPads for
creating journey maps and planning our space non-fiction writing. The rocket launch and
junk modelling rockets was certainly a highlight. At the end of the project we used the screen screen and I think next time it would have been good to do more learning around what the green screen is, how it works and getting the children to do some filming

– Lucy Robinson

Students’ Reflections

“ My favourite part of the project was making the junk modelling rockets.” Harrison

“It was very good and we had fun making space art” – Seth

“I learned about about different transport.” – Leora

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This term, the students in Chitah and Tamar classes will explore the states of matter and
their impact on the world around them. They will consider how natural disasters affect
their environment and the communities that experience them. The students will be
researching and collecting information about a wide range of natural disasters and
reporting in their own newspaper reports about their findings. They will be interviewing
real life journalists to find out how to be a good fact finder and how to write a cohesive
newspaper report. Alongside this they will be exploring ways to present their findings to
their peers and parents with a range of different science experiments that they will present
in a science workshop! Finally the students will be finding ways to raise money to support a charity that helps people who have been impacted by a natural disaster to help them in
their time of need.

Teacher’s Reflections

This terms projects was so much fun and the kids really engaged with having a Science
link to the project. They were able to complete a wide range of projects and deliver their findings to their parents and other students in the school by creating their own science
workshop. It was great to see them pick up on so much new vocabulary and be able to
apply their correctly in their learning. I also really enjoyed seeing them work so hard to
design something to sell and to raise money for a charity of their choice. We did have to
change our original idea as we wanted to create our own newspaper at the start but this
became challenging to fit in around all of our science experiments and teaching them so
many different natural disasters. Overall, I really enjoyed this project and so did the kids!

– Emily Bacon

Students’ Reflections

“My favourite part was The Natural History Museum and ice experiment.” – Efe

“My favourite part of the project was painting the volcanos.” – Olivia

“I would like to go on more trips linked to the project” – Leon

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