The theme for our Junior Humanities Week this year was “Sustainability”. The aim was to emphasise how every small change or action towards combatting Climate Change makes a difference to our planet and its future survival. During the week, the children in the Juniors learned more about Sustainability in general and how it is made up of the three pillars: Planet, People, and Profit. They also began to consider the importance of bees to our ecosystem, learning about how the majority of our food is reliant on bees to pollinate the plants. Alongside this, all of the children had the opportunity to get their creative hats on and design an entry for the ISA ‘Bee Inspired’ art competition. The entries were unbee-lievable!
Year 1 had an amazing time celebrating Humanities Week. They discussed how important it is to look after our World and that they need to become ‘sustainability superstars’. Further to this, they considered how they can reduce waste and made some special pledges to reduce, reuse and recycle!
In Year Two, the students really enjoyed learning more about the important role bees play in our world. Following this, they wrote a non-chronological report about their significance and discussed the possible devastating effects of bee extinction. After, everyone pledged to try and be more sustainable. At the end of the week, Year 2 went on a Forest Walk to spot bees in their natural habitat! Pupils collected natural materials like twigs, stones, and berries and used them to make some bee pictures!
The students in Year Three had lots of fun celebrating Humanities Week! The class enjoyed learning all about sustainability and why it is important to reuse, reduce and recycle. An activity the children particularly enjoyed was discussing how they can become more sustainable themselves; following the discussion, the children each wrote a pledge to promise to make changes in their lives to help our Planet. Some of the children have already started to become more sustainable by donating their pre-loved books to the school. Well done Year Three!
The students in Years Four, Five, and Six had the opportunity to meet Helen from The Kindness Bank, who shared a very engaging, informative, and thought-provoking talk about social and environmental sustainability. Helen introduced the students to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and discussed the importance of each and every one of us making small changes in our lives to support the World’s journey to becoming more sustainable.
Also, in Year Four, the students spent time researching the different forms of renewable energy and considering which they believe is the best. Following the talk with Helen, the Year Four’s found out more about the 17 Sustainable Development Goals which were introduced in 2015 by the UN. The students then chose a particular goal to research and were shocked by some of the facts and statistics that they discovered.
The Year Five students completed various activities throughout the week. They began the day by getting familiar with the key terminology and completing crossword puzzles and word searches. It was a lot of fun and some crossword questions challenged the pupils very much! Then, working on KeyNote, they started looking into what sustainability is and discovered ways to be a sustainable member of our community. These included ideas to use at home as well as at school. There was a lot of discussion and research taking place. The activity also improved their cooperation and communication skills. At the end, using PicCollage, they created some persuasive posters to promote sustainable living to others. We discussed the effects of visuals, slogans, and short but effective phrases to be included. The Year Five students are actively going to try and include most of their ideas into their day-to-day life at school in order to be more sustainable.
In Year Six, the students also made pledges to reduce, reuse and recycle in order to make the world a better place. During the week, they wrote a persuasive newspaper article, encouraging people to become more sustainable, before writing, they researched ways to do this, as well as finding out more about the impact mass-producing plastic has had on the World. In particular, they discovered more about the impact this had in the 1990s when lots of products were packaged in multiple layers of plastic. The student’s role played interviews with prominent people who promote ways to save our World, such as David Attenborough and Greta Thunberg, and included quotes in their articles. At the end of the week, the students designed persuasive posters to encourage people to become more sustainable.
Overall, the Juniors had a fantastic week and are very excited to share with others how you can all help too, to do our bit to save the Planet!