What was the shock of the new? Do you know how to play aleatoric music? Who wrote the Communist manifesto? How many died in the Hiroshima explosion? What happened in the Festival of Britain?
At Canford, we believe that the pursuit of academic success should be seen as a voyage of discovery: excitement going hand in hand with hard work. We feel that it is vital for our pupils' intellectual development that, alongside achieving distinction in their academic work, they should be able to place their learning in the wider context of our history and society.
Slam! was devised to help achieve exactly that. At the beginning of the Winter term, a four day programme of lectures and research work in teams gave our fourth form the opportunity to broaden their understanding of the developments in the first half of the twentieth century that contributed to making our society 'modern'.
What made Slam! so special was the chance it gave for Canfordians to form their own opinions, based on independent research and expert lectures, about personalities and events in the past that have shaped our present. At the end of Slam! each group produced a performance - some literary, some musical, some dramatic, some film-based - and a website displaying the outcomes of this unique experience.
Painting and discussion about the Russian-born French Expressionist painter Kandinsky
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The result? A lot of buzz about the place. Expansion of new academic horizons. Team work. One boy, when his mother said she hoped that next year's fourth form would be able to repeat the programme, replied, "I don't care about next year's fourth form - I want to do it again!"
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| Constructing the websites |
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Click here to view some of the website work
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