Making Fireworks

My experience of the Gifted and Talented was fun, challenging and educational.

Fun
We made such things as glow in the dark sticks, balls of ash and smoke bombs. The teacher also prepared more dangerous experiments, like making fireworks and clouds of ash. I was introduced to the other schools' Gifted and Talented students who seemed to be quite pleasant. They invited me to go to their school every Friday for tea and biscuits.

Challenging
The actual classroom was hard to find as their school was so big. It took a while to find where we were going but we finally got there with a badly drawn map. The experiment I took part in wasn't too hard, but it was tough to remember what we had to do.

Educational
The trip educated me in science. I now know how to make certain things in a safe environment

In conclusion I really enjoyed going to this free trip and I can't wait for the next one.

John Wilson 9FA

Peterborough Schools Duathlon

On the 15th June 2010 I took part in the Peterborough schools Duathlon, this involved running a 900m circuit, then biking a 1100m lap, and finally to finish a circuit of 800m running through Peterborough town centre.

On taking part in the event I wasn’t sure how well I would do because the other competitors looked really fast. My sister just told me to try my best and stick with everyone else, but I still felt really nervous. When the race claxon sounded, off we went. It all started really quick and I didn’t know what to think, but once I set a pace and realised that I was well in front of most of the others, I started to really enjoy it.

Overall I finished 2nd, but in the girls age group I came first, finishing in a time of 11 minutes and 25 seconds. After everyone had completed the Duathlon we went up onto the podium to be presented with our medals. Altogether I would say it was a great experience and I would recommend anyone who is interested in sport to participate in the Peterborough Schools Duathlon next year. The Saturday before, I took part in the Peterborough schools triathlon. This involved a swim, a bike, and then a run. Overall I finished 5th in my age group. This was also a great experience and I really enjoyed it despite finding it pretty tough.

Katie Green 8NY

Gifted and Talented Evening

On the 15th June 2010, all the gifted and talented students went to the assembly hall. We went to do a variety of brain teasers to make education fun. I must say, it was fun!

On our first activity we had 13 matchsticks and we had to do different challenges. I was working with Hussein and we were dreadful at it.  But for the second challenge, we had to change partners and join up with another pair.  So our group of 4 were me, Tom, Katrina and Amy.  There were 20 questions and we had to answer all of them.  One of them was

If you had to make 55p using only 2 coins and one of the coins cannot be a 50p coin, what coins do you use?
If you infer the question carefully, you can see that it only says that one of the coins can be a 50p so the other is a 50p.  Therefore, the answer is a 50p and a 5p.

Our last challenge was we had to make a tower out of paper, sellotape and scissors.  Whoever made the tallest tower wins.  I worked with Amy, Suellen and Jodie.  We came last.  Our tower was standing, but it was only about 30 cm!
At the end of the evening, the parents came in and we showed them what we did.  Altogether, it was a fun, educational evening and it was well worth going.

Daniel Goodhand 8NY

Gifted and Talented Meeting

On Tuesday 15th June the Gifted and Talented students of Year 8 were invited with their parents to attend a meeting. The meeting was about problem solving to help stretch our minds and to make us think more about questions, the meeting was also about websites which students and parents can visit for help and assistance with Gifted and Talented. At half past 4 students returned to school to attend a meeting led by Mrs McKillop and Gifted and Talented advisor Mr Ian Sympa. First of all we were told what was going to happen over the evening and they explained to us what would happen in our first task. When they had finished explaining we got into pairs to solve the problems which involved matchsticks. One of the problems was there were 4 squares of match sticks with three on the top and one on the bottom centre and you had to remove only one matchstick to leave three complete squares. The answer was to remove the top middle stick.

We sat down again for Mr Sympa to explain our next task which was a tough logic problem about three prisoners.  Once he had told us about our next challenge we got into pairs again and attempted to complete the task. Once we eventually found the winner it was time for our next activity. Our third activity was to answer 8 hard brain teasers in groups of four which included riddles, maths involved questions and short brain teasers.

Finally, for the last task we had to create the tallest free standing smarties tower out of just 6 sheets of A3 paper, sellotape and on the top of the tower there had to be a smarties packet.  This was completed in groups of four.  The tallest smarties tower was more than 6ft high!  After we had our 5 minute break, it had reached half past 6, the parents started to arrive.  Soon after we had some refreshments we joined our parents and took our seats in the assembly hall.  As soon as everyone had settled, four volunteers stood up in front of the parents and spoke about what we had been doing over the previous two hours and a member from the parent audience bravely volunteered to try out one of the matchstick problems. Subsequently we listened to Mrs McKillop and Mr Sympa talk about possible sites where students and parents alike can get help with Gifted, Able and Talented.  Mr Sympa showed us around the sites and told us where we could get some more information about Gifted and Talented. It had reached around seven o’clock and soon the meeting had come to an end.  It was time for everyone to go back home after an exhausting yet exciting evening.

Hussein Vanparekh 8NY