This week, the students participated in a computing enrichment session with Mr Griffiths, learning how to use coding to create a Snakes and Ladders game. New(ish) members of EXAC Johnny and Vincent reflect on the session for this week’s brief reflection: Vincent: ‘We learn a bit about coding and coding on a programme called ‘Thonny.’… Continue reading Computing enrichment session

Before half-term, the Excellence Academy students laid the foundations for an exciting election campaign: researching key political issues and forming into political parties. Each group is given the task of choosing three political policies from a selection of five, forming these into their manifesto and presenting these ideas in the last debating event of the… Continue reading ‘EXAC Election’ Underway!

Last Wednesday, the year 8 Excellence Academy took part in a first for the EXAC scheme: an enrichment session in the subject of Music. Although not a core subject, there has been lots of calls this year for sessions in more arts and tech-based subjects. Even for some of our students who may excel at creative writing… Continue reading EXAC: Music subject enrichment

Last Thursday, ten EXAC students took part in the first ever ‘Worthing Mayor’s Youth Debate,’ which saw them taking on three other local schools in the council chambers of the town hall. This event provided debating debuts for Tia and Abbie in Year 9 and Louise, Billy, Heidi and Abdul in year 8. Experienced debaters Willow, Libin, Drew… Continue reading Worthing Mayor’s Youth Debate

Next week, two debating teams from Year 8 and Year 9 Excellence Academy will take part in the Up For Debate regional championships in London. These six students will face a demanding day, partaking in two prepared parliamentary-style debates and one ‘impromptu debate.’ This third event will be the focus of this blog post. So… Continue reading Impromptu Debates: reflections and tips for success

This week, Year 8 Excellence Academy took on the previously-successful ‘Introduction to Italian’ session with Mr Gilbert. What seemed important for this session was that the students were given the chance to reflect upon what they already know about Italian- and this will include familiar words, sayings, brands, names. As Mr Gilbert showed these familiar… Continue reading Italian- Languages Enrichment

  Last week, the Excellence Academy students learnt about Gustav Freytag’s five-act dramatic structure and used this to plan their own stories. After learning about the key structural elements of Freytag’s pyramid (Exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement), I then took the students through Shakespeare’s Macbeth and demonstrated how it fits the… Continue reading English enrichment: Freytag’s Dramatic Structure

On 8th February, three Excellence Academy students represented the school at the Rotary Youth Speaks regional semi-final. The students, Mridul, Shaheer and Jess made their presentations on the topic of Should junk food be taxed? This event took place at Downlands Community School and the students competing against strong teams from Midhurst Rother College, Lewes… Continue reading Rotary Youth Speaks regional semi-final

With the Up For Debate competition in April looming in the post-Easter near distance, it is now time to start focussing our attention on preparing for the two debate motions we will be taking on. One of these motions is a tricky one: ‘This House Believes That Cultural Treasures Should Be Returned To Their Country Of Origin.’… Continue reading Elgin’s Marbles: This House Believes That Cultural Treasures Should Be Returned To Their Country Of Origin

In this week’s Geography Enrichment session with Miss Townsend, the year 8 students set out to determine the link between climate change and the possibility of chocolate going extinct within the next forty years. Firstly, the students were presented with two images and headings- outlining that 2017 broke another climate record and that within forty… Continue reading Year 8 EXAC – Geography: Climate Change and Chocolate