The Archbishop Lanfranc School

Written by M Nassor

On the 15th of July, 24 boys from years 7, 8, 9 and 10 whose prior achievement showed potential for A/A* took part in the Super Learning Day, funded by London Challenge. The event, which was introduced by Mark Foster, the world record breaking swimmer and star of "Strictly Come Dancing", was designed to raise their aspirations and motivation levels and to help them to identify more effective learning strategies and attitudes. Mark Foster particularly emphasised the importance of aiming high, taking risks and perseverance. Throughout the day the boys were required to work like Gifted and Talented students and successfully within a tight time frame.  They were put into a situation outside their comfort zone, working in mixed year groups and assigned a task at random.

They were all in competition during the day to complete a difficult task based on the work of Leonardo Da Vinci. One group had to prepare a 7 minute performance covering the life of Da Vinci. Another had to work out the proportion Da Vinci discovered when doing life drawings. They also worked in a team as did Leonardo and used the materials and techniques that he too used. A third group worked on what has been called the Golden Ratio. It is based on the Vitruvian Man and supposedly provides the ultimate aesthetic proportions. The group had to decide who was the best looking member but before that they had to do some impressive mathematical working of their own!

Two groups attempted to use Leonardo's designs to build a bridge from one side of a space and the other were tasked with building his tank. The "tank" group had a model to work from; they had to take it apart and recreate it with an improved design and improved materials. The "Bridge" group had to work through several designs and work as engineers do when it collapsed in the trials. They managed to produce an incomplete model at the end. In a strange way, this group actually went through more learning processes than other more successful groups. The final group followed the anatomy processes Leonardo used with minimal guidance. They dissected rats and prepared a presentation showing the organs and how they were laid out in the animal. It was a task for those with a strong stomach.

All the students worked amazingly well. They preformed like ‘Gifted and Talented’ students; they planned, they prepared their own deadlines, they kept to those deadlines, they listened to each other, sharing ideas and refining them, produced the end product and finally they prepared and delivered a presentation that explained their work. All this in two and a half hours.

Well done to our "super learners":

Year 10: Ray Brown, Joshua Thompson, Daniel Stewart, Cain Bradley, Kishan Davda and Mahy Nambiar.

Year 9: James Smithson, Shivang Joshi, Naimur Rahman, Arun Ajikumar, Kishen Patel and Robert Tanner.

Year 8: Kelvin Thompson, Neil Patel, Johan Emilamalathas, Nasar Arshad, Haider Hasnain and Luke Bradford.

Year 7: Luke Aisthorpe, Macaulay Andrews, Tyrone Dean-Morris, Ajei Suthan, Jay Patel and Walid Hirsi.

Our thanks to the staff who prepared and staffed the day; Mr Knight, Ms Nixon, Ms Assinder, Ms Anderson,  Ms Williams , Mr Newton, Mr Appleby, Ms Jamieson and Ms Sigee 

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