We want to support our children put their gaming experience and imagination into action, ending up with an original creation that they can take home, play and show to family and friends.

The fundamentals covered in the Game Design topic are a great first step into the world of coding. Students are introduced to object-oriented programming, and a behaviour-based logic system – applying behaviours and attributions, testing, debugging and fine-tuning products – that comprises a core component of computer science and is familiar to any programmer.

The students will be offered close guidance and are encouraged to move at the pace that best suits them while developing their games.

This is one of our pupils’ favourite Enhanced Curriculum topics and as such is being included again. The children will be learning to make Catapults, Bridges and Crash Test Cars.

 Taking part in these projects will teach our students to follow an engineer’s approach as they identify problems, brainstorm solutions, design, plan, build, test, refine and produce a product or solution.

Making catapults will provide the children with hours of fun as well as being a brilliant engineering and design project. There are many different catapults designs we will be learning and designing as part of this project.

 When making Catapults children will learn about how and when catapults were invented and how they harness physical and/or mechanical energy to launch projectiles. They will learn also about the history of catapults and looking at a variety of designs, each created with a different purpose. Furthermore, the children will learn about Energy, Gravity and Newton’s Laws of Motion.

Another theme the students will be learning as part of our Crazy Science is designing Bridges. In this engineering activity the students will design and make bridges out of folded pieces of paper, and test how much weight they can hold with pennies. How does the shape of a bridge affect its strength?

As part of these lessons the students will also be looking at how the material a bridge is made out of can change its strength, have discussions about how a bridge’s shape can make it stronger and of course perform tests to compare different bridge designs and determine which one can support more weight.

Another project planned for our Crazy Science is building Crash Test Cars! Designing crash test cars will enable the students to explore how the mass affects momentum in a head-on collision.

The students will be challenged to design or improve an existing passenger compartment design/feature so that it better withstands front-end collisions. protecting riders from injury and resulting in minimal vehicle structural damage.

Boxercise is an exercise concept based on the training methods used by boxers. The sessions will typically involve hitting focus pads not hitting an opponent. It is a fun, challenging and safe workout.

Boxercise is also great for those children not engaged with traditional sports as it is essentially a fitness class based on fun.

Benefits of Boxercise:

• Boxercise is fun
• Students are encouraged to work as a team
• Boxercise is one of the most easily accessible and recognisable forms of exercise that student can continue even after school
• Boxercise is a great stress buster
• Excellent for motivating disaffected children
• Flexible – competitive or non-competitive class styles students can choose
• Good for hand eye co-ordination