Bury St Edmunds County High School
01284 754857 office@countyhigh.uk

Year 8 Super Curricular

Examples of and links to Super Curricular activities for our Year 8 students include:

English

Watch:

  1. Challenge your opinions of TV adaptation and watch the BBC’s version of ‘Noughts and Crosses’. Watch the series on iPlayer and judge how well you think they adapted the book. List the similarities and differences.
  2. Explore watch Kit Monkman’s 2013 adaption of Shakespeare’s Macbeth (12A) and write a review. Watch the trailer here and you can find the whole film on You Tube, Google Play, Amazon Prime and Apple TV.
  3. Watch an interview of the poet Sujata Bahatt through the Poetry Archive, then have a go at writing your own poem! Explore how Bahatt’s writing process, why they chose to write their poems in the English language and how different cultures inspire them.

Listen:

  1. Listen to the podcast ‘Obsessed with Noughts and Crosses’ on BBC Sounds about the novel’s transition from page to screen – https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p086g7wc.
  2. Explore the world of poetry by listening to the podcast ‘Planet Poetry’. Hear a different poem each episode and explore the meaning and impact of the poems with the poets themselves. Have a go at writing a script for your own poetry podcast based on one of the poems we study. Click this link to find out more.
  3. Create a playlist of songs that you think reflect the emotions of the poems or characters from the texts we have studied this year – Noughts and Crosses, The Crucible, Jane Eyre, Macbeth or Animal Farm.

Read:

  1. Read the whole series of ‘Noughts and Crosses’! Next is ‘Knife Edge’ – there are six books in total. Can you rank the books in order of excellence?
  2. Read ‘Just Sayin’: My Life In Words’ the autobiography of Malorie Blackman, and understand how her experiences inspired the books.
  3. Develop your poetry knowledge and keep up with The Guardian newspaper’s ‘Poem of the Week’. Read and explore a new poem every week, chosen by Carol Rumen. Can you recommend a poem for ‘poem of the week’?

Participate:

  1. Noughts and Crosses isn’t yet a film…  Create the opening scene of the film by writing a playscript! Think about whether you would adapt the novel exactly as it is written, starting with the flashback in the Prologue, or would you take more creative licence like the BBC adaptation?
  2. Design the set and choose the cast for a stage production of Macbeth by Shakespeare.
  3. Visit the National Poetry Library on London Southbank – the largest public collection of modern poetry in the world, with tomes dating back to 1912 and collections of every poetry book published since 1953. Can you find any of the poems we study?

Maths

Watch:

  1. Percentage and tax.
  2. Standard form – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxGyZ3Yx9ow.
  3. Understanding formula of circles – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YokKp3pwVFc.

Listen:

  1. Kids talk maths podcasts – https://i1.feedspot.com/200/5301345.jpg?t=1626166763.
  2. A variety of interesting podcasts – https://plus.maths.org/content/podcast. 
  3. Art and maths – https://www.artfulmaths.com/mathematical-art-lessons.html.  

Read:

  1. Jobs that use maths – Maths Jobs.
  2. Books to read: Around the World in 80 Games.
  3. Maths tricks that will blow your mind – https://www.thoughtco.com/math-tricks-that-will-blow-your-mind-4154742.

Participate:

  1. Cambridge Science Centre activities – https://www.cambridgesciencecentre.org/.
  2. Maths game, Divided Island –  https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zknwmbk/articles/zrn9jfr.
  3. Junior UK maths challenge April 2024.

Science

Watch:

  1. Watch some of the short clips from Big Cat Diary by following this link.
  2. Watch Richard Hammond’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth here.
  3. Watch the film Apollo 13.

Listen:

  1. Listen to the podcast ‘Safari’ here.
  2. Listen to the podcast ‘What the deep oceans can teach us about life’ here.
  3. Listen to the podcast ‘Where to land on the moon’ podcast here.

Read:

  1. Research endangered animal – what is causing this, what is being done, what further could be done? What is the IUCN red list of threatened species? What are the categories? Which animal falls into each category?
  2. Read the articles on the ‘Structure of the Earth’ here.
  3. Research the difference methods of space exploration and the Space Race. Describe how each nation must have felt as they succeeded or failed in their attempts to attain the goals they had set.

Participate:

  1. Visit a zoo, eg Banham Zoo.
  2. Design and make a model of the earth including all of its layers, try Paper Mache or making it as a cake!
  3. Keep a moon diary. Identify how the moon changes every day for a month.

French

Watch:

  1. Learn French with Alexa – online lesson videos available for free on You Tube.
  2. Le Petit Nicolas – very funny French film about Nicolas and his friends growing up in 1950’s France.

Listen:

  1. Audiolingua – you can select French and then choose from plenty of short listening extracts from beginners to more advanced.
  2. Listen to the Podcast Coffeebreak French – selection of podcasts covering different situations, eating out, going to the cinema etc.

Read:

  1. Mary Glasgow French magazines for French learners available from Scholastic. Some free online samples are on the website.
  2. For an English book set in France – Chocolat by Joanne Harris.
  3. The French experiment.com has children’s stories in French to read, listen to and watch on video.

Participate:

  1. Duolingo.
  2. Research and plan a day trip to France from St Albans to Calais. How would you travel and what could you visit?

Technology

Watch:

  1. How its Made – Watch one of the many ‘How it’s made‘ videos on You Tube. 
  2. Watch Food Unwrapped on Channel 4.

Listen:

  1. Podcast – Material Matters. Listen to ‘Material Matters with Grant Gibson’. Material Matters features in-depth interviews with a variety of designers, makers and artists about their relationship with a particular material or technique. Listen here.
  2. Podcast – STEM. Listen to the Stemettes podcast. Do you want to expand your knowledge of STEM but don’t know where to begin? In this article, they have compiled a list of favourite podcasts by women in STEM to help you get started in the STEM podcasting world.

Read:

  1. Mammoth book of Great Inventions by James Dyson. Featuring over 600 colour photos with the full range of discoveries and technological advances from across the ages, this is the ultimate reference guide and source of inspiration for would-be inventors of all kinds, young and old. Inventions covered extend from early Persian ice cream to the more recent microchip and the latest advances in animal cloning. James Dyson’s personal insights into the process of invention appear throughout. 

Participate:

  1. Plan a new recipe for a healthy meal/snack.
  2. Pop Up Card Graphics – Create a Flower pop up card. For ideas and help click here.