Crawshaw School

Four Gifted and Talented Year 8 students recently attended a Radio Day. One of them, Sophie O'Connell (8XTT) has written about her experiences:

"I went on a Radio Day at the CLC at West Leeds High School. At first I was a bit nervous because there were only four of us going from Crawshaw and lots of people from other schools. Also, we were split up so I was with people I didn't know. I paired up with another girl and we had to report a news article as if we were on the radio. We recorded it on Garageband, a sound programme, and at the end we all got to listen to each other's. We also produced a radio advertisment for Specsavers. It was very funny - I had a really good day!"

Four Year 9 students attended a Forensic Science Day at West Leeds High Schol on 20 May. They were accompanied by Academic Mentor, Sarah Mortimer, who describes the day below:

"The morning session involved several activities including DNA fingerprinting, ink fingerprinting, latent fingerprinting, testing for presence of blood using Luminol, and investigating the effects of altering the height and angle of blood splatters. The afternoon session involved the chemical analysis of different compounds. Several tests were demonstrated and then performed by the students. These tests included the Flame Test, the Carbonate Test, the Sulphate Test and the Halide Test. Other forensic science areas were touched upon, including the importance of hair and fibres, forgery and rigor mortis.

The day was finished off with a murder mystery to solve. The students had to collect and analyse evidence from the crime scene. This was an ideal way for the students to use the wide variety of techniques that they had been taught throughout the day. The day was an immense success and all of the students who attended were enthusiastic throughout and thoroughly enjoyed the day. The hands-on activities performed will benefit the students and increase their understanding of many topics covered in Science modules to follow."