In English, we have been using the topic of “refugees” to guide our writing as we read “The Boy at the Back of the Class”.
As this is such an important and current topic, we have been writing a lot of persuasive pieces, encouraging people to change their minds about the issue. Even though this is a tough thing to do, it is an important life skill. It’s particularly tough when you need to argue against what you might actually believe in!
We capped our persuasive unit off with a big debate. We spent some time learning about the houses of parliament, and how debates are held and managed there. This allowed us to create our own mini-house of commons in our classroom, complete with Mace and speakers boxes! If you can believe it, there is even such a thing as a John Bercow soundboard, so Mr Dean took great delight in getting him to shout “order! order!” on demand. Everyone was referred to by their proper title of “the right honorable” and took turns to make their arguments.
Everyone should be very proud of how they conducted themselves throughout the debate. People listened carefully and respectfully to the arguments being made, and put forward some insightful counter-arguments which really helped to change minds. Well done all!