The students are truly loving this year’s Experience Week here at Wakefield Girls’, truly embodying the spirit of being together, aware, and empowered. While our Year 10 and Year 12 students have embarked on valuable Work Experience, gaining vital skills for the modern workplace, our Key Stage 3 students were immersed in a whirlwind of exciting activities and workshops.

To kick off Experience Week, students in Years 7-9 worked collaboratively to plan and produce a short play in French, Spanish, and German in just one day (or morning for Year 9). They took on roles in acting, sound, lighting, costume, and marketing, producing posters, guides, and props to complement the performances. Some students engaged with a new language, embracing the opportunity to discover different sounds and words, while others coached those new to the language and showcased their understanding from lessons. We witnessed an abundance of musical and theatrical talents during the performances and were impressed by the positive contributions and teamwork the students demonstrated while working creatively and combining skills and knowledge from different areas of the school curriculum.

A highlight was the Creative Challenge for Year 8 and 9 students, which brilliantly kick started our fundraising efforts for Forget Me Not Hospice. Students collaborated and innovated, transforming old desks into vibrant, colourful, and appealing designs. These upcycled desks will be auctioned off next academic year, with all proceeds going to this incredibly worthy cause. It was truly inspiring to see their fantastic enthusiasm and the amazing prototypes they produced, making the judging process wonderfully difficult!

And the fun didn’t stop there! Our Year 8 pupils enjoyed a morning packed with laughter, team bonding, and general good fun. Each form chose a theme to dress up as – we had Minions, Care Bears, Mario Bros, and Men in Black, to name just a few! In their forms, they took part in sports day races, a quiz, chocolate and skittles games, and a ‘chill out’ with an ice-pop! It was a great morning filled with laughter, team bonding, and general good fun! What a fantastic bunch Year 8 pupils are!

Our Year 9 chemists are set for a fascinating ‘What’s in our Water?’ stretch and challenge day at the National Mining Museum this Thursday and Friday. They’ll be undertaking real-world analysis, collecting water samples, measuring the pH and oxygen content, and analysing iron in effluent. Plus, they’ll experience life as a miner by heading underground – a powerful blend of science and history!

Adding to the week’s excitement, we also held our creativity workshop, where students planned, wrote, and performed poems they had created. Our Year 7 Science Fair also took place in the Hartley Pavilion. After seven weeks of dedicated work, students proudly showcased their self-devised projects, sharing their scientific discoveries with a wide audience.

We also held year group trips. Year 7 had an unforgettable day at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park, exploring the vast enclosures and spotting incredible animals like lions, tigers, and giraffes up close. The walk-through areas let us get closer to lemurs, wallabies, and cotton-top tamarins, making it feel like a real safari adventure. Each form also took part in an education session on animal adaptations led by a member of the zoo staff; not only did they learn about biological adaptations in animals such as hyenas, camels, polar bears, and rhinos, there was also an opportunity to handle giant African land snails and Madagascan hissing cockroaches.

Experience Week once again proved to be a vibrant testament to our students’ talent, hard work, and incredible spirit. On Friday, we have our Enterprise Day, where students will work in teams to design an item or create a poster to promote something, then in the afternoon, we will be holding our very own Dragon’s Den, where students will pitch their designs and ideas to a panel.