Session 2 - November 21st - Festivals Around the World

Miss Hutchinson led a session on Festivals Around the World, she explained that countries such as Spain, Germany, Italy, France and Mexico celebrate festivals in lots of different ways.  She set the girls the task of working together in groups to research and create a presentation on a given festival.  They used a range of strategies to complete their research and got creative in designing their presentation. 

Despite a few nerves the girls presented the information in an entertaining and informative way.  By the end of the session we had found out about the Carnevale di Ivrea or the battle of the oranges which occurs in the northern Italian city of Ivrea, Martinstag, which is the west Germany feast of St. Martin celebrated on November 11th.  The world's biggest tomato fight at La Tomatina in the Valencian town of Bunol in August. Mardi Gras  which in English translates as Fat Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday and Dia de Los Muertos which is celebrated in Central and Southern Mexico to remember friends and family members who have died.   

The girls all put a tremendous effort in to their presentations and everyone had a fun time getting creative.  Thank you to Miss Hutchinson for leading the session.

Session 1 - November 8th - Murder in the Amazon Rainforest

The girls were given the task of discovering who killed Chico Mendez, a rubber tapper from Brazil who was asassinated on 22nd December, the girls had to establish motive and sift through a variety of information to make their decision.  To help them understand why Chico was in danger, Mrs Hames explained where Tropical Rainforests are located and what the climate is like.  The girls discussed why the Amazon Rainforest is important and discovered many facts, including: 

Rainforests contribute about 50% of the oxygen in the atmosphere

About 25% of the world's freshwater is stored in the Amazon rainforest.

Drugs used to treat leukaemia and other cancers come from rainforest plants, as do medicines for heart ailments and arthritis.

All the information learnt helped the girls to decide who had the most motive to kill Chico.   Most groups discounted Ovido Roberto who was a dam builder, they felt that even though Chico publicised the negative affects the dam would have on the rainforest, this was not a strong enough reason to kill him.  The other suspects were Darley Alves - a cattle rancher, Luis Franco - a construction worker, Aldebio da Silva - owner of a logging company, Jose Fernandez - Minister for Brazil's economy and Fernando Cavalera - the owner of a plantation.

2 groups went for Aldebio da silva who was concerned that Chico might find out about his illegal logging of mahogany wood and 2 groups opted for the Jose Fernandez who wanted to exploit the rainforest, allowing industry into the forest which would make money for the Government, Chico was opposed to this.

All the groups had excellent ideas and could describe why they felt their suspect had the strongest motive.

We found out that the murderer was Darley Alves, who had been prevented from deforesting areas to graze his cattle on.  He was very angry that Chico was behind this and so paid his son to kill him.  Darley and his son were both caught and sentenced to 19 years in jail.

This was a brilliant session and the girls enjoyed working together to solve the mystery.  Thank you to mrs Hames for a fun morning.

Shine launch

On Wednesday 11th November we welcomed 21 girls to the launch of the new SHINE Programme.  Miss Ladbrook spoke to the girls and the staff from their primary schools to explain why they had been chosen and told them a little about the activities they would be participating in during the 15 sessions.  The children's author Kate Maryon attended and read the girls a chapter of her book 'Glitter' The girls enjoyed it very much and were very excited to receive a signed copy from Kate herself.  It was a lovely afternoon getting to know everyone and Mrs Ladbrook, Miss Burns and Mrs Coughlan hope the girls are looking forward to the first session as much as much as they are.