CAS Projects

These were the countdown banners that went up on our school’s website called ISLE I would update it everyday so that it would be a consecutive countdown and the school community would be every excited as the week drew closer.

These are what the Pride Week banners looked like on the ISLE (our school website for the community) 

This is the cover photo banner for the ISSJ Spectrum public facebook page 

I am really happy and proud with how these banners have come so far, I really love the colour palette I’ve chosen in addition to the font. It looks so pretty! I cannot wait to show these designs to the ISSJ Spectrum group on Friday. 

Next, I spent around two full hours changing my initial designs because I didn’t find them appealing to myself or the target audience of ISSJ/Spectrum and out school student body. I used this font, I downloaded from dafont.com which resembles a brush stroke and I thought that fitting for each banner. I also looked for images that had colour for the backgrounds. I am really pleased with how far the banners have come so far. 

January 27th 2016

I started working on the banner designs for ISLE and the school website. I had never had any experience in making banners online so this was new. Due to the fact I also did not have a tablet, I could not draw my own designs so I found some interesting ones online. Moreover, I then developed those and altered them to fit the boarder of 600x120 and added some text alongside the date. This took me around an hour planning the designs and initiating them. 

Being apart of the Spectrum subgroup of ISSJ, we decided in todays lunch time meeting that Spectrum were to have a Pride Week and in order for that to progress and expand we were to assign roles to promote to our school. We were giving a set of rules and roles we could apply for. I decided to apply to social media 1, because I preferred to make banners on the ISLE (our school website) and to upload information to our Facebook page. 

In todays tutoring, we went over their Ecology topic. Here are some of the notes we went over about the carbon and water cycle, we also went through a little of the nitrogen cycle as they found this one the most confusing and hardest. Once we went of those couple of topics within those syllabus statements we then decided to start looking at the basics of the next topic which is Human Influences. We talked about the effect of eutrophication/leeching on the environment. We went over algae growth and fertilisers. In addition I even decided to go a little further so they would be ahead of their class and introduced them to glass houses.

In todays tutoring, I got back on track to getting them motivated for their GCSE’s in May. They had just finished their mocks so they were slightly upset they may not have done to well in their bio mocks due to the fact they didn’t understand or weren’t content with the ecology topic, in specific the nitrogen cycle. This is what I wen’t over this tutoring lunch session. 

I’m also trying to be more supportive for them so they can talk to me about any issue regarding their personal lives, GCSE stress, mocks and biology as a whole. This helps me with working with them collaboratively and creating a good study space to teach and a good tutor-student bond. 

[1] THE ISLANDSPECTRUM TUMBLR We think that since tons of blogs and websites that post LGBT+ resources already exist, we should keep the Spectrum website specific to Island School and related subjects. Here's a list of the kind of stuff that means: – LGBT+ in HK – LGBT+ in school in general (one of the posts on the site is about telling teachers that you're nonbinary, which is the kind of thing that would be super useful) – updates on what we (Spectrum) are doing – announcements and publicity for upcoming events – occasions or special days such as Transgender Day of Remembrance, Ace Awareness Week, Bi Visibility Day, etc – replies to any messages we receive – Commentaries articles on LGBT+ We also want to produce some content of our own, so we had the idea to post a Spectrum Focus article each week, which would be a short post about a LGBT+ celebrity or historical figure, written by a different Spectrum member each week to get everyone involved. 

So far, progressing through tutoring two students in year 11, about the go through their mocks in December and then their GCSE's in May we have progressed quite slowly due to the fact they have to many school-based activities on a Tuesday lunch. This mean the time I see them in a week in lessened. However, rescheduling is also a nightmare as they have other commitments and so do I. Although, we do have enough time till their final exams in May, and hopefully we can get through some biology revision during their mocks and in January up till their final exams. We have recently just gone over the aspects of ecology and the different trophic levels in conjunction with deciphering through pyramids of numbers or pyramids of mass. I also explained the '10% of energy that gets passed down to the organism. It is only 10% due to the fact energy gets used up elsewhere for the organism.' Hopefully we start to pick up the hours a week I see them and if there is day that gets missed in that week, we reschedule over the week or weekend if we have to.

Within the ISSJ Spectrum group, we have subgroups as well. Which basically allocates roles for members in that group. I am apart of Publicity 1 which is charge of running the official Spectrum facebook page that is promoted to our school and the public. Here we post relevant news in the LGBT+ community, interesting articles/artwork/posters. Moreover we also sometimes post statistics or facts to educate the wider community in Hong Kong as well as members of our school community. This allows me to contribute collaboratively with the individuals in Publicity 1. We have to communicate effectively with who and when someone will post and what they will be posting so there won’t be any clashes. Furthermore, this also globally engages us with the wider community of Hong Kong and our school for any queries they may have. 

Here are some screenshots of the initiated meetings we have had since the beginning of the school year in August. Firstly there is a closed facebook group just for ISSJ members and with in that there is another closed group, for the subgroup Spectrum (the LGBT+ awareness section of ISSJ) which I am also apart of. On the facebook pages we comment any interesting related articles we may have read, post images, poster/art, upcoming meetings. There are also a few emails reminding members of the weekly meetings. 

This is part of my CAS Project for ISSJ (Island School Social Justice), I am part of the Spectrum (LGBT+) awareness group and this was an event held at our school called Pride Week, these are the photos for CAS evidence. We held a bake sale and an LGBT+ documentary screening to raise money for the ISSJ in order for other groups to run events as well as educating and raising more awareness to individuals in our school about the LGBT+.