Year 7 pupils from across the city attended our York ISSP (Independent State School Partnership) Breakthrough Event on Wednesday afternoon in the Memorial Hall. They joined our own pupils and staff to debate the ‘greatest breakthrough of all time’.
Pupils listened to fascinating, short speeches from a number of teachers from different schools, including our own Miss Grindley. Teachers took turns to argue why either fire, the printed word, bicycles, numbers or aqueducts were the greatest breakthroughs of all time. Each table of pupils from different schools were then given the opportunity to discuss what they thought, with one table questioning ‘would we even know about any of these breakthroughs without the written word?’
Following juice and biscuits, pupils posed interesting questions to the speakers including if aqueducts required numbers to be invented, if bicycles were crucial to human development, and why we need algebra if we already have numbers. After a final few minutes of debate, the pupils voted aqueducts the greatest breakthrough of all time, knocking fire and numbers from the top spot for the first time since the event began.
We were delighted to once again host this important gathering. Another wonderful ISSP afternoon of collaborating across schools to tackle big ideas together!
