Students in Year 8 have been studying the evolutionary story of humankind during Human Technologies this term.

They have been busy investigating our collective human history, our origins and grappling with questions such as: Where did we come from? How did we get here? And what makes us so different from our primate cousins?

A key insight that emerged from the latter question, given humans' lack of physical strength and our vulnerabilities to the environment compared with other animals, was the ability for humans to technologise fire. The advent of domesticated fire afforded numerous advantages for humankind.

These advantages were depicted in students' posters where they had to creatively pitch a modern day advertisement for domesticated fire towards our human predecessors, advocating and warning them about their evolutionary benefits and drawbacks given what we know today about the entailment of such a technology.

The ideas presented are based on the article students read and discussed - Smoke, Fire and Human Evolution from the New York Times.

Year 8 students all follow the HT programme, which continues to Year 11. Our core aim is to educate them to be resourceful, resilient, collaborative, open-minded, ethical, accepting of others, sustainable in their habits, and more inclined to take the long view.

These are all the skills we aim to develop through our HT programme, which is the centrepiece of the ways in which we continue to change education for the better. The curriculum encourages students to experience school in more positive ways, whilst developing a profound sense of the art and craft of being human.