At Northern Education Trust Kirk Balk Academy, we share a vision of being ‘Outcomes Focused, Child Centred’. As such, we believe that all students are entitled to educational experiences that are both enjoyable and enriching.

You may already be aware that in order to achieve this, over the course of Key Stage 3, all students have the opportunity to take part in our ‘EBacc Experiences’ programme. This programme is designed to provide exciting experiences and events which take place throughout each year of Key Stage 3. All experiences are offered to our students completely free of charge and allow students to explore a range of topics from different subjects that make up the English Baccalaureate – a set of subjects studied at
GCSE that keep our young peoples’ options open for further study and future careers.

The second EBacc Experience of the year for students in Y7 is due to take place on Wednesday 25th and Friday 27th March. This involves students participating in a virtual reality experience which will be delivered by our partners at Discover VR. The event involves students using ground-breaking, award winning, immersive technology, specifically built for the classroom, to help improve engagement and increase knowledge retention for students of all ages. To support students’ learning in science, students will virtually submerge themselves into the Human Body and get transported through the different
systems which control our everyday activities. They will explore the respiratory and muscular systems before being shrunken down and swallowed by a human and journeying through the bodies Digestive System.

The VR sessions take place on Wednesday 25th and Friday 27th March. Students will follow their normal school timetable until their class teacher escorts them to the VR sessions when it is their classes’ turn.

This is a fantastic opportunity for our students to take part in and will hopefully inspire them to think about their futures and the pathways available to them.