Momentum | Year 5 | Session 2 | Week 4

Hello Parents, Max here. Welcome to another Acton blog, where you get to know what we did throughout the week!

Civilization: For Civilization, we looked at The Hippocratic Oath and the Romans. The Hippocratic Oath is a system that the Greek father of medicine Hippocrates, invented so that every Doctor could have an ethical standard. It states that “In the oath, the physician pledges to prescribe only beneficial treatments, according to his abilities and judgment; to refrain from causing harm or hurt; and to live an exemplary personal and professional life.” Every single Doctor has to take this Oath and promise to follow it when they graduate from medical school. And for the Romans, the first activity asked to research how the Romans became one of the biggest empires known to Mankind, and how they were so successful.

The different options for their success included:

• Unprecedented system of governmental checks and balance

• Patriotism from a victorious revolution following centuries of Etruscan rule

• Exceptional military and mandatory military service

• Civic virtue

Each one of these options was a key part of their rule and their overall strength. After that, the second activity asked to research how Rome fell. At some point, Rome had lost their political liberty and turned to Julius Caesar to lead the Empire.

Eventually, however, the Romans turned on him and then assassinated him in cold blood. We looked at the various possibilities for how they could have decided to do such a thing, and then decide if Julius Caesar deserved his fate. (Spoiler alert: He definitely did deserve it.)

Genre:

For Genre, we looked at multiple examples of a Leader giving a speech, and then convincing the target audience. (For example: US President Ronald Reagan called for the leader of the Soviet Union: Mikhail Gorbachev, to open up the barrier that has divided West and East Berlin in Germany since 1961).

After seeing the examples, we determined and concluded which was the biggest factor in terms of sending a message that impacts, or motivates the audience to do something.

And when we did it, we implemented some of those factors into a speech of our own, which will be presented live at this Exhibition.

That’s all for this week at Acton, see you in the next one!