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Challenge Winners
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Upper Sixth Pupils Harriet Carlill, Marco Yu, Hermione Christey-Clover, Louis Cronin and Lower Sixth Pupil Will Peutherer have won the National Schools Geology Challenge, held at the Geological Society’s headquarters in London. The team took part in the final after qualifying with their video entry to the competition entitled The Geology of the Mendip Anticline. Upon arrival, they were faced with a real world decisionmaking scenario on the location of a geological disposal facility for nuclear waste. They considered maps, rock samples, borehole data and budgetary requirements in order to pitch a proposal to the judges, a panel of professional geologists. The group were praised for their teamwork and the geological understanding demonstrated in their presentation. They are the third team from the School to win the trophy, following previous victories in 2013 and 2014.
Millfield Maths Challenge
Congratulations to our four Maths Specialists who won the Millfield Team Maths Challenge. Samuel Chan (Year 9), Nathan Lam (Year 9), Chris Chan (Year 10) and Luca Ng (Year 10) performed extremely well against Millfield School, King Edward’s School Bath, Downside School, Shaftesbury School, Buckler’s Mead Academy, Norton Hill School, St Dunstan’s School and The Kings of Wessex Academy at the competition. Well done on your fantastic achievement!
University of Southampton Junior Maths Challenge
Congratulations to En Xuan Tan (Year 7) and Lucille Raynal (Year 8) who have each been awarded a winners certificate in the University of Southampton's Junior Maths Challenge and will attend a Prize Evening at the University in June. The Junior Maths Challenge is aimed at pupils up to Year 8 and consists of a range of mathematical questions for pupils to complete outside of lesson time, enabling them to think outside of the box and beyond the standard curriculum. The most successful entrants, alongside their parents and teachers, are invited to an evening of mathematical recreation, including a dinner and the presentation of prizes at an award ceremony. Well done En Xuan and Lucille, we hope you enjoy your special evening!
Josh and Justin raise over £1400 by running to McDonald's
Sixth Formers Josh Chong and Justin Chan ran 33km from Wells to McDonald's in Street and back again to raise money for the humanitarian organisation Action Against Hunger. The duo learned to map read as part of their effort, with Josh explaining that the idea originally formed as a joke to run so far to reach the Golden Arches which, after a bit of research, became a golden opportunity to fundraise. The UN reported that up to 811 million people, around a tenth of the world’s population, were undernourished in 2020 and every day more than 25,000 people, including 10,000 children, die from hunger and related causes. The United Nations has a ‘Zero Hunger‘ Sustainable Development goal but the world is not on track to achieve this by 2030, with recent trends pointing towards over 840 million people being affected by hunger by the end of the current decade.
Upper Sixth Pupil interviews Alex Hibbert
Upper Sixth pupil Adele Beecham recently interviewed polar traveller and explorer Alex Hibbert for the Youth Perspective Interview Series on her YouTube channel. The series is an online programme where talented and innovative people share their views on current affairs through interviews with Adele.
Alex is a British world record-holding polar traveller, expedition leader, public speaker, author and photographer. He has skied further on an unsupported Arctic journey than anyone in history. We were fortunate to have Alex come to the school to talk about his career and travels. Adele invited him to feature in an interview on her channel to discuss climate change, where she was keen to hear about its devastating effects from someone who had witnessed the change first-hand and to hear how to prevent these effects from worsening. Along with the climate crisis, Adele wanted to share Alex’s career path with her fellow peers, informing them about his unusual and interesting profession.
Additionally, having spent quite a large part of his career isolated with his thoughts while travelling the Arctic, Adele was interested in his perspective on isolation, something which the news has mentioned multiple times as a struggle for Gen Z especially during and after Covid.
Adele has also interviewed singer-songwriter Jeffrey Lenh and author, publisher and podcaster Bonnie Orbison to name a few. You can tune into her YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=FvQl2NqDaTw and watch all of the interviews.
