ACADEMIC ENRICHMENT
A Heretical Cohort! This year there has been an exceptional range of heretical writing, as spicy, knowingly witty and ruthlessly intelligent as I have known. Lancing’s long tradition of lively, untrammeled independence of thought is buoyantly unbowed. Liberal feminism has been skewered, the benefits of war advocated and a theory of everything pursued! This is a Lancing generation which in intellectual depth and flair triumphantly defies Evelyn Waugh’s jaded observation that ‘the trouble with modern education is you never know how ignorant people are’. It was nearly impossible to make a final decision on the shortlist, and this year about ten more essays could have made the heretical grade. The ten essays shortlisted for the Lower Sixth’s Heresy Project were: • Alex Badcock, Why War is good for us • Marina Chen, Is value lost when a language evolves? • Jimmy Fan, 10AM Manifesto • Annika Finkel, Liberal Feminism Is Reactionary • Benjamin Irvine-Capel, Would the United Kingdom benefit from a codified constitution? • Archie Ng, Will we ever be able to discover a theory of everything? • Kiran Patel, Exams are pointless • Poppy Sutcliffe, Feminism owes nothing to Margaret Thatcher • Thomas Willis, Britain and its Allies did not win WWII, Adolf Hitler lost the war ... even before he started it! • Bugie Val-Ugbeide, Feminism does not include Black Women • William Nightingale for his heretical re-imagining of Lancing in acrylic This is not Hogwarts. At the beginning of the Lent Term a grand jury within the Common Room decided that three of this year’s shortlisted entrants should be jointly awarded the top prize. Amidst an exceptionally strong field these three essays were marked out not just by the formidable depth of their research and pitch-perfect analytical rigour, but by the subtlety, flair and joyous delight with which they demolished their heretical targets: precisely the qualities of well-researched independence of thought demanded by top flight universities. Congratulations to Lancing’s heretical trinity, which this year comprises Marina Chen, Annika Finkel Alex Badcock (below). DR DAMIAN KERNEY Head of Sixth Form Enrichment
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THE QUAD
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LENT 2022
