Curriculum: Learning

Year 12 Interdisciplinary Conference

In June, we worked with LIS (London Interdisciplinary School) a new university, described as “the most radical new university in decades” (The Times), They offer degree courses that aim to solve problems through an interdisciplinary lens, rather than studying discrete subjects, and they have helped us to design and implement a day of thinking about ‘inequality’ from a range of different approaches.

As part of the day, the pupils had sessions with representatives from the university, as well as discrete lectures from some of our own academic staff. At the end of the day, they had the opportunity to make a podcast on the topic of their choosing in small groups and the winners received a cash prize and the opportunity to present in front of LIS academics and their business partners.

Lectures were offered on subjects as diverse as epistemic inequality, psychological bias and data science. Pupils were challenged with questions about whether access to the arts is the preserve of the minority, and whether the oppression of minority languages in certain countries prevents access to education.

At the end of the day, pupils recorded podcasts on a theme of their choice, using interdisciplinary thinking. Groups chose topics such as ‘how could we work to prevent language being a barrier to accessing health education?’ and ‘how far is housing cost a barrier to good education in the UK?’

Year 8 Future Tech Project

Inspired by the 1977 Voyager mission where a Golden Disk was launched into space that contained sounds and images representative of life on earth, the Year 8 undertook a 2023 version of this project. In our project, the boys learned about the physics involved in rocket design and making their own artefacts. The boys analysed and plotted the time of flight from telemetry data, as well as recording their own data from simulated flights. In Computing, pupils explored how current computer technology could be used to encode and transmit messages over time and space.

As well as considering some of the ethical questions surrounding space travel, the pupils also had the opportunity to delve further into the cultural decisions that went into the original Golden Disk and created their own Platinum Disk, considering what music and images they would use to represent 2023 to other life forms.

The eventual winners were: Eddie, Will, Daniel and Arlo.

Year 10 Sustainability Conference

We worked with VW to consider sustainable solutions to problems around the school site. Alongside demonstrations of electric cars and discussions around air pollution and climate change, pupils were able to look under the bonnet of the latest models and use their research to consider ideas for real change in own site. Judged by our Foundation Bursar, Victoria Espley, the winners were named as, Charlie, Theo, Nathanial, James and Tom.