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This term has seen record levels of attendance at our regular Fireside Talks, with speakers sharing their experiences and encouraging us to venture outside the normal school curriculum to tackle a broad range of topics, including some challenging issues. Highlights included Soma Sara, the founder of Everyone’s Invited movement, who highlighted the vast and entrenched problems in our culture and what we can do to drive change through better empathy and communication. OW Tom Gaymor shared his experience of ‘swapping a steering wheel for a microphone’ after a life-changing injury forced him to give up motor racing and take up broadcasting, encouraging our students to focus on ‘strengthening their strengths’.
We also had our first Academic in Residence, a new initiative which sees academics visit Wellington for a few days to run a series of talks, workshops, masterclasses, and one-to-one interviews. Our Economist in Residence was Mo Tanweer from the Judge Business Institute at Cambridge University. He gave a fascinating talk on the impact of AI, ran Economics masterclasses, and conducted a number of challenging sessions for our academic scholars on game theory, as well as practice interviews for many Oxbridge hopefuls. Next term, we are looking forward to welcoming our Scientist in Residence, Lewis Dartnell.
Every week, students have the choice of over thirty different academic clubs and societies, ranging from Debating to Coding Club and Clinic. Highlights this term included the Classics debate where staff argued about who was the most significant ancient Roman, hands-on reptile handling in Biology Bites, individual and group success for the Spanish Debating Society at the Hispanic Theatre Festival, a screening of Hidden Figures at SciSoc, and a record number of students practising for the Intermediate and Senior Maths Challenge in MathsSoc. After half term, additional new societies include Sociology, Blockchain & Investment Society, and Disrupt, focusing on business and entrepreneurship. This term, after a few weeks of trying out different societies, we have really encouraged our students to choose just one or two to commit to attending each week, allowing them to build a degree of confidence and expertise.
Students are actively encouraged to engage in external essay competitions and residential programmes. Recent successes include Alex M (U6, Bd) and Elia G (U6, O) in the John Locke Essay Competition and Lucia C (U6, A) in the St Hugh’s College, Oxford’s Mary Renault Prize.
