Standards of Independent Study are higher than ever

One of the highlights of the academic year is the Presentation Evenings for pupils in the Third Form who are finalists in the Nissen-Bridgeman Project and for the Upper Sixth students gaining their Extended Project Qualification. This year the standard of independent research and evaluation shown was better than ever. 

The Nissen-Bridgeman Project finalists (Jacob Eddington, Isaac Emmins, Zach Ferydooni, Jack Gregor, James Manning, Kyan Nordkamp, Ben Pethybridge, Will Prime, William Salford, Chris Steegers, Ed Trehearn and Felix Winterflood) gave excellent short speeches (without notes) explaining their findings and reflecting on the process they had undertaken, followed by answering questions from the audience. Some of the topics discussed included Food Labelling, Financial Aid, Streaming Music and the Seven Years’ War. It was very difficult to decide the overall prize winner but, for his clearly independent and passionate approach to his topic, the Nissen-Bridgeman Prize for 2019 was awarded to Isaac Emmins whose title was, ‘Should Home Economics be a compulsory/statutory subject in secondary school?’ All Third Form pupils should be congratulated on completing their projects this year which will prove to be a useful exercise in developing research-and-writing skills as they move towards their GCSEs. 

The Extended Project Qualification is aimed at enabling students to develop independence in a range of skills and acquire a depth of knowledge that will be of great benefit to them in higher education or employment. One of the key aspects of the qualification is the presentation, for which the students must talk for ten minutes on their research and field questions from an inquisitive audience. There was a huge breadth of interesting topics: from entrepreneurship to the Paris Accords, from Legal Aid to antibiotic resistance, and many, many more. There were some really high-quality presentations which demonstrated thorough research and understanding of topics; these comments were reflective of the quality of work that took place.                            

Tim Silk, Teaching and Learning Leader