We are delighted to announce that William Chambers (Upper Sixth), Juliet De Banzie (Upper Sixth), Rosie Catling (Lower Sixth), Scarlett McPartland (Lower Sixth), Sophie Browning (Fourth Form) and Elyse Ratcliffe (Third Form) have all been awarded Headmaster’s Copy Prizes during today’s assembly.

William Chambers and Juliet De Banzie
Nominated by Head of Academic Scholars, Mr Jones, William and Juliet both received A* grades for their EPQ, written in one year with very limited guidance. William discussed ‘To what extent is Big Data aiding or undermining democracy?’ and Juliet wrote ‘Duty and the Beast: Should questions of intelligence and consciousness be a primary factor in the ethics of animal testing?’.

Rosie Catling and Scarlett McPartland

Head of Business Studies and Economics, Mr James, and Teacher of Business Studies, Mrs Harrington-Claydon, were so impressed with their effort, they notified Mr Grindlay and nominated them for the prize. Mrs Harrington-Claydon details the task below, and how the girls excelled during their task:

“I recently set my Lower Sixth Business students a task to consolidate their recent teaching on Demand. I put them in pairs and gave them a mock scenario that the BBC was looking to develop content across one of their platforms, and gave the students the autonomy to select which format they used. The brief was that the content should be able to be used as an introduction to Demand, and gave them some of the key terms that I expected to have included.

All but one pairing chose to offer a traditional PowerPoint presentation, meeting the brief, as supposedly it could be recorded and put online. Rosie and Scarlett chose instead to develop a website, which included content tabbed across the top, with images and even designed a short quiz as well. This can be found here: https://mcpartlands.wixsite.com/mysite

I was notably impressed by the determination with which they remained true to their original plan, in terms of not abandoning the website when it became a challenge to design, as well as the individuality.”

Mrs Harrington-Claydon, Teacher of Business Studies

Sophie Browning

Sophie produced an amazing enrichment project on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions. In the truly comprehensive piece of work, Sophie put forward some mature and critical reflections on the nature of gender inequality in the world today.

Elyse Ratcliffe

Elyse produced an outstanding Scholar’s enrichment project, a 2021 Calendar for the Lenham Meadows Trust, which is a local charity which aims to protect open land and the wildlife in and around Lenham. She showed an exceptionally high degree of initiative in taking all the photos herself, designing the layout, meeting with a local design team, and overseeing the entire production process. 150 calendars have been produced and are being sold in local shops. Elyse’s work should raise over £750 for this local charity.