Five of our Year 12 students, Hanya E, Natasha S, Anesha H, Claudia M and Doriana D, participated in the prestigious GDST Oxbridge Conference at Clare College, Cambridge from 7th-8th July. The purpose of the event was to give students the opportunity to live in the College for a weekend with fellow students from across the GDST, and attend talks, lectures and seminars designed to provide an insight into what it would be like to study at Oxbridge as an undergraduate. Highlights included a presentation by the Admissions Tutor for Cambridge University about the application system and how places are awarded, a demonstration by Cambridge students of an Oxbridge interview, and a networking and conference dinner in the beautiful wood panelled hall of Old Court. Students also worked in small subject-based groups and grappled with a range of issues and topics: were all the plays attributed to Shakespeare written by one man and was he actually William Shakespeare?; what it the nature of language?; is there a place for Latin in the contemporary curriculum; how would a pan-epidemic be controlled? This gave students the opportunity to engage in debate and discussion, give short presentations, work together in teams and to try to get to the core of some ‘meaty’ questions.
