St Edward's, 150 Years

St Edward’s: 150 Years

Chapter 5 / Doorways and Gateways

As part of the Shell Circus, the Physics department ran an Engineering option. Pupils built a circuit board,programmedaRaspberryPiecomputer,built amodel aircraft and designed a bridge fromstraws which was then tested to destruction as part of a mini-competition.ShownareFergusCameronWatt andWill Bolam Bassett testing their bridge.

Mai Piyasombatkul carrying out ‘Protein Fingerprinting’ in the Ogston Building.

ancestors would be comfortingly familiar. However, I hope his eyes would be drawn to the elegant double helical structure, the immortal coil, of the DNA molecule. How quickly, I wonder, would he grasp that the sequence of bases along the centre of the molecule could constitute a code which specifies how organisms are both built and run? What would his reaction be to learning that this was the link between his own ideas of ‘descent with modification’ and Mendel’s observations about the laws of heredity? This in essence is the revolution which took place in 20th-century Biology, and moved the study of the subject to an entirely new plane. I would hope that as he walked around, dropping into the different labs he would be heartened to see pupils fascinated by the study of the natural world. I imagine he would be struck by the juxtaposition of the familiar and the new. Microscopes and heart dissections cheek by jowl with genetic fingerprinting, microbial culture plates and thermographic images of the body during exercise. The dynamics of the classroom might also seem a little strange, with pupils often engaged in group practical or research work, and the interactions between teacher and pupils taking the form of a dialogue rather than a lecture. Ultimately the small, incremental, evolutionary changes in the approaches to the teaching and learning of Biology have amounted to nothing less than a revolution when considered on the timescale of 150 years. Our pupils can investigate, research, collaborate and present in ways which would have been almost unimaginable. I would hope that all who leave through the doorway of our building, including my imaginary Darwin, would feel enriched, humbled, and energised but above all determined to continue using that greatest of all human inventions, the scientific method, to pursue understanding of the world around them.

Those who left the School many years ago will be gratified to know that not everything has changed. Dr Moore and Dr Tucker are still present in the Department, providing stalwart support and even teaching occasionally! They also remind the Johnny-come-latelies when ‘new innovations’ in teaching have been tried 20 years ago and what happened. Most Teddies pupils use their Sixth Form Chemistry courses to go off and study such traditional subjects as Engineering, Geography, Medicine and other Biological Sciences. However, we are also seeing a continued trickle of applications for Chemistry at university as well. With the intellectual rigour required to pass these courses, it is no wonder that Chemistry at the School remains a traditional subject of the future. Anthony Bullard Head of Chemistry Physics If you visited the Physics Department following an absence of several years you would probably find it familiar but immediately notice some changes. We now have more dedicated Physics laboratories. You would notice the weather station and seismometer in the entrance picking up earth tremors from around the world. You might notice the refurbished labs and prep room, full of computers, to allow pupils access to simulations and allow data-logging. Our teaching has changed over the past few years. We have much more emphasis on how Physics relates to the real world. We achieve this through trips, lectures and the way we teach. There are old, familiar experiments involving ticker- tapes, ramps, trolleys or the Van de Graaf generator, but new innovations with data-logging, rockets, force sensors, video analysis and liquid nitrogen. Starting in the Shells you would soon be on a trip to Lulworth with the Geography Department to look at ocean waves and diffraction. Over the year you would be involved

Where will Physics go over the next few years? We hope to develop the Astronomy and Electronics clubs. For Shells our aim is to improve skills, confidence and self-reliance. We hope the IB will continue to flourish and the EPQ programme will become better established. The introduction of a School-wide virtual learning environment may see an increased use in data-logging, animations and simulations. I hope though that if you returned in 150 years you might still find pupils with ramps, trolleys and see the Van de Graaf electrocuting unsuspecting pupils! Biology Arguably the most important event in the study of Biology was the publication of On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin in 1859, and when writing this piece it occurred to me to wonder what Darwin would have made of the tour many parents and prospective pupils make around our beautiful Ogston Building. It seems a relevant question given that the School was founded a mere four years after The Origin was unveiled to the world. As he arrived at the front door he would be confronted with a mixture of the recognisable and the exotic. A sixth edition of The Origin , open at the page displaying Darwin’s visualisation of the tree of life, flanked by now famous fossils such as Archaeopteryx and the skulls of various human

in the Engineering club, building circuits, straw bridges and programming raspberry-pie computers. You might be involved on a trip to the North Wall to examine the physics used in a modern theatre. You would be involved in a cross-curricular science project, perhaps looking at the Mars Rover. At the end of the year you would have a practical exam assessing your ability to observe, record and analyse. In the Fourth and Fifth Form you would be studying the international GCSE perhaps as a separate science. You could visit Didcot power station and Westfield wind farm and solar array, considering climate change and the ability of technology to find solutions. An interest in Astronomy might lead you to study GCSE Astronomy in the Astronomy Club, looking through the new GPS telescope. Many of the most able pupils will attend a series of talks by some of the leading scientists in the country. The Sixth Form is an area where you might notice the most changes from a few years ago. Over the last few years the School has introduced IB alongside the A Level course. In the Lower Sixth we teach a context-based course looking at how physics is used in archaeology, sport, CD players and food technology. A visit to Thorpe Park and a lecture on the design of roller coasters is always a popular day out as part of the coursework requirement. Finally in the Sixth Form you might choose to do an extended investigation or research project as part of the EPQ, or Extended Essay in IB. These projects can be as diverse as Formula 1 to oil rigs, space elevators to black holes.

PhilipWaghorn Head of Physics

Alastair Summers Head of Biology

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