Year 11 A Level Taster Day and HRC Visit
On Thursday 14th November, we ran taster sessions for those students who are considering taking A Levels. In the morning, students were given information about all the subjects which are not offered at GCSE (Economics, Psychology, Photography, Media and Politics) and in the afternoon the students chose four taster sessions in those subjects which are offered at GCSE (for example, Chemistry, History, and French).
For our Year 11s who are considering pursuing a college pathway, there was a visit to the Broxbourne and Ware Hertford Regional College campuses. They experienced what college life would be like and also spent time in different departments – Beauty, Childcare and Travel & Tourism. They thoroughly enjoyed participating in sessions such as Fashion, Hair and Visual Merchandising.
We hope all our students benefited from the day which was designed to enable them to make informed decisions regarding their choices after GCSEs.
I found the ‘science made simple’ presentation very interesting. We were shown lots of exciting experiments that famous STEM people have performed to help them make their discoveries. In one of the experiments, we wore glasses that showed us the different colours that came from the different lights. I enjoyed it because it gave me a different perspective on the colours we see around us and that lights are not just the colour they seem. From the presentation I learned that when we send someone to Mars we won’t be able to bring them back because we wouldn’t be able to store enough fuel in the rocket. I became interested in the topic because it made me think about the different ways we could make fuel last longer or how to make fuel on Mars. I also learned that Cecilia Payne discovered that Hydrogen and Helium are the dominant elements of the Sun and stars. Her boss didn’t believe her at first until lots of other people repeated the experiment and agreed that she was correct. Overall, I found ‘science made simple’ very fun. Especially as they included us in their presentation. They also related the work of previous STEM people to modern day jobs that you can study for if you are interested in those particular discoveries.
