Celebration evening

The celebration evening was amazing and, again, I want to share the school newsletter article with you (with names redacted) because I want to emphasise the importance of this kind of advocacy. It was a huge event for the Library and had a real impact on our profile, the profile of the Sixth Form within the school (which is only in its third year – until September 2020 our school ended at age 16 and students wanting to study for their final two years had to move to a different school), and the profile of the EPQ within the Sixth Form.

We combined the poster presentations for the Year 12 Interrobang course (which were very informal – students stood by their posters and the audience circulated round to talk to them about their work) with the formal assessed presentations for our two Year 13 EPQ students. Year 12 and 13 parents, and Year 11 students and parents (who were in the process of making the decision about whether to stay with us for Sixth Form or possibly to move elsewhere) were all invited, along with staff and school trustees (elsewhere these might be known as the governors or the school board). So it functioned as a formal exam assessment, a celebration AND a marketing event (on a number of different fronts!).

I’d love to share photos of the evening too because it was very special, but I can’t share photos of our students here. I have included a photo of the poster display we made in the Library afterwards (with names and photos redacted).

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Newsletter article:

Thursday evening saw another of Blanchelande’s Sixth Form firsts – our first Sixth Form Inquiry Celebration Evening. This exciting and inspiring event saw our Year 13 Extended Projected Qualification students, HR and EK, expertly presenting on their findings and reflections on their year long Extended Project Qualification inquiry journey, as well as Year 12 enthusiastically discussing their Interrobang!? posters with parents, staff, trustees and students. It was an amazing celebration of all the students’ unique interests and journeys, and many of the audience commented on the very wide range of fascinating topics that they had chosen.

HR and EK set the tone at the start of the evening, with their confident and assured presentations. HR dazzled us with her understanding of Kant and Hume as she explored the complex question of the compatibility between free will and determinism, while EK intrigued us with his fascinating exploration of the reasonableness of a variety of competing explanations for Moses’ burning bush experience as he demonstrated a mature ability to sift out the most reputable sources in a topic rife with pseudoscience.

After that, we had the opportunity to view the excellent posters that Year 12 created in their six-week Interrobang!? inquiry course and to chat with them about their experiences of the course. They had produced some very high-quality work in just 3 hours of teaching and 3 hours of independent time, and learnt some important new skills along the way. Prizes were awarded to:

• First prize: EF (Impact of the civil rights movement in America)
• Second prize: CO (Can mental illnesses be used as excuses for violence in society?)
• Third prize: TB (How has the critique of Shakespeare evolved?)
• Most progress: BV (How have things in Catholicism changed?)

Special mention also has to go to HJ for making a special effort to come to exhibit his poster (Ethics of taking photographs in public) despite having had a foot operation the day before.

We are passionate about inquiry because we recognise how it transforms students’ educational journeys – and I know all who attended last night were bowled over by the powerful evidence they saw of this.

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It was an amazing evening and we had some wonderful comments from those who attended. One very senior member of staff wrote to me afterwards that “After an evening meeting the night before and a fairly tough week I can’t say that I was chomping at the bit to come back in for a two hour session, but I enjoyed every minute of the evening – indeed, it revived me. The level of fluency and the confidence the structure and formation you provide the students with really does transform their capacity for learning” and another said that in all his years in education he had never seen anything as astonishing as the expertise and confidence displayed by our EPQ students in their presentations. We also had some super feedback from parents who attended. It definitely worked as an advocacy and marketing tool but, much more importantly, it also made all the students involved feel that they had been part of something really special.