Yr 11 - Higher Project Qualification

This week our eleventh annual Higher Project Qualification (HPQ) cohort have been delivering remarkable, high-quality presentations to an audience of staff and their peers. The HPQ, completed in Year 11, is a certificated opportunity for pupils to choose a research topic, write an extended essay on it and then present their research findings to an audience. The presentations are invariably as diverse as they are impressive, with topics this year including:

• What effect does prison have on the guards and inmates?

• What is the impact of the British Empire on the modern world?

• What are the issues with our voting system and what are the alternatives?

• To what extent is being left-handed a disadvantage in modern society?

• Why should internet access be a human right?

• What is the science behind ayurvedic medicine?

• Is string theory the way forward for particle Physics?

Following each presentation, the audience have a chance to pose questions to the speakers and all have given detailed, impressively knowledgeable and often thought-provoking answers. Students involved have been living out key Olavian characteristics of academic excellence, showing intellectual curiosity, resilience and imagination in the quality of their work. As a school, we are incredibly proud of their achievements this week, and can only imagine what high-level feats they will be capable of should they choose to take the Sixth Form equivalent qualification, the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ), in two years’ time, whichever course or university they have applied for.