Extended Project Qualification

The 2022 EPQ cohort has got off to a tremendous start with over 60 boys registering a truly extraordinary breadth of topics. Some of my current favourites are: 

• Is the Philosophy of Stoicism relevant to modern life in the UK? (Ed Ursell (L6c)) 
• What early 20th century American event most influenced the birth of Jazz music? (Maxim Lewis (L6a) 
• Endemic vs Epidemic: An investigation into the effect of COVID-19 on malaria research in the principle African malaria regions between 2018-2021 (Ben Smith-Bingham (L6d) 
• To what extent can Unreal Engine be used to model psychological interpretations of dreams? A history of the analysis of dreams in 3D. (Ogi Soldatovic L6a)) 
• How do the themes of law and justice differ throughout the works of Agatha Christie, and why is this the case? (Barney Crawford (L6b) 

The 2022 re-vamp of the Enrichment programme whereby all boys undertook a compulsory Enrichment course that give them a taste of the EPQ and then decided whether or not to apply for it at the end of Michaelmas term worked extremely well and as a result the boys are all very committed and making excellent progress. Having learned all about Gantt charts and the like, the next few weeks are entirely devoted to delving deeply into their individual research and at any point a number of boys may be found busily mining JStor and scribbling down pages of notes. The library has, as always, been a great source of support and the resources available are becoming more diverse every year, including new books on Cryptocurrency and Biomimicry and Agronomics, all things I’d never heard of before reading the boys EPQ proposals. I anticipate an excellent crop of projects to come to fruition over the summer and autumn and very much hope that post-COVID we can welcome boys, staff and parents to a celebratory presentation evening in September.  

We would like to thank all the OS who volunteered their expertise and experience to advise the boys and answer their questions.

Charlotte Allen, Head of History & EPQ Co-ordinator