25 May 2023
The summer term’s Thinking Big talks began, fittingly, with a focus on cricket from Mr Peachey and Mr Kellaway, since when four Lower Sixth students have taken their lunchtime audiences on succinct 20-minute journeys of discovery through the Tudor period, space, young adult literature and robotics.
As well as impressing students and staff with their knowledge of and enthusiasm for their specialist topics, speakers have shared interesting hypotheses and fascinating pieces of information with their audiences, such as:
The James Webb telescope can see back in time to around 200 million years after the creation of the universe. If a James Webb telescope was situated 20 million light years away from Earth, it would view a world of dinosaurs. The James Webb Space telescope: a short introduction – Sophie W
The first recorded women’s cricket match was in 1745. A woman invented overarm bowling. “Cricket’s refusal to play into the modern world’s desire for instant gratification is what makes it great.” Why cricket matters – Mr Kellaway and Mr Peachey
[About witch trials in the Tudor period] “If you own a pet and you’re a single woman, you’re a witch. I don’t make the rules. The trials and tests were ridiculous and nothing but prejudice against women.” The prejudice against Elizabethan women – Imo P W
Using the Da Vinci SP robotic system, the operating surgeon only needs to make one small incision through which the robotic arm is inserted, after which four different tools are programmed to extend inside the patient’s body. What even is robotic surgery? – Alison N
The ‘pretty privilege’ which increasingly protects ‘glorified’ morally grey – usually handsome, young-looking men – from scrutiny by many readers of YA fiction could translate to the same behaviour in real life by impressionable young readers. The morally grey epidemic in young adult fantasy – Ava D