Cherwell Enrichment Wytham Woods Trip:- Pages 40

Academic Enrichment @CherwellEnrich

Contact: Miss Richer (cricher@cherwellschool.org)

Reviewing the moth traps Marshmallows and BBQs

Impromptu interactive tick workshop...

Close badger encounters!

Frankenstein across the curriculum

Academic Enrichment @CherwellEnrich

Contact: Miss Richer (cricher@cherwellschool.org)

One of our GCSE texts in English Literature is Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Frankenstein. As a seminal novel that explores so many big themes, it provide the perfect springboard for a series of enrichment projects this term across the curriculum, combining science, history, ethics, philosophy, drama, music and environmentalism.

Frankenstein: Museum of the History of Science seminar

Year 11 met with Christopher Parkin at the Museum of the History Science for a seminar and question and answer session via Google Classroom. We learned about some of the scientific inspirations behind the novel, the feasibility of Victor’s experiments in real life and the novel’s legacy in how we think about and report popular science today.

Some students then used the seminar as inspiration for their English GCSE speeches, delivered with real engagement, thought and clarity to their classes. For an example of the varied ways students reflected on the novel, take a look at a sample ‘conversation of ideas’, compiled by a group of students for the Cherwell Journal: https://thekeystage4review.wordpress.com/frankenstein-aconversation-of-ideas/

Virtual Seminar and Live Q&A

Cherwell Journal: A Conversation Of Ideas

Speeches to the class

Frankenstein across the curriculum

Academic Enrichment @CherwellEnrich

Contact: Miss Richer (cricher@cherwellschool.org)

Frankenstein, Science and Ethics: Year 10 Research Project

We were excited to be selected for a new, innovative collaborative research project with the Ethox Centre, Wellcome Trust and Creation Theatre. With funds from the University of Oxford’s Public Engagement Fund, we were lucky to benefit from a bespoke programme, designed collaboratively, to use Frankenstein as a springboard for thinking creatively and ambitiously about ideas across the curriculum.

Students met on Friday evenings from 4pm-6pm over eight weeks to hear from University researchers about their work, discuss some of the debate points arising from the research and then creating something new under the expert guidance of directors and actors from Creation Theatre.

In their creative responses, students composed soundscapes, created concepts for staging, wrote monologues and scripts and even performed their own work. Sessions took place through Google Classroom with students coming up with imaginative ways to put together shared work, making use of objects they could find around them and overcoming the challenges of intermittent technology!

Sessions included:  Duty, rights and responsibilities  Neuro-advancement  The ‘value of being human’ and gene editing  Artificial Intelligence (AI) and ethics - natural or unnatural  Responsibility in medicine and healthcare  Dead or alive or ‘in between’?  Psychiatry, technology and mental health

Performances

To read more of their ideas, keep an eye on the Cherwell Journal: https://thekeystage4review.wordpress.com/