Societies

ACADEMIC politiCs

The Politics Department continued to brave the ever-changing teaching landscape to deliver lessons to boys both in person on the Hill and online via Teams. It was heartening to see the number of boys applying to read Politics and Politics-related degrees at high quality institutions both in the UK and further afield. The number of boys opting to study Politics in the Sixth Form continued to grow, demonstrating the importance of the subject to this generation of Harrovians. It was excellent

The number of boys opting to study Politics continued to grow

to see the foundations laid down by Fifth Formers in the Summer term of 2020 paying off as they began their A level studies as Lower Sixth divisions; they certainly hit the ground running and benefited from their introductory course in political philosophy and UK politics. – Alastair Cook, Head of Politics

theology & philosophy

The necessity of online learning during the lockdown or hybrid learning for the rest of the year required creativity in delivering engaging lessons. We began by flipping the educational experience: Masters in the department deliberately delivered less instructional content when teaching online by getting the boys to prepare the lesson material in advance for ‘prep’, with the expectation that they would be able to work on live problem-solving during the lesson. The boys also worked collaboratively on group presentations – ranging from introducing the monotheistic religions in the Shell year to analysing Freud and Jung in the Upper Sixth.

For the past few years, we have been trying to embed Philosophy for Children (P4C) across the year groups. We attempted with some considerable success to conduct these enquiries online, using philosophical and religious texts as stimuli for discussion. We found that making use of online collaboration spaces where comments could be written by the boys led to deeper and more thoughtful spoken reflections.

During the lockdown, the boys were keen for the Super-Curriculum to continue. One group started to create a philosophy podcast series, which they hope will be ready during 2022. Another group of boys asked for a weekly seminar on the academic reading of the Bible, which was so popular it became quickly oversubscribed.

Andrew Arthur (The Knoll) was awarded third place in the HART Human Rights essay prize for his essay on education in Nigeria. The entries of Edred Clutton (The Knoll) and June Hyun (West Acre) were also both highly commended in their respective categories.

We were delighted to be able to release another edition of the department’s academic journal, which contained articles from boys and beaks on philosophical, theological and ethical matters.

– John McAleer,

Head of Theology & Philosophy

Photograph by Unbekannt Upper Sixth Formers studied Freud (left) and Jung (right)

VAughAn liBrAry

Autumn 2020 was an unusual start for the School and the Vaughan Library. We opened our doors to bubbled groups of boys, with sanitising stations and marked routes around the building. Despite the limitations on access and fewer numbers permitted inside, we successfully introduced every new Shell to the library. We updated our Library Management System to ensure all boys and staff could access the Vaughan Library catalogue via Firefly. This meant that we had more online enquiries this year and fewer personal visits, and we were reliant on emailing our booklists and photographs of the exhibitions as our footfall was limited.

We decided to build upon our collection of books on equality and diversity issues. In October, we launched Diversity Matters, a display of books and a booklist by Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority authors on a range of themes. The collection includes classic and contemporary novels, historical accounts of Black and British history and contemporary analysis of race politics.

The boys in The Guild embarked on the Desert Island Discs podcast series, where members of The Guild interviewed staff. It was a huge success, and 18 episodes were broadcast; as well as music choices, each interviewee recommended one book. The display of Desert Island Books in the Vaughan included all the book choices.

We created a new collection of graphic novels, as classic books such as Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and Portrait of a Dubliner by James Joyce have been reprinted in graphic novel format.

Pride Month in June gave us the opportunity to promote our LGBTQ+ collections to all boys and staff in the School and make the Vaughan Library a rainbow festival.

Speech Day Prizes 2021

Two hundred boys were awarded prizes this year and 705 books were ordered through the Vaughan Library. The most popular authors were George Orwell, Malorie Blackman, Richard Feynman, Professor Ian Stewart, J D Salinger, Steven D Levitt, Stephen J Dubner, J R R Tolkien, Tim Marshall and Friedrich Nietzsche.

The most popular titles included Hold Still: A Portrait of our Nation in 2020, A Promised Land by Barack Obama, The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman, Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker and Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu.

Photography and cookery books proved a popular choice: Japan: The Cookbook, Mob Kitchen and Atsuko’s Japanese Kitchen. Books on nature and the environment were also in demand: The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, Blue Planet II, A Life on Our Planet by David Attenborough and How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates.

– Marie Staunton,

Head of Library and Archive

LEXANDER SOCIETY

MILITARY HISTORY

The first talk of the academic year was given by Finn Maydon (The Grove). He spoke on the subject of ‘Waterloo, was it really a British victory at all?’, arguing that it was Britain’s European allies who really tipped the balance in the battle. Peter Cartwright (The Grove) gave a talk on the Battle of Assaye, focusing on whether it was the fiercest battle ever fought. Henry Ridley (The Park) discussed ‘King Philip’s War: The War that defined America’, giving a new perspective on a largely forgotten chapter of US history. Baba Obatoyinbo (The Knoll) spoke on the Nigerian Civil War, describing its causes, course, consequences and how its divisions can still be felt in modern-day Nigeria. Cyberwarfare was the topic of a talk by Physics beak Dr Chris Crowe, who explained how cyberwarfare is developing and how countries are trying to defend themselves against it. Hector Rogberg (Druries) lectured on ‘Lions of the North: How the Swedes saved protestant Europe’; Henry Farquhar (Lyon’s) spoke about ‘The face of battle: Stories from the men who fought at Stalingrad’; Joseph Wragg (The Grove) gave ‘A survey of warfare in the ancient Mediterranean world’; and Leo Waschkuhn (Lyon’s) presented a paper on ‘Why was the Tiger the most feared tank in World War II’.

THE ALEXANDER SOCIETY

welcomes Shaan Nagra (CST)

‘The unanticipated Japanese triumph in the Russo-Japanese War’

Tuesday 25 May, 5pm

VAUGHAN LIBRARY

Mars

ASTRONOMY SOCIETY

Head of the Astronomy Society Neil Kumar (West Acre) organised many observing evenings and lectures from interested boys. These included a talk by Henry Webster (Druries), who gave an insightful introduction into the physics of black holes, and a talk titled ‘The Dyson Sphere and how to build one’ by Penn Behagg (Elmfield), in which he described this hypothetical megastructure, which would surround the Sun and provide power to a whole new civilisation. Inigo Sanchez-Asiain (The Grove) argued for the existence of a multiverse and examined what its implications might be, and Apollo Wilkins (The Knoll) gave a talk on cryogenics and how it might allow us to travel distances through space that were previously thought impossible, as well as discussing how bodies have been frozen on Earth and whether it might be possible to wake someone from cryosleep. Julian Herschel’s (The Grove) talk looked in detail at the design of Space X’s latest rocket, nicknamed ‘Starship’, and Atticus Malley (The Head Master’s) discussed how living on Mars might be possible in the future.

ATHENAEUM SOCIETY

INTELLECTUAL EXPLORATION

The society enjoyed a mixture of traditional and online lectures. Adam Ait El Caid (Druries) spoke about ‘Eternal life: The impossible dream?’ and explored the scientific methods that might one day make living forever possible, as well as discussing how society would have to change if death were to be conquered. Matthew Harrison (West Acre) gave a talk on the topic of ‘Molecular drills’, which looked at biological machines and their applications. Gareth Tan (Moretons) explored how the malfunctioning of memory has been represented in literature and reflected on history in his lecture ‘Our malfunctioning memory’, and Sergey Antipovsky’s (West Acre) talk, ‘Why do governments intervene?’ considered what would theoretically happen in a completely free market economy and why some form of government intervention is necessary for stability.

SOCIETIES ATLANTIC SOCIETY

NORTH AMERICAN CULTURE AND POLITICS

Among the lectures delivered to members of the Atlantic Society was ‘The American Constitution: can it be followed today without infringing human rights?’. The speaker, Alexander Newman (Druries), outlined why he believed the constitution cannot be adhered to in a contemporary context and why it is in need of reform. In another talk, Remi Jokosenumi (Lyon’s) described one of the most interesting topics in the history of the USA: the path to the African American vote. Remi focused on the disenfranchisement of African Americans in the build-up to the civil rights movement and the fight for the right to vote. CASPIAN SOCIETY CULTURE AND POLITICS OF COUNTRIES SURROUNDING THE CASPIAN SEA

The Caspian Society participated in a fascinating and insightful talk by Alnur Abuov (Druries), Edward Blunt (Elmfield) and Archie Powell (The Head Master’s) entitled ‘Personality cults in southern ex-Soviet republics after the collapse of the USSR’, in which they heard about Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, the leader of Turkmenistan, Islam Karimov, the leader of Uzbekistan 1990–2016, and Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan 1990–2019, and their rise through government ranks to become iconic “fathers” of their respective nations, in some ways resembling some of the leaders of the bygone Soviet era.

Photograph by Allan Mustard (CC-BY-SA 4.0) Statue of Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, leader of Turkmenistan

COMPUTER SCIENCE SOCIETY

The Computer Science Society hosted a series of lectures both remotely and in person from boys, beaks and external speakers. David Xu (The Grove) designed and built a new high-performance society PC which can run simulations 25 times faster than the current set of hardware. The society plans to use this new machine to further explore AI and machine learning.

Society meetings remained well attended with engaging sessions focused on rebuilding desktop PCs, tweaking architecture to produce more powerful systems, and occasional gaming. The society again upgraded the six desktop machines with more powerful graphics cards and CPUs, extra RAM and better processors and motherboards. A special high-performance cluster was installed in the Physics Department to allow enthusiastic computer scientists to use high-end software that is unsuitable for operation on their mobile devices. Upgraded Oculus Quest VR headsets allowed boys to walk around distant cities, play virtual sports, design in 3D, and even sit down to meet famous celebrities.

Leo Waschkuhn (Lyon’s) won the first budget-PC-building competition, for which boys were tasked with designing a desktop gaming PC for under £150, featuring recycled parts and discount hardware.

An off-shoot from the society, Team Enigma, designed an ecological project aimed at using sensor stations placed around the Hill to collect weather and air pollution data. Data will be fed into an AI model to make future predictions. The team plans to collect feedback from boys to gauge emotions and feelings throughout the day, to investigate any interesting correlations between environment conditions and School-life satisfaction. One member of Team Enigma, Vincent Song (The Head Master’s) also delivered a series of lectures on AI, covering the foundations of deep learning, computer vision techniques, and natural language processing.

CHESS CLUB

The usual calendar of chess tournaments was cancelled and all the matches that were in the pipeline were called off. Additionally, the coaching agreement which had just been set up with the president of Harrow Chess Club came to an abrupt end just as it was about to get going. We hope that all these things will become possible again in the near future.

Towards the end of the year, the House Chess Competition (for the highly prized Chess Chalice) was able to take place, albeit in an adjusted online format, and it proved to be a very exciting battle (at one point the top six Houses were separated by a single point!). Eventually, The Grove came out on top, with Liron Chan proving a revelation as their top player, having decided to spend lockdown learning how to play. – James Hall, Master-in-Charge

HDT funded the Computer Science Society’s high performance PC.

D

A VINCI SOCIETY

ENGINEERING

The Da Vinci Society talks were predominantly boy led, allowing them to develop and display their enthusiasm for engineering. Particular highlights included an insightful talk by Aurélien Josserand (Newlands) on how aeroplanes are adapted for flight, and an excellent talk by Kevin Zhang (The Head Master’s) on how to manufacture elite running trainers. At a joint Da Vinci and Astronomy Society meeting, Q Sun (Moretons) spoke about engineering on the Moon, covering some of the aspects of engineering that would be much more difficult in the vast expanses of partial vacuums.

Photograph by Adrian Pintstone Aurélien Josserand explained how aeroplanes are adapted for flight

DEBATING SOCIETY

The School Debating Society enjoyed a successful year overall. The 1st Team won the second round of the English-Speaking Union (ESU) Debating Competition. Aakash Aggarwal (Lyon’s), William Wauchope (The Knoll) and Dylan Winward (Lyon’s) overcame five schools to earn a place at the ESU semi-finals in March. Harrow proposed the motion ‘This house would embrace emotion in public discourse over dispassionate objectivity’ and were opposed by a very strong team from Queensgate. The boys capitalised on their forceful expression and delivery to overcome their opponents. They were also able to outshine other strong competitors in the rounds, from Ibstock Place School, Godolphin & Latymer, St Michael’s Catholic Grammar School and King’s College School Wimbledon. The 1st Team argued brilliantly in the semi-finals, on the motion that ‘This house would ban corporate funding of research within higher education institutions’ but were not able to overcome a very strong team from Bishop’s Stortford High School.

The Harrow A Team of Alexander Newman (Druries) and Vincent Song (The Head Master’s) won first place in the London Middle Schools open debating competition. The boys beat eight other schools, including Benenden School, Francis Holland, Godolphin & Latymer and Putney High. The Harrow B Team, Aum Amin (Elmfield) and Robert Young (The Grove) were placed fifth overall in the competition of 18 teams.

In the Oxford Schools’ Union debate, Haiwei Li (Bradbys) and Ezekiel Akinsanya (Lyon’s) were placed second in the Novice category. Both boys started in the Debating Society in September 2020 and, with hard work and practice, did tremendously well not only to advance to the OSU finals but to end up only a few points behind first place – an impressive start to their debating careers.

The Debating Society was also especially active over Zoom, and held exhibition debates against Eton, Harrow School Online, an iDebate team from Rwanda, and Godolphin & Laytmer School.

The 1st Team also enjoyed a lively yet friendly match against a beaks team. The motion, proposed by the beaks, was to abolish private schools. The boys argued forcefully for the advantages of private education, and won the debate easily – and with full-throated support from an audience of mostly boys. – Steven Kennedy, Master-in-Charge

Boys v beaks debate

The Gutenberg Bible in the New York Public Library

Photograph by Kevin Eng (CC-BY-SA 2.0)

LAMBARDS CHRISTIAN UNIONF G

Flambards continued to meet each week despite the disruption of the pandemic. The meetings ranged from online Microsoft Teams calls to in-person meetings in the Hill Café. The Autumn term series consisted mainly of online talks and focused on the gospel of Mark, and various OHs (James Baron (Newlands 19702), Johnny Farrar-Bell (Moretons 20043) and Adrian May (West Acre 19843)) returned to the Hill to speak. The Spring term series was delivered exclusively through Microsoft Teams and changed focus to study the book of Genesis, with Philip Leung (The Park 20083) also returning to the Hill to speak to the boys. The Summer term series focused on the book of Hebrews and was the first term where visiting speakers (including Brian Wong (The Knoll 20013)) could deliver talks in person to the boys. The meetings were well attended throughout the year despite the variety of models that they took. – Johny Marsden, Master-in-Charge

GORE SOCIETY

THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

Despite the difficulties in bringing external speakers to the Hill, thanks to the creativity and endeavour of boys and beaks the society saw some fantastic internal lectures from boys on such varied topics as Wittgenstein’s pre-linguistic philosophy, and the sociology of cults. Other highlights included a poignant and prescient lecture from Dr Spencer Bentley on the effect pandemics had on religious conversion in the ancient world, and a wonderful three-lecture series in collaboration with the Perceval Society around the influence of religion in African cultures. At a joint meeting with Scientific Society, Professor Meric Srokosz, who is Associate Director at the Faraday Institute of Science and Religion at Cambridge and also associated with the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, spoke on the subjects of climate change and fake news, and the relationship between science and religion. The Spring term also saw the revival of the Gore Society magazine, with a second edition on ‘Equality, Rights and Justice’.

EOGRAPHY SOCIETY

The Geography Society enjoyed a wide range of lectures, delivered both online and in person. Olly Harrison (The Knoll) gave a presentation on the ills of social inequality, discussing the trade-off between economic growth and equality in advanced countries. William Barrett and Dimitri Samonas (both The Knoll) together delivered a lecture on why cellular aquaculture is the future, analysing the drawbacks of commercial fishing and introducing this method of lab-grown fish as the alternative in the future of food production. Freddie Taylor (Newlands) gave the final lecture of the year to the society on how the UK was made. He walked through how the UK was formed from its physical foundations to how British culture has changed and developed over time. Freddie also gave a talk called ‘The most secretive places on Earth’, in which he discussed the five places that he believed to be among the most secure and well-guarded on Earth. The talk encompassed the location as well as the origin and purpose of these places.

A group of Upper Sixth geographers presented their coursework projects to the current Lower Sixth on topics ranging from inequality to infiltration, which sparked the interest and inspired the creativity of the next cohort for their own projects. The society also had the pleasure of welcoming Dr Andrew Lee to speak on ‘Why Geography?’. Dr Lee described the importance of Geography as an academic subject and gave insight into what Geography entails at university. – Ezekiel Akinsanya (Lyon’s)

Area 51, one of the most secret places on Earth

ISPANIC SOCIETY SPAIN AND THE SPANISH-SPEAKING WORLDH

In the inaugural meeting of the Hispanic Society, Remi Jokosenumi and Edward Pagani (both Lyon’s) spoke on ‘The influence of the Moors in southern Spain’ and their enduring effect on Spanish language and culture. Other speakers included Jake Ramus (Lyon’s), who spoke on ‘The Costa Rican Civil War: 44 days of bloodshed for lasting peace’, highlighting how bloodshed led to nearly a century of growth and progress. Lucas Maia (Druries) discussed ‘Hispanic history and culture in America’, tackling important issues such as race and equality. Hispanic Society members were also delighted to be addressed by author John Hooper on his book The New Spaniards.

The Alhambra in Granada, an example of Moorish influence in Spain

New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina

P HARTLEY SOCIETY CREATIVE WRITINGL

Photograph by Jebulon (CCO 1.0)

UNIOR LABORDE SOCIETY LOWER SCHOOL GEOGRAPHYJ

Despite the disruption to the Spring term, we were fortunate enough to welcome speakers on topics such as ‘The geographical impacts of metal extraction’, ‘Why does South Africa have such a diverse landscape’ and ‘Hurricane Katrina: an inevitable disaster or government failure?’. A particular highlight this year was a lecture titled ‘The sustainable development goals: It may be too late to save the goals but is it too late to save the dream’, which provoked a thoughtful and insightful debate among participants. – Jay Raithatha (Druries) The L P Hartley Society meets once every half-term to enjoy work from a particular author, poet or playwright and to use this work to inspire their own writing. Meetings also allow boys time to share and to discuss samples of their writing. The year’s inaugural workshop was led by Gareth Tan (Moretons) who presented on ‘The fantastical world of Haruki Murakami’, the bestselling Japanese writer, and inspired some outstanding surrealist pieces from boys. When Dylan Winward (Lyon’s) led a session on ‘The Gothic’ on a cold rainy night in midNovember, we were already attending events in an online format. The sessions continued online with workshops from Remi Jokosenumi (Lyon’s), who gave a session inspired by Tom Hanks’ book of short stories, Uncommon Type, where all the stories are linked through a typewriter. Alexander Newman (Druries) followed with the subject of ‘Using religion to reframe your narrative’. Indi Abrams’ (The Grove) talk on writing psychological literature was a highlight as we celebrated our return to in-person presentations. Cameron Elliot (West Acre) closed off the year with an exciting session on writing thrillers.

The Abbey in the oak wood by Caspar David Friedrich Dylan Winward led a session on ‘The Gothic’

ATHEMATICAL SOCIETYM

The Mathematical Society had a very active year and saw a huge number of talks from boys and beaks on topics including the golden ratio, “mathmagics”, game theory, curve sketching, the Rubik’s cube, public key encryption, Bernoulli numbers, topology and the Fibonacci Sequence. PEEL SOCIETY HISTORY AND POLITICS

During the year, the Peel Society heard a series of talks on the theme of ‘History’s forgotten’. Subjects included the Haitian Revolution, which was the most successful slave revolt in history and led to the island’s independence from France in 1804, a talk titled ‘Legal slaves: India’s indentured labourers’, which described the labourers brought from India to work in South Africa, and another on Gustavus Adolphus and the rise of Sweden as a Great Power. Members of the society also enjoyed a series of talks on espionage. The first, delivered by Tamin Downe (The Grove) was on ‘Conquering a state without a single bullet: The history of subversion’. The second, from Sam Phillips (Moretons), was called ‘Was the USA or the USSR more successful at Cold War espionage?’. Other talks looked at the impact of the Culper Ring on the outcome of the American Revolution, and international espionage during the Spanish Civil War. The society also held a meeting in which members found out more about Time magazine’s Person of the Year, reviewed former winners and discussed the year’s potential candidates.

THE PEEL SOCIETY welcomes Munachi Nnatuanya (CO) ‘International Espionage in the Spanish Civil War’

Tuesday 8 June, 9.10pm OLD SCHOOLS 5 Friday 15 January, 4.15pm, Online

Please email JPM if you would like to attend this online event

RIENTAL SOCIETYO

The Oriental Society heard a series of talks from members. Edos Herwegh Vonk (Newlands) delivered a talk entitled ‘Deng Xiaoping: Economic visionary, draconian despot or both?’. Herwegh Vonk’s talk informed the audience about a fascinating chapter of Chinese history, navigating the extraordinary life of Deng Xiaoping and discussing his enduring legacy. Tamir Zolboo (The Head Master’s) gave a lecture, ‘From Genghis Khan to today: the rise and fall of the Mongol Empire’, which described what Mongolia was like pre-empire and how Genghis Khan united tribes across the region to form one of the strongest empires in history. Benjamin Thu Ya (Elmfield) talked to the society about Myanmar, or Burma, covering topics including Burmese culture, cuisine and politics. The prevalence and influence of religious cults in South Korea was the topic of another talk that explored several of the cults that have established themselves in South Korea and looked at why the South Koreans seem to be so susceptible to their influence. Kiefer Yeo (The Head Master’s) presented a lecture on ‘The origins of Chinese ceramics: Their significance and influence’.

The remains of Carthage, a city discussed in a talk to the society

PERCEVAL SOCIETY

AFRICAN AND CARIBBEAN CULTURE AND HISTORY

Photograph by Christian Manhart (CC-BY-SA 3.0 IGO)

Remi Jokosenumi (Lyon’s) gave an in-depth insight into the history of the culture surrounding Africans and their hair. The talk was entitled ‘Braid: the history behind the knots’. He described the true significance of braids in Africa, how they are used as a medium for socialising and building relationships, and how people used them to express their identities. The talk also explored the meaning of hair in slavery and how hair has been used as an expression of rebellion over the years. He finished by speaking about reform in hair-based race relations. Joseph Wragg (The Grove) delivered an online lecture, ‘Frontier and Gateway of empires: North Africa, a history’, in which he described the history of North Africa from the time of Phoenicia and Carthage to the present day, outlining the importance of expansion and considering how North Africa used to be one of the richest places in the world.

Pigou Society members learnt about game theory

PIGOU SOCIETY

ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS

The Pigou Society invited a wide range of speakers including Daniel Austin (Rendalls 1987³), who discussed his work in property finance and the significance and importance of current and historical factors such as the UK crashing out of the ERM or, more recently, massive quantitative easing programmes. Siddharth Prasad, Global Head of Finance at Nomura, gave an insight into the world of finance. Former beak Alex Rusby returned to talk about behavioural science in a memorable lecture that had everyone making mistakes and thinking fast. In response to the boys’ requests for more beak-led talks, Mr Escott spoke on game theory and Miss Heatherill gave an introduction to financial markets. Bilal Rashid (Elmfield) did an outstanding job of leading the society.

Talks given by boys in the School included: ■ ‘Economics of the NBA’ – Alfred Sun (Bradbys) ■ ‘Speculative bubbles always go pop’ – Kevin Zheng (Newlands) ■ ‘Is sustainability a drag on growth?’ – Issah Merchant (The Knoll) ■ ‘Bitcoin? No, blockchain: more than magic internet money’ – Leo Jiang (The Knoll) ■ ‘Financialisation and progressive capitalism’ – Leon Kinaro (Moretons) ■ ‘Venezuela: the unexpected crisis’ –

Kyle Debrah (Elmfield) and

Hugo Anderson (Newlands) ■ ‘Is macroeconomic stability just a dream?’ – Ezekiel Akinsanya (The Knoll) ■ ‘Redlining: wealth restriction and real estate segregation’ – Remi Jokosenumi (Lyon’s)

Talks from members of the Junior Pigou Society included: ■ ‘SpaceX and NASA: a story of innovation, exploration and adaptation’ – Alexander Newman (Druries) ■ ‘Inflation, deflation or stagflation: where are we heading?’ – Adiran Inpan (Bradbys) ■ ‘How to make profit in the video games market’ – Mark Liu (Druries) ■ ‘The maths behind trading’ – Henry Webster (Druries) ■ ‘The Rise of Apple’ –

Cameron Elliot (West Acre) ■ ‘It is a monopoly, but you can’t advance to go’ – Michel Quist and

Vlad Plyushchenko (both The Grove)

Antonio da Silveira Pinheiro (The Park) gave a joint Junior Classics and Junior Pigou Society lecture on Rome’s financial crisis of 33AD: ‘Who was to blame and how did quantitative easing rescue Rome?’, which explored this obscure yet fascinating financial crisis that has in part shaped the way our economy works today.

PSYCHOLOGY SOCIETY

The first Psychology Society meeting of the year featured a talk by Joseph Mclean (Druries) on ‘Essentialism: why we are attracted to the hidden aspects of things and people’. In later meetings, Sam McGougan (Bradbys) gave a fascinating introduction to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and Que Akhavan Zanjani (Druries) delivered a complex talk on Karl Jung and his life studies and findings. Aarav Tribhuvan (Moretons) outlined how post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) manifests itself and explained that statistics suggest that three in 100 people in the UK will have experienced PTSD at some point in their lives. Alex Adefarasin (The Grove) spoke to the society about Rorschach’s Inkblot test in a talk full of psychological insights, comedy and practical demonstrations. The infamous Stanford Prison Experiment was the subject of a talk by Archie Tate (The Head Master’s).

THE PSYCHOLOGY SOCIETY

welcomes Sam McGougan (DJE)

‘The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: A Study of Ourselves’

Thursday 13 May, 9.10pm

NEW SCHOOLS 10

THE PSYCHOLOGY SOCIETY

welcomes Alex Adefarasin (CST)

‘The Rorschach Inkblot’

CIENTIFIC SOCIETYS

There were more talks given by boys and beaks than ever before, courtesy of the very active Scientific Society secretaries Q Sun (Moretons), Simon Luo (Bradbys), Krish Nigam (Moretons) and Henry To (The Grove). One of the highlights was a talk entitled ‘Beyond quantum computation: the science of can and can’t’ by Dr Chiara Marletto. Dr Marletto is Professor David Deutsch’s collaborator in developing Constructor Theory, a proposal for a new mode of explanation in fundamental physics. Other visiting speakers included Thanos Kildaras of Imperial College, who spoke about ‘Lunar Geology and the Apollo Missions’. PhD student Joshua Rasera, also of Imperial, stayed with the moon to discuss spaceresource utilisation and mining on the moon. A third speaker from Imperial, Stanley Starr, gave an insightful talk entitled ‘Living off the Land on Mars’. Mr Starr worked at the Kennedy Space Center for over 37 years. At NASA, he worked on the development of the space shuttle programme before becoming part of the Mars mission-planning team. Dr Glenn Hurst, Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of York, spoke on the topic of ‘Empowering the next generation to propel us towards a greener and more sustainable society’, and Dr Ian Miller, Lecturer in Medical History at Ulster University, talked on ‘Science, the Irish famine and dietary change c.1845–1900’.

The Rayleigh Lecture 2021 was given by Professor Neil Ferguson, a name that has become very well known since the outbreak of the Covid pandemic. Professor Ferguson is Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of Imperial, former epidemiologist at the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, founding director of the Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics and MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis. He spoke on ‘How vaccines and variants are shaping epidemiology and policy in the COVID-19 pandemic’.

Talks given by boys and beaks included: ■ ‘Amino acids: how they shaped the world’ – Nicklas Host-Verbraak (The Head Master’s) ■ ‘Paradoxes of Special Relativity’ – Brandon Chang (Druries) ■ ‘Bayesian Theory: the science behind false tests’ – Matthew Chin (Bradbys) ■ ‘The hunt for magnetic monopoles’ – Edos Herwegh Vonk (Newlands) ■ ‘Fluid dynamics: the wacky world of wind and water’ – Jonathan Barley (The Grove) ■ ‘The ingredients of the Universe – from

the Big Bang and r-processes to elements’ – Chris Liu (The Head Master’s) ■ ‘The chemistry of colour: from conjugation length to the Schroedinger equation’ – Henry Webster (Druries) ■ ‘Human-parasite interactions: a brief history and possible future’ – Will Tate (The Knoll) ■ ‘Annoying allergies: why do we sneeze?’ – June Hyun (West Acre) ■ Bringing back the woolly mammoth: a stepping-stone for mankind or a fruitless endeavour? – Newton Zhu (The Head Master’s) ■ ‘MOSFET: the gateway to technology’ – David Xu (The Grove) ■ ‘The Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984’ – Aum Amin (Elmfield) ■ ‘The world of real-life zombies’ – Charlie Read (The Grove) ■ ‘Designing new antibiotics – taking on the superbugs’ –

Dr Jonathan Lockett

SCULPTURE SOCIETY

The Sculpture Society, launched in January 2021, hosted artists, teachers, pupils and professionals with excellent knowledge in this field of the visual arts. One highlight was Jane McAdam Freud, Fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculptors, with a talk on ‘Content, context and process’, which took us on an insightful journey into her work. Jane is represented in the British Museum and the V&A and, in 2014, won the European Trebbia award for achievement in the arts. Matt Hughes, Head of Modelling at Framestore, gave an insight into ‘The art of VFX’. An Oscar-winning creative studio, Framestore has worked with some of the greatest storytellers in film today. Professional taxidermist Elle Kaye gave a fascinating talk titled ‘Preservation of our species’, and Benji Xu and Vadim Gurinov (both The Grove), the secretaries of the society, held an online interview with Clare Burnett, President of the Royal Society of Sculptors.

SHERIDAN SOCIETY

LITERATURE AND WRITING

The Sheridan Society produced another stellar array of speakers. Max Morgan (Moretons) opened the season with a dissection of Sylvia Plath’s confessional poetry, while Joseph Wragg (The Grove) transported us to the world of Tolkien’s Silmarillion. Our American specialists Hector Michelin (Elmfield) and Remi Jokosenumi (Lyon’s) led the way in the second term with their talks on the Beat generation and the Harlem Renaissance respectively.

A highlight of the Harrovian presentations was delivered by Indi Abrams (The Grove) who used his own writing as an example to talk boys through writing a fight scene.

Later in the year, we were able to welcome external speakers to the Hill. We heard from Dr Emily Taylor-Pirie about literature and medicine in the 19th century. This opened boys’ eyes to the cross-over of science and literature and included a fantastic Contagion Cabaret!

SLAVONIC SOCIETY

RUSSIAN-SPEAKING COUNTRIES AND EASTERN EUROPE

The Slavonic Society calendar started with a visit from the newly appointed Ambassador of Russia to the United Kingdom, His Excellency Andrei Vladimirovich Kelin. In his address, the Ambassador outlined the constantly shifting diplomatic relationship between the United Kingdom and Russia over the last 450 years. He emphasised that, regardless of the political climate, the two partners have sustained their diplomatic relationship even through the uncertain times of conflict. After tackling the topic of fake news and its impact on international relationships in the 21st century, the Ambassador discussed how coronavirus had affected economic activity in the Russian Federation.

While in distance-learning mode, members of the Slavonic and Caspian Societies joined girls from St Paul’s Girls’ School for an insightful online talk by Professor Richard Mole of UCL entitled ‘Sexuality and nationality in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia’, which was a crash course in the history of the Russian attitude towards sexuality and how it has changed over the country’s turbulent history.

This was followed by a talk by Blesk Ekpenyong (Druries) and his father entitled ‘Black skin in the Red Land: Does modernday Russia need a Black Lives Matter movement?’. The talk, which was hugely enriched by Mr Ekpenyong’s stories from his time spent as a Nigerian student in the USSR, broke many commonly held stereotypes, concluding that if Russia were to have a BLM movement it would need to be rebranded to prevent Russians from merely seeing it as a Western idea that has no relevance in Russia.

Later, members of the society, along with students from other schools, were invited by the Russian Embassy to participate in a meeting with the Russian cosmonaut Sergey Ryazanskiy to mark the 60th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s historical space mission.

In the Summer term, the society was treated to an online lecture from Thomas Hobbs (Newlands) entitled ‘Soviet propaganda: The fight for the hearts and minds of Russia’s young people’. After a brief overview of the background of the USSR, Hobbs expounded on how propaganda was the Bolsheviks’ most important tool of governance as it was the key to unifying the people of the 15 republics that made up the Union, and how an effective youth indoctrination programme played a crucial role in achieving this goal.

To conclude the eventful academic year, the senior members of the Slavonic Society attended a traditional farewell reception for leavers, where they could indulge themselves in a variety of Eastern European dishes.

Members of the Slavonic Society

His Excellency Andrei Vladimirovich Kelin, Russian Ambassador