The Excellence Newsletter Autumn Term 2021 Dear Parents, We are delighted to present to you the Autumn 2021 Excellence Newsletter together with the Excellence Programme. We are looking forward to an exciting term, full of Excellence events and competitions. The highlight of it being our much anticipated second TEDxJohnLyonSchool event on Thursday 18th November. We will be in touch nearer the time to confirm timings of the event, but we have an exciting line-up of adult and student speakers who will be addressing the topic of Regeneration from a variety of angles. A reminder that the Excellence talks listed in this newsletter are enrichment provided to all pupils of listed year groups and will take place instead of their usual lessons. We include the details in the newsletter so that you are aware of the guest speakers hosted by the School. However, in the Excellence Programme also attached to this email, is the list of optional events your child can attend and the competitions that they can choose to enter. We encourage pupils and parents to review the programme together and select which events to attend and which competitions to enter. I look forward to seeing your son or daughter take an active part in the Excellence Programme,
Yours sincerely, Dr F Weinberg Head of Scholars FRW@johnlyon.org
GUEST SPEAKERS Three women astronomers and what they discovered | Y7 - Y11
Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell Monday 13th September, 8.50am Jocelyn Bell Burnell DBE is an astrophysicist responsible for the discovery of pulsars while a radio astronomy graduate student in Cambridge, and has subsequently worked in gamma ray, X-ray, infrared and millimetre wavelength astronomy. She currently holds a Professorial Fellowship in Mansfield College, University of Oxford, and is a Visiting Academic in the University's Department of Physics. She was awarded the Michael Faraday Prize (2010) and a Royal Medal (2015) by the Royal Society and also holds major awards from French, Spanish and USA bodies. A member of seven Academies worldwide, she was the first female President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (as well as of the Institute of Physics). She is currently Chancellor of the University of Dundee and was previously a Pro Vice Chancellor of Trinity College Dublin. She holds numerous Honorary Doctorates. We are delighted that Jocelyn will be talking to students about her incredible work.
The Russian Enigma | Y10 – U6
Stephen Dalziel Tuesday 14th December, 11.55am Stephen Dalziel is Russian specialist who worked for the BBC World Service as Russian Affairs Analyst for 16 years as a correspondent and broadcaster. He followed the fall of Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and reported on and from the USSR and post-Soviet Russia on the collapse of the Soviet Union and the chaos of the post-Soviet years. He interviewed many Soviet and Russian dignitaries, including Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin and Eduard Shevardnadze. Since leaving the BBC in 2004, Stephen Dalziel spent five years as Executive Director of the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce, and now runs his own development business. This involves media and presentation training, editing, writing and translating from Russian to English. While at the BBC, Stephen Dalziel wrote and presented a number of radio series and he has had numerous articles published, as well as contributing chapters to books. His own book, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire, was published in 1993. He is still regularly interviewed for BBC Radio and TV. We look forward to hearing Stephen share his knowledge about Russia and answer students’ questions.
Regeneration Thursday 18th November 2021 The second TEDxJohnLyonSchool will look at the world of tomorrow — its science, its health, its economics, its identity — with speakers proposing big ideas and solutions to questions that may yet to be asked.
Ticket and broadcast details to come...