Academic

Academic State of the union

Fourth Year students Semiloore Bankole and Thushan Peiris competed at Oxford Union Schools Debating competition, and were among the five youngest students in 100 teams at the final at Oxford University.

More than 800 teams from five continents took part in the competition, with 100 teams taking part on Finals Day in March. Competitors came from the likes of Eton and Westminster in the UK, and also flew in from schools in Ireland, the Netherlands, Dubai, India, Canada, and Australia.

The field was mostly comprised of Sixth Form students, with Semiloore and Thushan among just five students of their age or younger. They spoke on motions including regulation of social media platforms, the introduction of a universal basic income, and the rise of citizen journalism. They were regularly singled out for praise by the judges. Despite missing out on the final round by two points, their result put them within the top ten per cent of school-aged debaters worldwide.

Thushan said he had learned a lot of skills, saying, “The pressure of only having 15 minutes to prepare after hearing the motion is so useful for learning how to quickly break down a topic and construct watertight arguments.”

Semiloore agreed it had been a huge learning experience. “My notebook is full of pages of feedback and new technical terms, so next year we can aim to make it even further.”

Debating leader Mr Jack Paterson said the students did “fantastically well” to get this far in such a prestigious competition.

“I was incredibly impressed with their performances, both their debates and their overall conduct. They never seemed out of place or over-awed, whether in the Union Chamber or debating in the Union Library,” he said.

Ms Audrey Lenihan

Enterprising ideas

A group of Lower Sixth Formers won a teamwork award for their business after taking part in the Young Enterprise scheme selling festive cards and personalised stationary.

The team of 14 was led by managing director Aarush Wangoo, finance director Arun Pillai, operations director Kofi Akuoko, sales and marketing director Sam Godfrey and administrative director Jay Rabheru. They sold more than £500 worth of greetings cards over the winter and spring period, both within school and outside, including at the Croydon and Bromley Trade Fair in March 2022. They later won a teamworking award at the area finals for Young Enterprise. The scheme exists to give young people the experience of setting up and running their own business. Economics and Business Studies teacher Ms Georgina Webber, who mentored the group alongside YE’s business advisor, said this year’s company had “benefitted enormously from the experience”.

“Their enthusiasm over the course of the year has been admirable, and throughout their many successes and drawbacks they maintained consistent drive and perseverance,” she said.

“It has been wonderful to witness the progress made by all in a variety of different ways, from the art of democratic leadership to communicating with potential customers and driving home a sale.”

Competing at computing

This year the Computer Science department hosted nine national and international computing-related competitions, ranging from using algorithmic thinking and solving mathematical problems to creating an app for astronauts.

The competitions have offered students the opportunity to develop both their technical skills and other valuable professional skills such as teamwork, problem solving, time management and working towards deadlines. This has really driven up the quality and profile of computer science at Trinity. Students have enjoyed taking their learning outside of the classroom, exploring practical scenarios which would solve real-world problems such as sustainability, climate change, recycling, and food waste. The experience gained from competitions is unmatched, offering students an exciting opportunity to bring their learning to life. With the world becoming increasingly dependent on technology, introducing competitions into the curriculum brings out the best from our learners. Below are some highlights from the year. Mr Monir El Moudden

PA Raspberry Pi 2022

The PA Raspberry Pi competition challenges participants to solve a problem facing society with a Raspberry Pi kit. This year, we entered three teams and a total of 11 students who impressed the judges with their inventions. Second Years Aarian Nair, Ethan Hua, Ali Naqi Rizvi and Aaron George created BikeIt, an application that encouraged people to cycle. First Years Lyam Mosnier and Arihant Tripathy and Second Year Bhumit Madan created a water splitter to generate hydrogen and oxygen using electrolysis, with the aim of powering hydrogen-based vehicles. Third Years Mattia Reuter, Daniil Balakhnin, Asher Falcon and Charlie Pryce produced a product to check swimming pools and lakes for high pH levels from acid rain and pollution, before allowing them to swim safely.

BAFTA

Congratulations to Fourth Year Andrew Ah-Weng for winning the 2022 BAFTA Young Game Designer award for best original game made in the 15 to18 years age category with his game, Space Boids. Space Boids is a roguelike set in space, where the player controls their flock of Boids to fight waves of enemies. In Space Boids, the player travels through a procedurally generated map, fighting enemies and upgrading their Boids. At each encounter, the player battles, gaining money to spend on upgrades and changing their loadouts of Boids. At the end of each run, the player gets a score to represent the progress made throughout the game. Andrew has now won this prestigious award two years in a row. Congratulations!

OUCC 2022

In the Oxford University Computing Challenge (OUCC), 97 students across all year groups participated in Round 1, with 37 students achieving a Merit Award and 3 students achieving a Distinction Award. Well done to Upper Sixth Former George Ogden, Fourth Year Finn, and First Year Jamie who achieved a Distinction Award. A particular congratulations to George who finished in first place nationally, scoring full marks in all rounds of the competition, and beating 786 students in the Elite (age 16 to18) category winning a Raspberry Pi 400 computer.

ESA Astro-Pi challenge – Mission Zero

During Science Week, 125 students from across the school participated in Mission Zero. They wrote some code in Computer Science lessons before sending it off to the International Space Station (ISS) for it to be run in space! All participants were due to receive certificates with the precise location, date, and time of when their programs were run in space. This competition was out of this world!

Bebras

The Bebras Computing challenge is an international competition organised in more than 50 countries by Oxford University, aimed at encouraging computational thinking and enthusiasm. In November 2021, a huge 498 students competed across all year groups at Trinity, answering questions that focused on computational and logical thinking skills. 102 students finished in the top 10 percent nationally, achieving a Gold Award, and progressing to Round 2 of the competition. Arihant Tripathy in the First Year scored a maximum score of 200 points, achieving a Best in School award.

Perse Coding Team challenge

The Perse coding challenge involved all Computer Science students in Third, Fourth and Fifth Year who worked in pairs to tackle a set of programming challenges. The following progressed to the finals: Third Year students Caleb Thompson, Asher Falcon, Ishaq Hussain and William Hooton; Fourth Year students Finn Evans, Sonny Hurwitz, Andrew Ah-Weng, and Leo HowardCalle; and Fifth Year students Ronak De, Arya Bhattacharya, Sumant Dinesh, Ethan Hocquellet and Finley Stirk. Congratulations to Finn, Sonny, Ronak, Arya, Thomas who all achieved a Distinction Award.

British Olympiad

The British Informatics Olympiad (BIO) is an annual programming competition where they stand the chance to represent Great Britain in the prestigious International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI). We had eight students participating this year: Upper Sixth Former George Ogden; Lower Sixth Formers Lucas Rebato, Freddy Matta, Aditya Iyer and Jenson Wong; Fifth Years Dylan Chung Kam Chung and Ronak De, and Third Year Asher Falcon. Congratulations to George who made it through to the competition finals which took place at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Interstellar

16 students participated in this year’s NASA International Space Apps Challenge, with a team of six making it to international judging with their plan for a viable food system for space exploration missions.

The competition, held over a weekend in October, bills itself as an international “hackathon” for coders, scientists, designers, storytellers, makers, builders, technologists, and students. Team Antheia, which was made up of Lower Sixth Former Liam Christian, Lucas Rebato, Dara Adepoju, William Lewis, Josh Binns and Simran Goel, aimed to find a plan to maintain the nutrition and health of a space crew on a long-duration exploration mission. Their viable food system impressed the space agency experts who judged the competition, making them one of only two teams in the London and South East region to progress to the next round. nutritional requirements of a crew of four to six on a transit mission to Mars and back to Earth,” said Liam.

“Our team was comprised of five STEM students as well as a humanities student, all taking particular interest in the challenge. We had 48 hours to design, prototype, and explain how our terrarium would function.

“The challenge was a great experience to use our knowledge and creativity to solve a realworld practical problem. It was an amazing insight into what scientists and researchers go through to design a product.” Meanwhile, in First Year, Bhumit Madan and Lyam Mosnier delivered an outstanding project which took on the challenge of helping to clear the debris orbiting Earth – seeking to develop an open-source geospatial application that displays and locates every known debris object orbiting Earth in real time.

“We chose to design a deployable crop production system that could support the Lower Sixth Formers Joseph Cassidy, Ben Gregory, Samuel Selman and Tommy Sargaison formed another team facing the same challenge. While, for James Sheppard, Freddy Matta, Aditya Iyer, Krishna Nakanathan and Jenson Wong, the challenge was to use environmental data and other information to build a smartphone app that provides individualised, geolocated, COVID-19 risk warnings.

Mr El Moudden, Computer Science teacher, said: “It is incredible to be able to work with such amazingly talented students who participated in the largest annual hackathon on Earth – not least because it was organised by NASA alongside the leading ten global space agencies.”

Ms Audrey Lenihan

Delving deeper

Upper Sixth Formers presented their investigative projects in September which they completed for The Extended Project Qualification (EPQ).

With subjects as wide-ranging as To what extent is Cleft Lip and Palate preventable?, Commercial Nuclear Fusion: Why aren’t we there yet? and How has Brutalism helped shape our perception of social housing in the UK?, this year’s set of EPQs showcase the variety of the research-based qualification, which challenges students to explore an academic topic outside of the classroom. Akin to university-level academic research, it is an opportunity for our students to prepare for what they may encounter at university. At the presentations in September, students were once again able to mix in a “marketplace” style event for parents and visitors, where they talked about their projects and responded to audience questions. Mr Oliver Hutchings

Perfect pitch

Last summer, a group of Lower Sixth students took part in the “Classroom to Boardroom” scheme, where they provided advice to financial firm RedSTART.

“Classroom to Boardroom” asks students to present their ideas and solutions to the board of a real company, in response to a challenge set by the company itself. Our students were welcomed this year by RedSTART, an organisation which helps train people to manage their finances from a young age. Its team works with young people from all backgrounds across the UK.

Student Isaac Croucher said the experience was “fun, intense and enjoyable”. “I felt that I grew as a leader through taking responsibility for my team and I also developed key skills in order to work effectively as a group to produce an outcome in a limited time,” he said.

“I developed my confidence through presenting to an actual panel of directors and investors, and it allowed me to develop a further understanding of how businesses are run and the real-life challenges they face.”

Ms Audrey Lenihan

Space cadets

Three First Year students won the “Galactic Challenge” competition in September, which involved planning a hypothetical mission to rescue stranded scientists from a returned Halley’s Comet.

Ryan Ilmane, Humphrey Bedford and Dylan Odeleye won the competition, organised by the Space Science Engineering Foundation, with a four-page presentation of their ideas including a detailed rocket drawing and a comic strip of the rescue events. The team had to imagine themselves in the year 2061. In the scenario, Halley’s Comet has returned to the Solar System and, on it, five brave scientists have landed. However, their ship has malfunctioned and cannot launch. With only four months of supplies, the crew are now stranded. The team imagined what they would do if they were in charge of the world’s top space rescue organisation, and the judges were looking for science ideas, creativity and presentation skills. “We mixed all of our ideas,” said Ryan. “I really liked Humphrey’s rocket, and how he structured the layout is so logical. Dylan’s comic drawings are so well drawn, and we spent hours after school together to finalise the story.”

In their statement, the judges praised the winning team’s planning and clarity of ideas, and called the comic strip “entertaining”.

Dylan said he spends a lot of time illustrating and drawing comics, and the experience had encouraged him.

“When I found out that we had won, I felt quite excited, and now I’m even more determined to continue drawing and to improve my drawing skills, he said. Ms Audrey Lenihan

Scope for the future

The Physics department acquired three Dobsonian telescopes in March, to help the Second Years enjoy some practical lessons during their study of astronomy.

Dobsonian telescopes are a type of reflecting telescope that is very popular in the visual astronomy community. The design was created by John Dobson in 1965, who wanted to make amateur astronomy more accessible. Students also enjoyed an evening of astronomy, which started with a talk by Sixth Former and astronomy enthusiast Mahdeia Hidary.

“We then travelled to Sandilands, where our suite of new reflecting telescopes is stored, to gaze at the heavens,” said Ms Anna Gilmour.

“The one clear night of the fortnight led to the students learning how to control the telescopes and zoom into different objects. They saw the craters on the Moon, the Orion Nebula and zoomed into the constellation Ursa Major.

“There was a great deal of excitement from the students, and we look forward to more evening observations.”

Ms Audrey Lenihan

Projecting their talents

Students from the Lower and Middle School have been putting their independent academic curiosity to good use this year, with self-chosen projects and an essay prize.

Fourth and Fifth Year (FAFY) Essay Prize:

The competition begins in the summer term of the Fourth Year, when interested students attend essay writing workshops, before going away over the summer to research and write their essays. There were a number of exceptional entries this year on topics ranging from how desire affects the mind, to treatments which may prevent the need for organ transplants.

The three winners were Josh Speight, Dylan Chung Kam Chung and Sumant Dinesh. Judges Mr Harry Petty and head of Fifth Year Mr Grant Beresford-Miller said the attention to detail and depth of research made them stand out.

Name Form Title Awarded

Dylan Chung Kam Chung 5L Should we work to suppress desire from our minds?

Distinction Josh Speight 5E The (In)significant Life of Us Distinction Sumant Dinesh 5G To what extent can conventional organ transplants be replaced by alternative methods? Distinction Harry Ogden 5M The Future of Global Manufacturing Merit Ishaan Sriram 5L The Economic Revolution come Imminent Collapse Merit Ronak De 5F Uses for the waste of air conditioners, as well as other heat exchangers to decrease overall energy Merit consumption Sejan Virneswaraligham 5E How does music affect human emotions and the brain? Thomas Law 5L The Chemistry of Breaking Bad Merit Merit

Middle School Project:

Students undertake an independent research project based on a theme, which this year was “Opportunity”. So many of our students have passions and interests that extend beyond the taught curriculum, so the aim of the project is to give them a focus for their academic curiosity. Their outcomes ranged from self-programmed videogames to podcasts, as well as essays and presentations.

Name Form Title

Thomas Law

5L One Man’s Opportunity Anshvardhan Shetty 4P Ingenium Magazine Dhyan Ruparel 4S Is short-form story telling valuable? The hidden capabilities of the form. Aidan McAllen 4B Is there an opportunity to improve the UK's parliamentary voting system? Thushan Peiris 4F The Thushan Peiris Show: Opportunity Adhi Sasikumar 4F Emergence: How complexity arises from simplicity Adam Herd 3D Island Escape (video game) Simeon Wren 4R Pluto: Icy Wasteland or Geological Marvel? Kristian Sarai 4F Leading the Charge Matthew Boyde 4P Formula 1, Where Money Rules the Roost Daniel Todd 4B How Chameleons Change Colour

Finlay Evans

4S Volcanism on Mars Matthew Johnsen 4P The Unsolvable Problem and Mathematical Proof Jared Thompson 4F Cryptocurrency: The New Form of Money William Hooton 3D The Opportunities that Karate has given me

Benedict Long

3L Opportunity: Representing the UK at the World Scout Jamboree South Korea 2023 Joshua Speight 5E Humanity’s Procrastination Problem Awarded Distinction Distinction Distinction Distinction Distinction Distinction Distinction Merit Merit Merit Merit Merit Merit Merit Merit Merit Distinction

Lower School Project:

Students undertaking the Lower School Project have a free choice of academic subject matter, and aim to produce an essay, presentation or creative project. Students are encouraged to pick broad and challenging topics, which this year have ranged from blots on the London skyline to the application of emotion AI.

Name

Form Title Oliver Barlow JD Why should we use less palm oil? Micah Thompson JP Reach for the Tzars: The incredible story of the enormous change in Russia Aarush Kumar 1A The Seasons Edward Molony 1S London’s Changing Skyline Haocheng Wang 1R Erythrocytes – Cells Imaad Khan 1B How did pro-cycling change because of the pandemic? Jamie Woodward 1A An Analysis of the Alternatives to the Internal Combustion Engine Jonah Newlands 1S The Seasons Noah Akohene-Voller 1S The World vs Global Warming: Lego Map Otto Stueck 1S Daffodil

Ryan Ilmane Savith Peiris

1H The Changing Financial World 1P Pandemic Driven Business Interruption Victor Lanaspre 1A Which is the better economic system capitalism or communism? Victor Lanaspre 1A Basketball cartoon Ayush Shetty 2H Emotion AI: Is it possible?

Jack Prior 2G Do Attitudes Towards the Effects of Gaming Need to Change?

James Legge Joshua Bell

2L Tower Bridge: Night and Day 2L The Changes in Money (A timeline) Vedanth Raghavendar 2H Changes in the 20th and 21st Century Awarded Merit Distinction Merit Distinction Merit Merit Distinction Merit Distinction Merit Distinction Distinction Merit Distinction Distinction Distinction Merit Merit Distinction

Life on Mars

In May, Naku Debebe became the winner of the Second Year TED-style talks, after wowing judges with his presentation on Mars colonisation.

In the run up to the final, every student in the year wrote a 5-minute talk on a topic of their choice and presented it to their form, and the winner of each group progressed to the final. The six winners presented to an audience of their peers, parents and teachers. The other finalists and topics were Hayden Yusuf on “The Perfect Sustainable City”, Hugh Hardy on “Dreams”, Daniel Sarai on “Cars by Country”, Lucas Collier (who was second place) asking “Are Electric Vehicles Really Better?” and Alex Martin (who was third) on “Quantum Physics”. Winner Naku writes about his experience.

Being in the Ted Talk final was an amazing opportunity. I chose to do my talk on Martian colonization as I am a big fan of space, loving it since I was little, and colonization is one big aim of NASA and Space X. It is also an exciting thing as there is the chance that humans might become extra-terrestrial very soon. I did a lot of research from various websites, including the NASA and Space X websites, and I explained the key concepts od the launch window and Martian problems and solutions.

Weirdly, before the competition, I didn’t feel nervous at all, but that didn’t stay for long, and before I did my talk, my legs were shaking. I tried my best to stay calm and by about slide three, I had got over it. After dealing with the terror, it was actually extremely enjoyable, and I enjoyed answering questions from the judges.

When the news came out that I’d won, I was half shocked and I couldn’t take it in. But then I was elated and I only got happier, as it was such great news. I feel like the Ted Talk win will be one of my most memorable and important moments of the year. It taught me a lot about self-confidence, refining PowerPoints and practicing to a time limit. I also learnt about presenting myself to people, even to the Headmaster, which will be very helpful in GSCEs and jobs later on in life. I think that I have gained a lot from this amazing opportunity, apart from the money! Naku Debebe, Second Year

Building knowledge: The Junior Year spent part of Field Day in March building structures such as arches, domes and pyramids, with the aim of learning more about construction and engineering.

Cell it to the crowd

In Junior Science, the annual Model Cell Competition for First Years saw some very strong entries with plenty of creativity and scientific information on display.

We had edible models, Minecraft models, and those that used a vast variety of material including lighting and clay. Highly commended, and winning points towards their interform competition were George Gibbs (1A), Noah Prestney (1A), Freddie Balcombe (1B), George Clubbs (1H), Guru Dhamodaran (1P), Hugo Morton-Ho (1R), Rohan Patel (1R), London Yu (1R) and Shiv Shukla (1S). Third place was awarded to Zaki Khelifa (1H), and joint second prize went to Oliver Sewell (1S) and Ben Fletcher (1B), who programmed a Raspberry pi and created a Minecraft model respectively. The top prize went to Ryan Ilmane (1H) for his superb electrical skills, a game that would be worthy of any home, and accurate and detailed scientific information.

Root and stem

Second Years participated in a special STEM Day in June, where teachers across science, technology and maths subjects provided an array of workshops.

In Biology, students extracted banana DNA; in Chemistry, they defied gravity by running across Newtonian fluids, then got their hands dirty making slime. Physics saw students test their dexterity making motors from scratch, and Maths and Computer Science encouraged students to code geometrical patterns and Micro:bit powered LED arrays and fly-wheels. Meanwhile, Mr Lee Flanagan entertained students with a display of the power of liquid nitrogen. In the afternoon, students put their time-management, problem-solving and teamwork skills to the test completing a “Design and Build” STEM Challenge. This involved making a lamp that met the design brief in timepressured conditions, using finite resources. Ms Katy Manisier

Scientific breakthroughs

The 2022 Facets of Science lecture evening took place in May, where we welcomed two experts who spoke about cancer treatment and the origins of the universe.

Dr Vishal Jayakar, an NHS consultant in haematology-oncology, spoke about the state-of-the-art science which is revolutionising the approaches to treating cancer. We also welcomed Prof Francisco Diego, a senior teaching fellow at UCL, Vice President of the Association for Astronomy Education and fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, who gave a whistle-stop tour of the 13.8 billion years since the Big Bang and reflected on the unique miracle that is Earth.