Montaigne Society Cambridge Trip

Chris explains how learning happens at Cambridge

An excellent trip to Cambridge yesterday. The Montaigne Society visited St Catherine's College where Chris (the School's Liaison Officer) introduced them to what learning was like at the university, both through an informative presentation and also getting a Ph.D Theology student to give a sample lecture. There was also a trip to the very impressive Fitzwilliam Museum which has amazing collections of all kinds of things to ignite curiosity.

Whilst any applications might be a few years off, it is clear that many of the students managed to see a glimpse of where there learning could ultimately take them, and hopefully makes the key messages we are trying to impart at Oakham, resonate to an even greater extent.

George Smith (Clipsham) followed this with an excellent presentation today in the Society's weekly gathering. He chose his genuine academic passion of palaeontology and did a fantastic job at introducing us to both his own journey; how he became so engaged in this area of study; and also theories about whether Jurassic Park would be at all possible and whether the Loch Ness Monster could exist. Along the way, we certainly got to share in his immense enthusiasm for the topic and it was abundantly clear that extensive research and critical thinking were both key foundations to the success of the talk.

A variety of teaching and learning news...

A bit of an update of various exciting things for today's post.

1. Four 7th Formers did an AMAZING presentation to the 1st Form about "what I wish I would have known about learning when I was in 1st Form?" Ella Brahmachari, Erol Guvenor, Bea Wignall and Kiera Thomas all promoted taking responsibility, fully engaging, looking out for the subjects you enjoy to push further, and also persevering with the ones that you find difficult. Speaking with some of the 1st Form afterwards, they got so much from listening to the older students and it is definitely more convincing to hear those messages from Oakhamians who have been through the same journey that they are embarking upon, rather than from me all of the time.

2. The Montaigne Society continues apace. Patrick Holmes and Xavier Thomason did a fantastic presentation today on how computer games fulfil human psychological need. They demonstrated this through showing particular games and how they are attractive due to them catering for - for example - our longing for relatedness, autonomy and competence. Again, quite an amazing level of thinking for this age group. Personally I am excited by the research two 5th Form girls are carrying out into religious symbolism in Philip Pullman and C.S. Lewis, but then I would be!

3. Hopefully our 7th Form are picking up on the new initiative of "Student Impact Reports". These are a handy way to compile the key targets and practical steps to achieve these in order to make maximum progress. In a teaching and learning sense, this is excellent practice as it focuses the mind on the few aspects that will have (as the name suggest) maximum impact.

4. Just last week, Sue Brindley came for a second visit from Cambridge and met up with some of our CamStar teachers. She is a wealth of knowledge and speaking about teaching with her for just ten minutes gives a whole array of ideas about not only teaching itself, but how to evaluate its success properly.

And plenty more as well - there is certainly no such thing as a "slow term" at Oakham.