Cranford Review 2010-2011 (Annual edition 2011)

“PETRVRG”
and the study
of Social
Science
On Tuesday 10th May 2011, the Social Sciences Department
held their excellence evening. This was a valuable and important
opportunity for our 6th formers to revise some of the essential
information required for their exams and a chance for them to
demonstrate their knowledge and research methods skills.
The main focus of the evening was to look at PETRVRG
issues in social sciences research methods. Practical, Ethical,
Theoretical, Reliability, Validity, Replicability, Generalisability
issues in all of the studies they encounter throughout the
course.
The evening began
with Ms Bilkhu’s
revision session on
Philip Zimbardo’s
prison experiment
with a particular
focus on ethics.
Zimbardo assigned
random people
with the roles of
either ‘prisoner’
or ‘guard’, and
then observed
these people in an artificial
prison setting to see what happened, the results
were shocking, so shocking in fact that the experiment had to
be cut short. This study created a very lively debate between
both students and staff who attended.
This was followed by Mr Cripps’ session on James Patrick’s
study of the Glasgow gang, a group of disaffected young boys.
Staff and students were able to learn about some of the issues
involved with participant observation. It was a study into
the activities and behaviour of a gang of young people, and
illustrated how little some aspects of gang culture have changed
over the last 40 years. This was a very thought-provoking session
and raised quite a lot of interesting questions, particularly as
the media tend to portray gang culture as a relatively recent
phenomena.
The next revision session was led by Ms Nandra focussing
on the darker side of human nature, with a look at Milgram’s
infamous electric shock experiment. The results of this study
showed that we are prepared to inflict harm on others as long
as someone else takes responsibility. This sparked a very
lively and interesting discussion about ethics, methods and
the application of psychology and sociology in the real
world.
The evening was rounded off with a lively and extremely
competitive quiz, which tested how much the staff and
students had managed to remember from the revision
sessions. The quiz results showed that everyone had done
very well and went away having learnt something new about
sociology and psychology.
Youth and
Philanthropy Initiative
wins £3000 for The 2000 Club
Wednesday 20th July 2011 saw the spectacular
final event of the Youth and Philanthropy
Initiative (YPI) that year 12 students
had been working on in their PSHCE lessons. One
local, grass root charity was awarded £3000 (funded
privately by the Toskan Casale Foundation). YPI gives
our students a hands-on experience of philanthropy
that provides them with the skills and awareness to
make a positive difference to their communities. In
groups the students researched and discussed the social
needs of our local community and identify the local
social service charities they believe are best placed to
make a positive contribution. As part of this scheme
year 12 students visited and built relationships with
their charity, and all the charities had representatives
attending at the final event.
The students had prepared presentations in order to
pitch their charity in front of four judges, Mr Prunty,
Mr Scher, Mr Hoffman and Ms Berndt. In total there
were seven groups in the final, with a range of charities
and social issues. For example, the Icthyosis Support
Group highlighted a serious skin condition that most
people have no knowledge about.
The groups were extremely passionate about their
charities, and were able to articulate just how
important their charities are to the people they
support. The presentations were outstanding and I
was greatly impressed by the range of presentations,
which included role play and poetry. As many of our
students have not presented or spoken in front of a
large formal audience, this experience was even more
rewarding for them to develop their confidence in
public speaking.
The judges had an exceptionally difficult decision
to make on deciding which group should be awarded
the money to present to their charity. After some
deliberation Mr Hoffman explained the rationale
behind their decision. They based their decision on
how the £3000 would most benefit the local community
group that served our local community. The judges
were very complimentary to the groups, in particular
they commented on the group pitching for Hounslow
Extra Club (Kuljeet Kang, Gulvant Atwal and Raihan
Ahmed), Horn of Africa Community Group (Faiza
Ali, Fatima Adan, Sonela Seljekaj, Juanita Stuber
and Nasrin Warsame) and The 2,000 Club (Maninder
Bhambra, Ambryn Saini and Ashnee Dhondee).
However, there could only be one winning group
which was The 2,000 Club. This charity is based in
Heston and offers membership to adults who have a
disability, offering a range of recreational and sporting
activities. It was a touching moment when the charity
was awarded the large cheque for £3000 pounds. The
charity had 6 representatives, who were overwhelmed
by the whole experience. Not only will the money help
secure further activities for these people but it will
encourage links between the different charities as they
work together to achieve their ultimate aim. A member
(Ashnee Dhondee) of the winning team declared; “I was
absolutely thrilled that The 2,000 Club won, it is such a
rush of adrenaline. Ambryn added that she really wants
to keep this relationship active and keep good links
with the charity. Maninder Bhambra concluded, “It was
a brilliant experience and I have really developed my
presentation skills.” Faiza Ali had this to say about the
experience, “It was an interesting experience as it gave
me an opportunity to work within a group researching
something I felt passionate about.”
I want to say well done to all the competitors, I was
very proud of all of you. Thank you to the judges for
helping to make such an important decision and to the
charities for attending our event. Lastly, an important
thank you to YPI for allowing us this opportunity
(and the funding) for this event.
Cranford Review 2010/2011
8 Excellence in all areas 9