Ratcliffian 2016 (LOWRES)

SCIENCE
A group of seven Year 9 Physics students won the Best
Overall Project award in the science and engineering
competition Go4SET, a popular, nationwide scheme
designed to get students involved with engineering projects.
The triumphant students were James Howling, Jacob Dawe,
Dominic Baggott, Ben McCahill, Robyn Warwick, Charlotte
Langford and Tess Duffin. Their Eco-Hotel project was an
inspirational piece of work, and was highly commended at
the Celebration Event, held at the Ricoh Arena on Thursday
23 rd June. Their spectacular model and insightful report
impressed all the judges, who stated that the project “ticked
all the boxes”! One judge, who works in the construction
industry, was so impressed that she has invited the team to
her next staff meeting!
SCIENCE
SCIENCE
The
This involved a combination of laboratory work and a quiz,
and we were delighted that the Ratcliffe College team ended
in 2 nd place in the Leicestershire round, held at the University
of Loughborough, and thus represented the county at the
East Midlands round at the University of Derby. The students
involved were David Hippisley-Cox, Kit Jackson, James
Howling and Charlotte Meadows.
Four Year 8
students took
part in the
Salters’ Festival
of Chemistry
competition.
The students
were Jonathan
Bellamy,
Sam Seidu,
Harry Cusack
and Anuj
Savani, who were set a challenge to identify ‘the murderer
at Salterstown’. The students were given different chemical
compounds found at the murder scene, and using an array
of chemical tests and chromatographic techniques, tried to
identify each substance to identify the murderer.
Chemistry Department has achieved
great success this year with the Royal Society
of Chemistry’s Top of the Bench competition.
A group of six Year 12 Physics students, Emilia Lawden,
Rosie Giles, Luke Pole, Charlie Nicholson, Daniel Warwick
and Christian
Waters, took
part in the
Engineering
Education
Scheme (EES).
The EES is an
initiative that
brings together
schools and
industrial
companies so
that ‘would be
engineers’, or
students who
wish to sample this avenue of employment, can work on
substantial projects, whilst receiving support from a working
engineer. This year, under the guidance of Dr Christopher
Jackson, the students investigated the possibility of using
telescopes (manufactured by the students) to explore the
composition of the Milky Way. The students managed to test
a variety of antennae to establish the correct geometry for a
multiple antenna assembly.
Six other Year 9 Physics students who also took part in the
competition received much praise for their project Station
of the Future. These were Luke Millett, Alex Pickering, Tom
Neuberg, Elliot Kelly, Joseph Summer and Edward Smellie,
whose unusual idea to use hydrogen for train power, in their
‘hydrail’ scheme, attracted lots of attention.
The Biology Department has
also had a busy year outside the
classroom, with the introduction of
Ratcliffe’s first ever Conservation
Society. With about 20 members
joining the group, from Year 7 to Year 13, the society has
had a very successful first year. The students have been
planting to attract bees and butterflies, erecting nest boxes,
rescuing hedgehogs and establishing habitats for their
release, launching
animal and water mini
beast identification
competitions, locating
bird boxes and feeding
stations, and hatching
butterflies.
The new Biology ‘A’ level
fieldtrip also took place
this year, to enhance
students’ understanding
within the field of
Ecology. A group of
seven Year 13 Biology
students set off to a field
centre in Shropshire,
to work in the
twelve hectares of grassland and woodland that
surround the centre. The students involved were
Carrick Anderson, Charley Flowers, Charles Grattan,
Archie Herrick, Lauren Mulla, William Smith and
Helena Yu. Over the course of the trip, the students
enjoyed working with lots of different apparatus to
identify numerous plant species and investigate the
effect of light intensity on leaf size. Students also
studied the behaviour of wood mice and a vole, which
they successfully caught with their mammal traps, and
a pond study allowed the students to investigate the
freshwater invertebrate communities at the centre.
Mr A Chorley
Head of Science
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