Opps Newsletter February 2019 3

February 2019
Welcome to the thirteenth edition of the
Cotswold School Opportunities Newsletter.
The aim is to celebrate and advertise some of the many learning opportunities with
which you may wish to get involved. We hope that a few things might take your interest
and spark some thinking and discovery. Enjoy!
STEM—Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths
British Science Week 8th to 17th March,
As part of British Science week you can enter a competition to design a poster. The
theme for the 2019 poster competition is ‘journeys’.
The British Science Association have partnered with the Guinness World Records who
are providing prizes for entries. Closing date for entries is: 5th April, 2019
—click on the link for rules and more information: Poster competition - journeys
Run with the Ancestors, March, 2019
Celebrate British Science Week with a special race event at
the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London, on Saturday March
16th, 2019.
Race side by side with your ancestors in this epic journey
through time in Run with the Ancestors, an exclusive chip–
timed event organised by the British Science Association in partnership
with Eurotunnel.
If you can’t get to London, more races around the country are
planned. Click on the link below for more information:
5 and 10k races - Race with the Ancestors, 2019
Science/Sport/History
Science/Art
PHOTO OPPORTUNITY! Actual Reality Camera Obscuras
Find out about light, the fastest thing in the universe, and make your own
camera obscura out of a cereal box. We may also be experimenting with taking
portraits of people through the holes of a cream cracker and bringing out the
Link: Run the Deep
‘eyescuras’. This is a drop in event, so anything could happen! Several workshops
are happening on Sunday, 17th March, for tickets and more information
click on the link : Actual Reality Camera Obscura
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Why not Read?
Library
Mind Games by multi award winning author Teri Terry
In a future world, life is tightly controlled by the all-powerful PareCo.
Standing out from the crowd is dangerous, so misfit Luna hides her secrets
carefully, not realising her own power. Unlike her friends and family,
Luna has never been able to plug into Realtime, PareCo's virtual world,
where almost everyone now lives their lives. So how do PareCo know
about Luna, and why do they want her for their elite think tank?
I found this book thoroughly absorbing and thought provoking, a
real page turner. Who knows, some of the storyline may come true in the not too
distant future… If you are a fan of the Dystopian genre, then this is certainly worth
a read. Click on the link for more information about the author: Mind Games by Teri Terry
Mrs Williams—Librarian
English
Mrs Dobson recommends these articles on the British Library website that
support the GCSE and A-level curriculum:
An Inspector Calls and J.B. Priestley’s political journey by Alison Cullingford—7th
September, 2017. Click on the link: An Inspector Calls
Character analysis: Lady Macbeth by Michael Donkor—19th May, 2017. Click
on the link: Lady Macbeth
Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr Hyde—click on the link for more information:
Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll & Mr Hyde
Close readings of John Agard’s ‘Checking out Me History’, ‘Flag’ and ‘Half
Caste’ by Daljit Nagra—14th October, 2018 - ‘explore the political complexities of
John Agard’s poetry’. Click on the link to access the article: John Agard
Paradise Lost by John Milton— ‘Paradise Lost is an epic poem (12 books, totalling
more than 10,500 lines) written in blank verse, telling the biblical tale of the Fall
of Mankind – the moment when Adam and Eve were tempted by Satan to eat the
forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, and God banished them from the Garden
of Eden forever.’ Click on the link to access the article: Paradise Lost
Middle English by David Crystal — 31st January, 2018. ‘David Crystal explains
how Middle English developed from Old English, changing its grammar, pronunciation
and spelling and borrowing words from French and Latin.’ Click on the link to
access the article: Middle English
Mrs Holland asks:
Why is India preparing for 100 million
visitors?
Clue: Kumbh Mela
PBE
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Art/Science
Mrs Hannam suggests a visit to the Bacterial World exhibition at the Museum Of
Natural History, Oxford.
The Untold Story of Bacteria—19th October to 28th May, 2019
‘The hidden story of the smallest lifeforms and their influence on the past, present and future
of our planet.’
This exhibition will be a superb resource for Year 8’s Micro Macro topic. If you go to see the
exhibition, you could also take some photographs of 3 exhibits and try to do an observational
drawing from one of their photos. Show any work you do as a result of
visiting the exhibition, to your art teacher.
Click on the link for more information: Bacterial World
History
Sappho to Suffrage: Women who dared at the Treasury, Weston
Library, Oxford—on until the 24th February, 2019 ‘Pirates and poets;
suffragettes and explorers - this exhibition celebrates the achievements of
women who dared to do the unexpected. Sappho to Suffrage showcases
some of the Bodleian's most remarkable and treasured items.’
Click on the link for more details: Sappho to Suffrage
At the History of Science Museum, Oxford, you can see displays on
the History of Medicine (linking to Year 10’s GCSE studies). Click
here for more information: History of Medicine
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Competition time!
Write your own Historical Fiction
Competition 2019—Year: 7.8 and 9
The Historical Association Historical Fiction Prize and the Joan Blyth
Memorial Prize
Please note entry is limited to 3 entries per school send entries to:
bedwards@ thecotswoldschool.co.uk and 3 stories will be chosen to be
submitted to the competition.
Entries must be received by Friday 31 May 2019
For rules of the competition and ideas to inspire click on the Historical
Association website:
Historical Fiction writing competition
6th form competition opportunities:
Peterhouse essay prizes: for details of the Kelvin Science prize, the Vellacott History prize and the Campion
English prize click on the link: Peterhouse Essay Prizes There is a huge choice of questions, and the prize
pool for each competition is £750.00. The deadline for entries is 25th March, 2019.

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6th form competition opportunities continued:
Peter Cane Legal Reasoning prize: open to all year 12 and 13 students, this essay competition focuses
on Contract Law. The 1st prize is, £175.00. Maximum length of the essay is 2000 words. For the essay
question and guidance in answering it, see: Peter Cane, legal reasoning prize
The deadline for submitting entries is 5pm on Monday 4th of February, 2019.
Trinity College Cambridge is running essay competitions in the following subjects: Law, English Literature,
Linguistics, Philosophy, Politics and History. Click on the link for more information:
Trinity College, Cambridge
For the full list of competitions see the 6th Form bulletin for week beginning Monday 21st January.
Please note: for some of the above competitions there is a limit to the number of students from any
one school that can enter. So, if you are planning to enter one of the above, please inform Mr White.
Now that the exam season is fast approaching, here
are some resources to help with your revision:
You Tube, GCSEpod and Seneca
PBE
Mrs Holland asks:
What industry is ‘Judah 1’ launching in?
Find out some facts about it.
What was Einstein’s God letter?
What did it say? Why has it been
in the news? Clue: Einstein's God
letter
Things to Do and See (including 1/2 Term)
Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War—British Library—exhibition open until February 19th,
2019— Anglo Saxon Kingdoms
D.T/History—Exhibition—Architecture, talk by David Adjaye at the Design Museum, London.
‘How can a building shape our perception of events—and how can architecture, rather than words
be used to tell stories?’ 2nd February to 5th May, 2019 Click on the link for more details: Architecture
- David Adjaye
Rugby camps being held at Sir Thomas Rich’s Sport Centre—click here for more information:
Junior Rugby camps
Holocaust (n.) taken from an etymology dictionary (where words originate from and their meaning/s)
‘mid-13c., "sacrifice by fire, burnt offering," from Old French holocauste (12c.), or directly
from Late Latin holocaustum, from Greek holokauston "a thing wholly burnt," neuter
of holokaustos "burned whole," from holos "whole" (from PIE root *sol- "whole, wellkept")
+ kaustos, verbal adjective of kaiein "to burn" (see caustic).
Originally a Bible word for "burnt offerings," given wider figurative sense of "massacre,
destruction of a large number of persons" from 1670s. The Holocaust "Nazi genocide of
European Jews in World War II," first recorded 1957, earlier known in Hebrew
as Shoah "catastrophe." The word itself was used in English in reference to Hitler's Jewish
policies from 1942, but not as a proper name for them.’
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English
Review of The Tattooist of Aushwitz (for parents, KS4 and KS5)
I really struggled on how to pass this book onto other people as you definitely cannot
say, "here is a book you will enjoy". I didn't enjoy it, but I am so glad I read it. I think
everyone should know as much about Auschwitz as possible. I have read a few
books about the persecution of Jews and this is definitely one of the best written.
You are completely immersed in the main character, his strength and his positivity.
One of the best books I have read in the last 5 years.
Mrs Smith—English
D.T.
Late addition to the Opportunities Newsletter
from D.T, an exciting opportunity….
Mr Smith has just received notification of a ‘design’ opportunity to design and make a bench and a
bird box for the woodland walk at the new Edwardstowe Court care centre, Stowe-on-the-Wold.
See the posters below for more information and/or see Mr Smith in D.T.
Take a look at the new care centre by clicking on the link below:
Edwardstowe Crt; Care Centre
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