Millfield – Finalists present Lower Sixth Research Projects to panel of judges

19 Feb 2018

Three Lower Sixth pupils were selected out of 35 entries to present research projects to a panel of judges, which included Dr Richard Penny from Southampton University,

Katie Maddock, Tom Treadell and Zoe Portman each presented their projects on a variety of topics, ranging from particle physics, coastal erosion and the proposal of a fiscal budget surplus.

Guided by Mrs. Baker’s introduction to conducting research, all pupils interested in taking on the challenge of an EPQ were required at the start of the Lower Sixth year to take on a question from the Lower Sixth Research Project. All subjects had submitted a number of questions, which required pupils to research topics independently.

Entrants made use of the resources available in the Library and elsewhere in the school to prepare a Keynote response. The standard of the entries was particularly high this year, with seven students scoring an impressive 20 or more out of the available 25 marks.

The three finalists were selected to present before the panel of judges, which included Dr Richard Penny from Southampton University, Dr Fiddes, Assistant Head Teaching and Learning, and Mr Whiskerd, Head of the Lower Sixth.

The panel of judges were impressed with the pupils’ detailed understanding of each of their topics, but they eventually decided to award the research project shield to Zoe Portman. Zoe explored the government’s decision to run a fiscal budget surplus by 2019/20, and came to the same conclusion as the government that this was an impractical target to achieve.