The spring term has come to a close, and now it’s time to look back on term; both the achievements of our students, and the opportunities they have participated in.
Hard work
After starting the term with a week of exams, students have continued throughout this term to work hard on their research projects. They’ve been experimenting, designing, hypothesising, and writing their scientific reports in LaTeX, to form the inaugural ICLMS Research Project Journal.
Activities and trips
In the early weeks of term, using our Celestron telescope, students were able to take advantage of the early sunsets to view some beautiful astronomical objects, including the moons of Jupiter. In late January, students had the opportunity to visit Imperial College London for a talk from prominent string theorist Zehra Husain. Her talk focused on the life and works of Nobel Prize-winner Abdus Salam, and his work on electroweak unification.
Chess competitions
There’s nothing wrong with a little friendly competition, either. Our shared chess team with Woodhouse College faced off against Bishop Douglass School in the National Schools Chess Championship in a fierce competition. They went on to face Fortismere in the knock-out stages of the championship, as well as King’s College London Maths School in a friendly game.
Alison Reddy Talk
In late February, we had the opportunity to hear a talk from Alison Reddy, director of the University of Illinois Math Placement Program. Alison specialises in real life applications of maths when it comes to improving success rates in critical mathematics courses. Her expertise not only showed how maths can be used in a practical sense, but also gave insight into the American higher education system – for those of our students who are interested in it!
Inter-maths-school University Challenge
Alongside other maths schools across the country, ICLMS has also started up a University Challenge style quiz team. We have competed against Exeter and Cambridge, and now have moved into the semi-finals, where we will compete against KCLMS in the coming term.
The Student Council
The student council has also been working hard, working
alongside staff to find ways to improve the
school. We were delighted to welcome Cllr Geoffrey Cook and Cllr Anne Hutton from Barnet Council, who sat for tea with our student council. Together, they had the opportunity to discuss ICLMS and local issues.
Outreach
ICLMS also runs several outreach programmes,
one of which being Maths Extra. This was aimed at year
11 students to help them get ready to achieve top grades in GCSE maths, as well as maths at A level and beyond and spreading a love of hard problems and interesting mathematics. Maths Extra wrapped up this term, and all the year 11 students from the North London area we welcomed each Tuesday afternoon gave it a good send-off. We were so glad to welcome such a great group of learners each week and wish them all the best for GCSE maths and beyond.! Don’t forget to keep an eye out for more outreach opportunities at ICLMS!
International Women’s Day
On International Women’s Day we were treated to a talk from our deputy headteacher Tim Grundy about the life and extraordinary works of mathematician Emmy Noether. International Women’s Day gave us the chance to celebrate hers and thousands of other incredible female mathematicians’ contributions to the field. Including our own students!
Undoubtedly, another highlight of the term was the school trip to the University of Oxford. We all piled onto a bus first thing in the morning and made the drive up. Christ Church College was kind enough to host us for the day. They gave us a tour of their beautiful college and a talk about what it’s like to study at Oxford, as well as an exciting and engaging problem-solving class. And let’s not forget the
lunch we had in their Great Hall!
Presentation Day
The hard work of the students culminated in their research project presentation day at Imperial College London’s South Kensington Campus, on the last Wednesday of term. Students had been working alongside mentors from academia or industry on research projects beyond the A level curriculum since October. Our mentors were from
a range of institutions and industries including Imperial College London and University of Oxford academics, Dyson, Intel and more. In front of their families and friends of ICLMS, students presented their research projects, and their posters and reports were on display in Imperial’s main entrance on Exhibition Road. The topics of the projects ranged from chaos theory to topological manifolds, from Maritime Engineering to Dark Matter. It was clear to see the six months of cumulative hard work in each student’s poster, report, and presentation. Many thanks to our mentors for all the time they put into helping our students achieve such great results and put on such a great day.
Final Day Football
Finally, the holidays kicked off (literally) with a school charity football match. The students faced off form group vs form group, raising money for Home Start Barnet, Brent and Harrow, and Homeless Action in Barnet. It was a great way to finish off a busy term, with both the players and the spectators giving it their all. A close match with many skilled players resulted in 4-3 win to Tim’s form group.
Thank you to all the students and staff, each of whom put in the time and effort to make it the term so enjoyable and eventful. Here’s to a great Easter break, and an even better summer term!