Yesterday students were delighted to hear talks on a hugely diverse range of topics from both their schoolmates and visiting speakers in the latest ACE Talks event.The student talks covered a vast spectrum of topics of deep personal interest, reflecting a tremendous effort in research and delivered with professionalism and assurance.Six Two (Year 13) Ava’s talk was entitled: What Can we Learn From Past Empires and Imperialism?, and featured a comparison between past and present forms of imperialism and an evaluation of its positives and negatives in various forms.Alina, a Fifth (Year 10), delivered a talk called Metaverse – the Sci-Fi Dream for All or the End of the World?, which covered an introduction to the concepts of the metaverse, user generated content (UGC), non-fungible token (NFT) and decentralisation.Six One (Year 12) Isabella’s talk Mediation: the Delicate Art of Doing Nothing covered different types of meditation, it’s benefits and limitations and suggestions for how to incorporate the practice into daily life.Rosalyn in Fifth (Year 10) gave a talk that covered topics such as the influence of technology on the 2016 US election and Cambridge Analytica entitled How Has Technology Influenced Politics and Human Democracy?
Upper Fifth (Year 11) Clemmie’s talk asked Should Authors Only Write From Their Own Perspective? addressed issues of gender, race and class across an impressively broad selection of the literary canon.Meanwhile, students also had the opportunity to hear from Dr Olufemi Elias, an international lawyer with 25 years of experience who currently works as a judge and vice chairman of the Islamic Development Bank Administrative Tribunal, and previously worked as the Registrar (United Nations Assistant Secretary-General) of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT).In addition, students heard from Lara Bates-Prior, a senior researcher who works in natural history and science television programming, and whose talk covered the work opportunities available in the television industry, the skills needed, and suggestions for how to break into the field.