This week has been our ‘Festival of Ideas 2025‘, an extraordinary week of school and a chance for students to explore the world beyond the confines of exam curricula. The annual Festival of Ideas is about having and understanding ideas that ultimately could change the world.
Highlights of the week included:
Creative Writing Showcase
On Monday, we hosted the annual Creative Writing Showcase. What started as a Sixth Form initiative has now expanded into a whole school opportunity to share and enjoy the written work of our students. This year, we heard moving poems from Romil and Keaden (both Fourth Year), as well as a highly impressive spoken word piece from Aadam (Lower Sixth) which he has been working on as part of his EPQ. The event was concluded with an extract from a play Dhyan (Upper Sixth) has been working on as part of his training on the prestigious young writers’ incubator course at the National Theatre. It was a fitting end as Dhyan has been attending Creative Writing Club since he was a First Year! All those who witnessed the new writing were impressed by the technical skill and emotional scope of the work and are looking forward to hearing what they come up with for next year’s showcase.
Staff vs Students University Challenge
In a hotly-anticipated contest, the staff team (made up of Miss Benzinski, Mr Hutchings, Mr Haythorne, and Mr Blanchard) showcased their exceptional knowledge on topics ranging from Beatrix Potter stories to homonyms to triumph over the students’ team (made up of Lower Sixth Formers Ava, Luke, Amira, and Katy) by 360 points to 105! The quiz followed the format of University Challenge, with starters for ten followed by bonus questions.
Trinity was the inaugural winners of the National Schools’ Challenge quiz competition in 1977, and plans are afoot to re-enter next academic year! Watch this space…
Celebrity Piano Recital with Nicholas McCarthy
As well as live music in the Student Entrance throughout the week, on Wednesday, Trinity welcomed the return of brilliant pianist Nicholas McCarthy who performed Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the left hand, accompanied by Nigel Clayton. Nicholas was born with only one arm and yet has become one of Britain’s most recognised pianists. This concert formed part of his preparations for this summer’s BBC proms debut on the 20 July. This will also be televised live. It was well-attended and a wonderful chance for students to be inspired by top-level professional musicians.
Festival of Ideas Conference
On Wednesday, we welcomed three guest speakers to discuss our theme ’intellectual risk taking’ in the context of their own fields. Dr Rachel Clarke is a practising palliative care doctor award-winning author, Simon Wright is the Industry Editor of The Economist and Professor Herrick is the Head of the School of Global Affairs at King’s College London.
Mr Rounds, Senior Depty Head, said, “It is such an honour and a pleasure for our staff and students to hear speakers of this significance at the Festival of Ideas conference. It exemplified what the Festival of Ideas is all about, hearing the fields of Geography, Economics and Medicine speak on the theme of intellectual risk taking in such different, but engaging ways.”
Our students played an active role in the conference, with two Lower Sixth students chairing the event and Q&A.
Anna said, “Chairing the FoI conference was an expansive experience. Listening to the speakers and how they responded and interpreted my questions was extremely informative and enlightening- with the breadth of topic covered, I felt we covered an impressive depth of knowledge, and asking some personal questions of my own helped to develop my own intellectual curiosity. Additionally, it was exciting to speak in front of a big audience and being on the same stage as the speakers sparked my public speaking skills and confidence in my own intellectual depth.”
Akash agreed, “It was a wonderfully enriching experience, the guest speakers were not only exceptional in their talks, but also very insightful in both their responses to the audience and myself. As a whole, the Festival of Ideas has hugely aided my perception in what it means to be an intellectual risk taker.”
Off-timetable Activity Day
Thursday saw students engage in a variety of workshops to help them develop and find new areas of interest. This aims to encourage a life-long love of learning through a dynamic environment in which the school’s community can be creative, curious and collaborative.
We had some exciting new workshops taking place this year including:
A group of students were involved in a Newsroom or content creators lab workshop, which saw them visiting the other workshops around school to interview staff and students about what they were doing, creating a short video about the day. They said:
JBug Nevaan said, “Today was fun as we got to go round and see what everyone was doing. I loved interviewing people and taking the pictures. I also enjoyed creating the video.”
First Year Julien said, “It was an extremely interesting experience because I could learn about advertising and marketing differently and not in a lesson. It was a good way to learn because instead of writing an old newspaper article we did it in the format of social media which was a good way to be more aware of the future.”
First Year Aaryav said, “This was a really fun experience and it was especially fun when we interviewed everybody and. I could also learn more about what the other classes were doing on the day. Putting together the Canva was really fun and I really learnt a lot.”
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Thanks to everyone who participated and all staff who provided the wonderful opportunities for the students to learn differently this week.
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