Independent thinking and a willingness to challenge orthodoxies lie right at the heart of what it is to be a Lancing student. Even as we evaluate prospective students this is something we are looking to see in nascent form and part of the buzz of seeing 115 Year Six children enjoying an assessment and experience day earlier this week was relishing the prospect of the fresh ideas they will bring to the party. Free and often contrarian thinking lies at the core of my debating lessons with the Third Form (a feisty discussion about gun control in the USA formed a particularly entertaining session this week) and it flows through each year group all the way through to the top of the school. It is thus always a special delight to see the fruits of Sixth Form labours in the annual Heresy Project essays. The brief for this project, eagerly seized upon, is to challenge conventional thinking and poke a metaphorical finger in the eye of established wisdom.
The quality of entries this year is especially high. Wide-ranging in both topic and tone we have had the deadly serious alongside some archly tongue-in-cheek disquisitions: from genetics to the arts, from political science to medicine there is much to provoke and to entertain. Amongst the best there is the pricking of the bubble of US geopolitical pretension, a wry glance cast at the posing of the Bloomsbury Group, NASA consigned to irrelevance and the replacement of conventional medicine with a musical prescription (apparently especially efficacious for a broken heart). You can enjoy some more detailed summaries here in the newsletter; later in the year we will be collating the shortlisted and winning entries in a special publication for all to read in detail.
As we move firmly into the new year these intellectual explorations have been matched by stimulating journeys beyond the shores of the UK. Our competitive skiers enjoyed a week in Les Menuires (contrary to rumour, there was snow to be found), our Geographers in the Upper Sixth have just returned from an intense field work expedition to Barcelona and the Classicists will be spending their Exeat metaphorically excavating Rome’s key sites. It is a real joy to be offering a trip programme that is once again approaching pre-pandemic levels of breadth and richness.
Whether you are far-flung or amidst the wintry vistas here in the UK, I hope that this weekend – a much-needed pause for breath for the students – proves restful.
Best wishes,
Dominic Oliver
