Pupil Headliners – End of Advent Term 2022

HERESY PROJECT 2022/2023
Well done to the following pupils, who were included in the heretical shortlist:

• Rosa F for her essay: The government were right to scrap the ‘arts premium’ initiative.
• Marnix H for his essay: The NHS should spend less money on drugs and more money on music.
• Grace M for her essay: Should you have to pass a mental competence test to be eligible to vote?
• Kate P for her essay: How far can it be said that the perfect fifth is the most crucial interval in classical music?
• Harriet S for her essay: How far can it be said that genetic engineering is more beneficial than harmful?

Two shortlisted essays came close to winning:

• Zain F for his essay: Modern skyscrapers need redesigning: here’s why.
• Ayomide S-P for her essay: The Modern World has forgotten over 400 years of Black oppression.

However, Lancing’s winning heretical trinity this year comprises:

• Christopher C for his essay: Putin’s War in Ukraine is wrong – but can the United States really talk?
• Hannah C for her essay: The Bloomsbury Group were bohemian poseurs, not a credible intellectual movement.
• Alexander M for his essay: There is no need for NASA in the 21st century.

ADVENT POETRY COMPETITION
The judges of this term’s Poetry competition would like to highly commend Rosanna M for Fragments of a Flag and Christopher C’s witty poem, Unfinished. 
Third place goes to Hannah C for her gimlet-eyed take on Sleeping Beauty, Aurora meets the real world. 
The two contenders for first and second place are equally promising poets and the decision to place them was a genuine challenge for the judges. Eventually, after heated discussion, the judges have decided to award Kayleb M second place for Inferno, and Jeremiah S first place for Antinous’s Confession. Both poems are in dialogue with poetic tradition: Inferno with Dante’s Divine Comedy (via the TV show, Hannibal), and Antinous’s Confession with the classical account of Hadrian and Antinous, which has been treated by poets such as Mark Doty and Fernando Pessoa. Kayleb has a particular ear for tense lines and rhythmic-driven metre, while Jeremiah is rich in imagery and in his experiments with the concrete form of the poem.
All three winners are ambitious, and their submissions – together with the rest of this year’s entries – reveal a promising coterie of Lancing poets Congratulations to all.

SENIOR MATHS PROBLEM OF THE WEEK
We had another excellent set of solutions to the weekly set of challenging questions set for seniors in the Mathematics department, with Zain F, Alexander M, Christopher C and Rose Z all producing excellent solutions to many of the questions. Leading the pack again this term however was Vivi L who managed to solve all but one of the questions set this term – very well done on that.

JUNIOR MATHS PROBLEM OF THE WEEK
Well done to all of those in Third, Fourth and Fifth Form who have sent a solution to one of these tricky problems in this House Maths competition. Currently Gibbs’ is in 3rd place, Teme is in 2nd place and Handford is in 1st place. Special congratulations to Abner Z (Third Form), Annika S (Fifth Form) and Vincy X (Fifth Form) for producing the highest number of solutions this term – very well done.  

SENIOR MATHS KANGAROO 2022
We had some excellent scores in the UKMT Senior Maths Kangaroo sat a few weeks ago – this is the follow-on round for pupils who scored right at the top of the Senior Maths Challenge earlier in the term. Just to qualify Is an achievement but the following four pupils went one better than that and got a coveted ‘Merit’ in the Kangaroo (which is the best you can do). They are: Vivi L, Peter H, Archie N and Rose Z.