Yavneh College and the Royal Institution of Great Britain strengthen ties through Masterclasses
In early 2021, an aspiring and gifted year 12 Yavneh College student, Mr. Josh Morris, became fascinated with Masterclasses from the Royal Institution of Great Britain (Ri) and lobbied hard for the training. The Ri had been connecting people to Science for well over 200 years and established an international reach, working with world-leading scientists. Sir Christopher Zeeman originally inspired the Masterclass programme over 40 years ago. Masterclasses had grown into a nationwide programme of Mathematics, Engineering and Computer Science courses for school students aged 9 to 18 years.
On the back of the success with last year’s online training and the subsequent excellent feedback from Yavneh Primary, coupled with the removal of pandemic restrictions, Ms. Alison Eves led a training event on Friday 6th May 2022 at Yavneh College. Eighteen year 12s volunteered and worked together to bring forth ideas to inspire a love of learning amongst Primary School children. The contribution of the Ri was well-received and Ms. Eves was applauded for her work by the year 12s. With regard to the journey that Ri and Yavneh have taken together, Ms. Eves stated:
“It has been my pleasure to work with Yavneh sixth formers and Dr Ramlogan to bring Royal Institution Masterclasses to local primary children. The sixth formers are unusually full of initiative; this is the only time that I know of where the impetus for the Masterclasses came from the students, eager to rise to the challenge of developing and leading exciting and inspirational hands on workshops. In 2021 the Yavneh community, undaunted by a global pandemic and its attendant frustrations, completed the training online and delivered to small groups of primary children. The choice and range of topics was impressive, and as a result the 9-year olds learnt about chaos theory, codes and ciphers and how to make a parachute for an egg, to name but three examples! The 2022 Masterclass leaders have just begun their training but I have been equally pleased to see their imagination and commitment to providing a great experience for the primary children. It was wonderful to finally visit Yavneh and meet such a wonderful group (and to see a few of last year’s leaders in real life for the first time). I am eagerly looking forward to seeing what the current y12 pupils produce – I’m sure the y4/5 pupils are in for a scientific and mathematical treat.”
https://www.rigb.org/
https://yavnehcollege.org/2021/07/yavneh-sixth-formers-excel-primary-masterclasses-july-2021/
