Inspiring Work at the EPQ Presentation Evening

Students from Truro School’s Sixth Form showed an incredible breadth of talent and knowledge at the annual EPQ Showcase on the 17th March 2022.

The EPQ, or Extended Project Qualification, is an established A-Level programme that equips students with a range of professional, academic and personal skills.

Each student takes on a unique venture into a personalised area of interest and learns valuable skills in researching and referencing, discussion and creativity.

Students can select from an option of four projects: artefact, dissertation, investigation and performance and chooses a defined area of study.

Once the projects are completed, students are required to present their work to a non-specialised audience, giving them further, valuable experience in public speaking.

This year’s projects showed an incredible range of knowledge and hard work. It is a huge undertaking for the Students. All of the staff, the audience and their peers were impressed by their confidence and determination to bring these projects to life, and in such depth. A special mention needs to go to Mrs Thurlow and Mrs Stone for their support of the EPQ project.

Well done to the following students:

Daniel; under the project title ‘Artefact’, Daniel chose to create a 10-track mixtape of songs, inspired heavily by hip hop and old school drums, with softer jazz melodies, sampled from old famous jazz songs from 1920 – 2000, manipulating the samples to make them sound unique in new tracks. The artefact’s goal was to reanimate old jazz songs and breathe new life into them. It required knowledge of this genre and its sub-genres. The aim was to broaden people’s perspectives and opinions in exploring new genres of music.

Cam; under the project ‘Performance’, Cam choose to produce and perform a stage adaption of ‘The Breakfast Club’ by John Hughes. This project challenged Cam to explore the technicalities of a producer of translating a piece from screen to stage. Due to Covid restrictions, Cam needed to stream his performance digitally, but it was an awesome feat to rehearse and perform this to such a high standard.

James; under the project ‘Artefact’, James chose to write an expressionistic play based on the historical events of the English civil war in 1135, known as The Anarchy, to heighten awareness of the ascension of the Plantagenets to the English throne, and portray the message of the consequences of blind ambition. It required extensive research and succeeded in creating a greater understanding of a lesser-known, but vital historical event.

Sara; under the project ‘Dissertation’, Sarah chose to investigate whether social media has damaged young women’s body image in the UK in comparison to the 90s? This brave project looked at how harmful social media is, explored the effects of it on eating disorders and looked at the normalisation of body image into harmful content.

Christopher; under the project ‘Artefact’, Christopher designed and built an electric guitar that can be used to play all genres of music. This project explored everything you need to know about guitars, from the build to the performance. A truly amazing feat of skill and knowledge!

Scarlett; under the project ‘Artefact’, Scarlett chose to create a recipe collection, “Finding Balance”, that took into account the media’s influence on exercise and nutrition. Targeted at young people, the recipes aimed to satisfy the nutritional aspect of a ‘healthy diet’, be easy to make and promote a better attitude towards food and body image.

George; under the project ‘Dissertation’, George put together a thesis entitled “On Chess Theory & the Future of Chess. Disregarding logical imperatives, are the predetermined nature of chess software and the introduction of evaluation programs a hindrance to the development of originality and the progression of Chess?” This project aimed to assess the implications of the employment of chess engines and evaluation software in modern chess, by examining theoretical, historical and present examples in depth.

Sam; under the project ‘Dissertation’, Sam questioned how can the developing cybersecurity industry potentially create ethical issues rather than solve them? This challenging project highlights some of the issues that have been created in the past and present, as well as topics such as whistleblowing and cyber security, to give a well-rounded approach to the title and topic of the project.

Once again, a huge well done to all of the Students who worked tremendously hard on their projects and to the staff and audience who supported them throughout their journeys.

Should you wish to find out more about the EPQ at Truro School, please contact Mrs Thurlow at [email protected].