Cheltonians never disappoint in ambition or scope for Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) ideas. In chronology, dissertations burst out of the gate with pyramid building in Ancient Egypt, over the Great Schism of 1054, onto an appraisal of Albrecht Durer’s role as a modern celebrity, charging down the home straight past Vietnam, the Stanford prison experiment and Roe v Wade, careering through Taylor Swift’s spat with Kanye West, before boldly going where no EPQ has gone before, into a philosophical and physical study of the possibility of teleportation. Not even space proved to be a final frontier as one study compared the experience of female astronauts to cosmonauts. The EPQ artefacts, by contrast, had a distinct educational theme. A software programme for teaching von Neumann architecture to GCSE pupils might save our Head advertising for a new Computer Science teacher in the future! Meanwhile our Bursar may have his eye on two students’ designs for a university campus building and a learning environment for the new Sixth Form Centre. Commissions for a traditional Flamenco dress, the realisation of John Singer Sargent’s controversial garment for his portrait of Madame X and an Arianna Grande tribute act costume also blossomed into highly accomplished final pieces.

There is always some sound and fury to the Artefacts, captured this year by a Drum & Bass composition, a film representing ‘Generalised Anxiety Disorder’ and a somewhat esoteric magazine article exploring Hong Kong cinema. Alexander Chang and Nastasia Zaikina have been singled out for their extraordinary projects: a water filter (tested to the nth degree) and a dissertation that questioned whether a ‘Unified Field Theory of Everything’ has merit, respectively. That their names proceed from A to Z is purely a coincidence or proof of God’s sense of humour.

Foundation Project Qualification

The Foundation Project Qualification (FPQ) at Third Form may weigh in lighter than the EPQ but is no less a test of endurance and skill for its novice riders. This year, projects have been exploring the British Empire’s role in developing international sports, jellyfish overpopulation and over-prescribing by doctors. Earnest Shackleton and Emily Dickinson are but two of the projects that show the Third Form are able to look far beyond the here and now. I am particularly looking forward to seeing how the artefacts of hedge laying and a card game inspired by Sherlock Holmes turn out. The awards for FPQ went to Anirudh Limbu and Sophie English.

Mr Dominic Nelder