Tavistock College Law and Business Studies students welcomed a high powered legal team from Bond Dickinson, the major national law firm, to class this week. The team explained the different routes into a legal career, from the traditional university degree to the new higher level legal apprenticeships, and gave a presentation with a series of scenarios covering the kind of problems that clients bring to law firms for help in resolving. Students found the presentation very interesting: as Tom Bloye remarked, it was really useful to get an insight into commercial law.
Indeed one of the team, paralegal Becky Gliddon, studied A level Law at Tavistock some years ago – ‘It was lovely to welcome Becky back’ Mrs Harris said.
On a fresh October day, year 11 geographers went on their coastal studies fieldtrip to Dawlish Warren.
Focusing on the conflicts that can be identified between coastal management strategies, the day was varied with a guided tour as well as questionnaires, sketches and measurements.
Emily Nunn and Mathew Chambers recently represented Tavistock College in ‘The Lessons From Auschwitz Project’ run by the Holocaust Memorial Trust. It is a course exploring the universal lessons of the Holocaust and its relevance for today. The LFA Project aims to increase knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust for young people and to clearly highlight what can happen if prejudice and racism become acceptable. Both students took part in a one day visit to the Nazi concentration and death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Emily and Matthew found the visit exceptionally moving and demanding: however, both are really glad that they were able to be part of the project and are looking forward to sharing their experiences with the wider college community.
Year 8 Geographers had 4 weeks to research, construct and write a report on a Favela, a Brazilian Shanty town, to mirror the topic of study this half term Brazil.
As well as model they had to present their report on life in a shanty as well as how they managed to construct their models.
The models were simply incredible, unique, with hours of design and construction and sometimes edible! I was quite simply amazed at the level of effort put in by students (with parents and grandparents assistance).
Mrs Froud
As part of their half termly project Year 7 Geographers were encouraged to make and use their own weather instruments keeping their information logged in a weather diary.
Some of the weather instruments were so large that Parents had to drop them into reception as they wouldn’t fit on the bus and other had to simply send photographs in because they would not fit in the car!
Although we decided to do it on a day when we didn’t need rain gauges, the students got to go outside and explain to their class how they created their instrument and how it worked.
Mrs Froud
Year 7 students and sixth form Law, Business Studies and Ethics students recently met Geoffrey Cox to hear about his work as an MP and his experiences as a barrister.
The year 7 students were bright and articulate and wanted to discuss issues such as cyber bullying, while the sixth form and the Amnesty International group of students asked about a wide range of topics, including the EU referendum, benefits payments, immigration, aid to Syria and lowering the voting age.
There was much discussion about these challenging topics and the law department looks forward to welcoming Geoffrey Cox again to look at legal topics in more depth.
During half term some dedicated geographers attended one of the Mark Blackwell public lecture series, by prof Mary Edwards of Southampton university, a leading Arctic specialist, focusing on the impact of climate change on this last wilderness.
The lecture was informative and fascinating and the Tavistock College students were the youngest members of the audience but conducted themselves in a highly engaged and responsible manner.
Mrs Froud
It started off grey but within an hour of reaching Boscastle the sun was beaming making it difficult to imagine that the GeogSquad were in the tiny Cornish village studying Extreme Weather and the events of the flooding of August 2004.
Boscastle still has visible wounds and vivid memories of the events though which makes it a superb opportunity to escape the textbook and study this valid case study first hand.
The students conducted themselves in a mature and sensitive manner throughout the trip on this exam field trip.
Mrs Froud
The self named GeogSquad visited the Eden project as part of their case study element before their exams.
Having had an informative 90 minute workshop with a tertiary education officer, they got to explore the biomes whilst completing questionannaires and surveys focusing on rural rebranding.
The students were polite and efficient and a pleasure to take out on field work experience.
Mrs Froud
A team of talented young entrepreneurs from Tavistock College are through to the final of Peter Jones CBE’s national enterprise competition Tycoon in Schools 2015.
Comprised of seven key stage five pupils, Tyre Fires of Tavistock will now attend a special ceremony at Buckingham Palace on March 14th, where the overall winners will be crowned by Mr Jones and HRH The Duke of York.
The group impressed selling a range of stylish fire pits made from recycled wheel rims.
Team member Phoebe Sanders, 16, said: It feels absolutely fantastic to see all the hard work and dedication paying off. As a team we are ecstatic and cannot wait for the ceremony at Buckingham Palace!
The ambitious sixth formers sourced the rims from a respected local scrap yard, negotiating a reduced price for the raw materials needed for production.
They would then weld two rims together and cut a whole for the door using an angle grinder, before carrying out scrupulous quality checks.
Having developed the idea during a “blue-sky” thinking session, the pupils marketed their products on social media and sold them at various local events.
The team made an impressive £1,327 profit during the trading phase.
Phoebe added: Currently we are discussing within our team the plans for the rest of the year but hope to continue trading as a sustainable business.
Sarah Holt, Head of Humanities and Business Studies teacher commented how incredibly proud Tavistock College is of the team’s achievements, especially their passion for their business and determination to succeed.
Tycoon in Schools challenges youngsters to set up their own real-life businesses using a loan of up to £1000 provided by the Peter Jones Foundation. They then raise as much profit as possible during a seven-week trading period.
Once trading is over, teams submit detailed evaluation reports to Mr Jones, who picks the winners from each key stage category as well as one overall champion.
As well as Tycoon in Schools, the Peter Jones Foundation runs the Peter Jones Enterprise Academy, which delivers courses in enterprise and entrepreneurship at colleges across the country.
