Modern students are often vilified in the media for lacking motivation, appearing to be rather lackadaisical in their outlook and are even labelled by some as work shy. Nothing could be further from the truth with five supremely driven students at Shipston High School.
Drive
James and Matthew Barrett, Laurence Barnes, Jedrzej Jakielska, and Jasmina Lichem demonstrated drive and discipline way in advance of what you would normally expect of students who are all sixteen or under in such a high tech competition and world. The five entrepreneurial youths engaged the tight corners and hair-pin bends that was the gruelling F1 Schools Regional Finals held in Birmingham on 15th January, 2020. Within a time period of four weeks they needed to: design a model race car, make it, test it up to race standards, gain sponsorship from businesses, as well as documenting all of the evidence in two portfolios. Not exactly a Sunday afternoon drive for students who already have huge commitments towards their school studies (James, Matthew and Laurence are Year 11 students preparing themselves for their GCSEs in the next few months).
Enterprising and Collaborative
On top of everything else these dedicated petrol-heads needed to take responsibility for individual aspects of the project as well as working collaboratively to ensure the whole process was completed to incredibly high exacting standards, and most importantly they were ready to race!
On your marks. Get set. Go!
On the day, all of the students admitted to being nervous regarding the performance of the car and the other tests they would need to negotiate, but their endeavours were fruitful and they were rewarded with an exhilarating experience and some fine performances. Their super compressed-air powered car was third fastest overall, covering 20m in an amazing 1.56s! They also won the overall verbal presentation award, demonstrating their confidence and eloquence in a five minute oral presentation to a range of industry expert judges. Overall, these students performed way beyond their years in maturity, application and yes, drive, in their pursuit of their future dreams.
World of Work
How often do we hear about Britain’s youth not being ‘work ready’? Well, that certainly couldn’t be levelled at this team! All of them showed the desire and skills to become successful young adults in our ever-changing world, as well as the resilience to make it in the tough post-Brexit economy they will inherit. All of them realised the enormous benefit to themselves that the experience presented and how it has reinforced the views that they all want careers in engineering, F1, technology and commercial enterprise, but the best bit was the atmosphere on the day, seeing the car run and winning their first ever race! Now if that doesn’t motivate you….
Blistering, Graining and Marbles
The world is full of jargon, some quite technical and some just plain obvious if you are in the know. The marbles here do not refer to little glass orbs for playing a game with, nor is it part of a euphemism for someone not in complete control of their faculties. Here it refers to a rather complicated scientific process which occurs to F1 tyres depending on the differential in temperature within the actual tyre…, but you knew that of course? I bet our super team did!
by A. G. Warren
Literacy Co-ordinator