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The Siena Society
‘Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire’
Summer Term 2012
Lectures will normally take place on Thursday evenings at 5:00pm in the Drama studio
Pupils and parents are all very welcome to attend.
(Refreshments at 4:30pm)
| Date | Speaker | Speaker | Event |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thursday 10th May 2012 | Andrew Hanson |  |
Do we all perceive colour in the same way? Mr Andrew Hanson from the National Physical Laboratory, will give a dynamic and interactive presentation which should shed some 'light' on this intriguing question. |
| Thursday 14th June 2012 | Giulia Bonciani |  |
Giulia Bonciani from the Imperial College—Cell and Molecular Biologist. Anyone considering a Biology degree should be attending this lecture, which promises to give us insight into the life and work of a modern day Biologist. |
| Tuesday 26th June 2012 Doors open 6:30pm for refreshments - talk starts at 7:00pm. |
. |  |
Six groups of selected St Catherine's students will present their Olympic projects. |
Climbing the North Face of Everest
Matt Dickenson
On Thursday 15th March, the Siena Society was treated to a truly gripping narrative told by our guest speaker, the mountaineer, filmmaker and author Matt Dickinson.
Matt has 2 passions: mountaineering and writing and we were given a taste of both in a whirlwind snapshot of his life before he had to shoot off down the M4 to give an evening lecture to a Bristol outdoor adventure society.
In 45 minutes we received a lesson in:
Leadership and teamwork in the wilderness. When a team is totally self-reliant, without the possibility of outside assistance in an emergency (as at extreme altitude), it is those teams which ‘talk’ and whose members look out for each other, that do the best. Those whose leader puts the rest of the team first will do best of all. What was interesting was that the leader of Everest expeditions stays behind at base camp in order to plan and organise the logistics of the rest of the group.
The biology of the human body at altitude. Beyond base camp on Everest for example, in order for the body’s haemoglobin levels to carry more oxygen, a climber needs to acclimatize to the lack of oxygen and does so by returning to sleep at base camp after each day’s climbing before pressing on a bit further the next day. Apparently at 29 000 feet, if a climber sustains a cut, the blood is so thick that virtually no blood is produced. This explained the danger of sustaining coronaries at high altitude.
The geology of Everest’s summit. On a photograph of Everest Matt pointed out that towards the summit there was a clear cross section of the mountain that was geologically different to the rest. Apparently this strata contains fossils of fish and other marine life- not what you expect to find 29 000 feet above sea level! It seems that the Himalayas themselves were the result of a collision of the Indian and Tibetan tectonic plates, with the sea and its contents forced up and then over the resultant mountains.
Interspersed amongst such fascinating nuggets of information, we learnt that Everest is fast turning into a dumping ground for discarded kit and is in dire need of structured management to oversee the number and suitability of the mountaineering teams who attempt to climb it.
For any of those present who are due to go to Borneo and climb Mount Kinabalu, Matt’s lecture will have been a source of great inspiration and advice. Apparently (Matt had first-hand experience) the climb down is considerably worse than the climb up and any training to strengthen the knees would be a good idea!
When Matt is not busy filming in some far flung and inhospitable corner of the earth, he follows his other interest, writing. He spoke passionately about the importance of reading in a child’s life: ‘a book takes you to a place, deeper and more profound than anything the internet can offer…’ and the series he has written, Mortal Chaos, provides a perfect example of how a story, imaginatively told and well written, can enthral us all. It was good to see so many orders for his books being placed at the end of his lecture.
Mr Angus Pearson
Head of Sixth Form
Why is the 'Flying Squad' so called?
The answer to this rather trivial question was an aside to what was essentially an extremely informative, enthralling and ultimately reassuring lecture given by DCI Craig Turner, Branch Commander of the Barnes Flying Squad.
In his Siena Society talk, given on 22nd March, DCI Turner spoke about his rapid rise through the ranks of the Metropolitan Police, from a green Police cadet at Hendon (inspired by such telly classics as The Sweeney and The Professionals), through DC,DS, DI to his current position as Detective Chief Inspector in Barnes. He realized that early on he wanted to be a detective, to give himself the chance to see a case through from 'cradle to grave' (ie from arrest to conviction).
The Flying Squad deals primarily with armed robbery, specifically of banks, jewellers and so on and through a dvd of CCTV footage, DCI Turner showed us the outcome of many months painstaking surveillance as a group of his officers thwarted an armed robbery in a well known jewellers in Richmond. It was good to know that the 2 robbers we saw in the clip went on to be convicted and received 8 and 14 year sentences. DCI Turner was adamant that London is one of the safest cities in the country, if not the world and it came as no surprise to hear that the Metropolitan Police is largely to thank for this!
For much of his career DCI Turner has been involved with hostage and crisis negotiation and again we saw footage of a hostage being released from a stronghold by members of SCD7(1)-the Serious Crime
Directorate in charge of kidnapping. For anyone alarmed by the prospect of kidnap, DCI Turner spelled out very clearly that most kidnaps are criminal vendetta kidnaps and that random kidnaps of strangers are very rare indeed.
Throughout his lecture it was clear that women are very well represented in the police force and that this is a vocation with no 'glass ceiling'. Certainly the audience got the impression that a career in the police seems to offer plenty of excitement, challenge, variety, camaraderie and opportunity for promotion.
We are extremely grateful to DCI Turner (and his daughter Francesca, for her IT assistance) in giving us such a rare but vivid insight into the work of the Flying Squad.
Ah yes! Apparently, at the end of World War I, armed robbery in the capital suddenly took off and there was an urgent need for a rapid
response unit to help deal with it. The first vehicles commandeered by a new breed of police officer were borrowed from the Flying Corps.....
Mr Angus Pearson
Head of Sixth Form
Dr Helen Swift - Oxbridge Entrance
The Siena Society welcomed Dr Helen Swift, Fellow and Tutor in Medieval French at St Hilda’s College, Oxford to its latest meeting on 23rd February. Dr Swift talked about the admissions process for both Oxford and Cambridge
universities and the many St Catherine’s students (and their parents) who were there, including some from Years 9,10 and 11 as well from Year 12, would have found it very informative.
It is quite clear that Oxbridge is after ‘exciting minds’; they are 2 universities unashamedly only really interested in the academic excellence of their students. In terms of A level qualifications this translates into typical offers of A*AA for Cambridge and A*A*A to AAA for Oxford with the average successful applicant having achieved a minimum of 6 A*s at GCSE.
Other aspects of the 2 universities which make them unique are that they are both collegiate; as a student you are both a member of the university and also a college. Dr Swift emphasised that such a system allows for a greater sense of community and support. She felt that the differences in all the colleges were largely superficial and that an applicant would be better off spending her time researching the course that she might want to study, as opposed to the college where she would study it. There is an option to make an ‘Open’ application to a college and Dr Swift felt this was a sensible way of proceeding for any student unsure about which college to apply for.
The other main feature of Oxbridge which distinguishes them from other universities, is the tutorial system, whereby each student is allocated an academic tutor with whom s/he has one on one tutorials on a weekly basis. This ensures a truly privileged and interactive education with the personal expertise of a true leader in a given field guiding every student.
Dr Swift was also at pains to point out that both universities use interviews as a primary method of selecting potential students, as well as a variety of specialised aptitude tests. This is a crucial aspect of the admissions process and students from St Catherine’s applying to Oxbridge can expect a lot of help in interview techniques and aptitude testing prior to attending interview.
Perhaps the most important piece of advice that Dr Swift gave in her very helpful talk, was to encourage our students to choose the degree course they want to read first and then look to see which universities offer it. She felt that far too many students apply to Oxbridge simply because of the name, without giving sufficient thought to what they might read when they got there. Such applicants fail to win an offer because they cannot write a ‘convincing narrative about what brings them to the subject’ in their Personal Statement on their UCAS form. As I tell my Years 12 on a weekly basis: ‘ from the beginning of Year 12 you must be continually thinking of ways to show the evidence of your commitment and ability to succeed on your chosen degree course.’ These days excellent exam results alone are not sufficient to gain a place at the country’s top universities and we are very grateful for Dr Swift coming to St Catherine’s to enforce this message, as well as many others.
Mr A Pearson
Head of Sixth Form
Talk given by Mr John Bowers
The Siena Society got off to a riveting start to the year with a sizeable audience being treated to a rare and uncompromising talk by a former convicted robber, Mr John Bowers. Mr Bowers reminded us that 86,000 people are locked up in our prisons today and much of his talk was an attempt to answer the question: why? Using his own background as testimony (a father who he never knew and a mother whom he ‘hated’) it became increasingly clear that as much as Mr Bowers did not want to blame his own fall into crime on upbringing, he clearly feels that poor parenting is a big reason why so many teenagers become criminals.
Tales from the Bailey enthrall Siena Society audience
Before a packed audience, St Catherine's very own English teacher and Head of Law, Jane Bailey delivered a highly colourful, entertaining and informative lecture giving the history behind how and why she became a barrister as well as describing some past cases to highlight some of the unique characteristics inherent in a life at the criminal bar.
Mrs Bailey began by likening the law to teaching in that it is very much a vocation; that the rewards as such are intrinsic to the work itself (plus the odd Aston Martin...). She herself qualified as a lawyer and joined the Bar whilst the whole profession was gripped by blatant sex discrimination. As a pupil in her first chambers we heard how she was treated by the clerk with blatant disrespect, being referred to as 'Sir' in a clear attempt to belittle and demoralize her. But as we learnt later, working amid such chauvinism gave Jane Bailey a resilience which proved invaluable when doing battle in the Crown Court cross-examining various police officers.
The beginning of her career seemed to be spent dealing with a variety of pretty sordid sex offence cases before she moved to the Essex Street set of chambers. Here Mrs Bailey worked on more white-collar crime cases, including the Maxwell brothers pension fraud case as well cases involving malpractice by the medical profession.
Many of us were curious to know 'How can you represent someone you know is guilty?' and fortunately Jane Bailey had already prepared an answer to this question. 'As a barrister your job is to defend the accused however suspicious you may be; you do not 'know' the accused is guilty unless he tells you, in which case a barrister should not represent them. It is the job of the jury to decide on the guilt or innocence of an accused, not the barristers or Judge.'
Many of those present at Jane Bailey's lecture were students, from St Catherine's and other schools too; you cannot help but feel that many of them will now be considering a career at the Bar.
Are you a teenager getting less than 9 hours sleep a night?
Talk presented by Dr Paul Jackson
If so, you may find yourself becoming grumpy, losing your memory, having slower reaction times and generally being less alert, vigilant and even less attractive than your peers! This and much more, we learnt in our latest Siena Society lecture given by Dr Paul Jackson, a psychologist specializing in the effects of fatigue.
Dr Jackson centered his talk around 3 questions: Why do we need to sleep? What are the consequences of fatigue? How can we improve our quality of sleep?
With a series of clear slides we learnt that we need sleep to allow the body to regenerate itself, to reproduce cells and allow time for the brain to reorganize thoughts and emotions gathered from the day before. We were told that our sleep consists of a series of stages - from light (stages 1 and 2) sleep through to deep sleep (stages 3 and 4 - the 'good stuff' - which if we are ever woken from abruptly makes us feel particularly groggy - a familiar feeling for us all!), and a fifth stage, known as REM sleep (when we dream).
In terms of the effects of fatigue, Dr Jackson used video footage to illustrate the potentially fatal consequences of not having sufficient sleep. We saw 2 videos of drivers (one a lorry driver on the M25 and the other in a simulated mini) each struggling to control their vehicle as an ever increasing number of micro-sleeps ( as seen on many a tube train in the morning..) led to loss of consciousness and then collision.
In learning about circadian rhythms we found out the true reason why teenagers like to stay up late and cannot face an early rise! But Dr Jackson's message was very clear: that to underestimate the importance of a good night's sleep is to risk impaired performance in all areas of life and suffer from poor mood and possibly depression as well.
For those insomniacs among us we were advised to avoid caffeine, alcohol, tobacco and using of electronic devices too close to going to bed. Instead, Dr Jackson advised gentle exercise before bed and to write a 'to-do' list of anything pressing that needs doing the next day.
In a culture which has such an ambivalent attitude toward sleep; in which Facebook, Twitter and so on can have such a large and invasive influence on our habits, Dr Jackson's lecture was highly relevant and informative. We are very grateful to him for giving up his precious time to talk to us.
Mr A Pearson - Head of Sixth Form
