By Miss McHenry, Head of Psychology and Deputy Head of Sixth Form

It was a pleasure to attend the annual GDST Psychology Cup research competition at the GDST (The Girls’​ Day School Trust) office in central London earlier this week. The competition serves as an incredible opportunity for students in Year 12 to collaborate with a team of student researchers at their school and conduct a small-scale study on a topic of interest within the field of Psychology. Research teams from 12 GDST schools presented their projects to our fantastic panel of judges, Dr Shola Apena Rogers CPsychol, Emma Gleadhill, and Dr. Charlotte Airey, who analysed the quality of their research and the confidence they exuded when presenting to the audience.

Topics ranged from an investigation into whether social media makes us more cynical and a study on the relationship between phonology and emotion. It was a truly inspiring day, and all students should be proud of their hard work, innovation, and careful consideration when conducting their research. Congratulations to the Notting Hill & Ealing team (Bronwen, Sasha, Naya, Cici and Samantha) who won the certificate for Best Slides for their experiment on whether similar or opposing personality types will differ in how well they collaborate on shared tasks and to the Cup winners at South Hampstead High School, who won with their project on whether fear or inspiration caused a greater impact in sustainable change in Year 7 pupils.