By Rosie and Nicola H, Year 10

During the autumn term, eleven students from Year 10 took part in a Polymath Project in collaboration with Harrow School.

This followed the success of last year’s “Ancient Alexandria” scholarly collaboration with the two schools, an initiative which seeks to stretch and challenge talented academic students in both schools, giving them a taste of academic exploration.

The main topic this year was “What is Life” and within this topic, pairs were given subtopics ranging from Religion to Biology. Each NHEHS student met virtually once a week on Google Meet with a student from Harrow to work in a pair towards producing both an essay and presentation; the objective, to showcase and present their research with their partners, in a passionate and engaging way.

We were given the topic “Architecture” and faced an unexpected amount of obstacles; digital problems were common, interfering with the development of our projects. This made the launch of them difficult and challenging, however, despite these problems, we were able to pack in valuable work, beyond the schedule. This not only improved efficiency, but allowed us to get to know our partner better and come up with lots of interesting ideas relating to our topic. Before this project, we had never considered the extent to which architecture influences the world, or even discussed its importance. Therefore, doing this project gave us an opportunity to expand our understanding of the topic, embrace the beauty of architecture and widened our perspective of the world. It was inspiring to observe such a wide range of opinions and listen to each other’s unique take on the topic. 

Our combined efforts were rewarded, with an amazing experience of Harrow School itself, which we visited on the 7th of December to deliver our final presentations. Their brilliant old buildings and massive school grounds and canteen, were definitely one of the best aspects and highlights of the project, along with the enjoyment of listening to others’ progress and hard work. Although we all felt quite nervous and anxious about the presentations, the atmosphere in the room was very supportive and encouraging. The challenging questions asked by the teachers were well received, and by the end of the evening, we all concluded with a satisfied but slightly bittersweet farewell. 

It was an honour to be given the opportunity to participate in the Harrow Project, and we believe that next year’s Year 10 students should definitely make the most of every meeting and not stress! It is a great learning stepping stone to appreciate and improve teamwork and social skills, and we would advise them to just have fun!