Our FameLab Academy finalists presented their talks to Year 8 in registration and period 1 this morning, with the judges picking Alfie’s outstanding talk on ‘A tyrant’s family tree’ as the winner. A huge well done to Alfie, who will go on to represent STRS at the Gloucestershire regional FameLab Academy finals later this term, competing against pupils from other Gloucestershire secondary schools.

Well done to Joe and Alex as well, who claimed the two runner up spots with their respective talks on ‘Fermat’s Last Theorum’ and ‘Could magic mushrooms solve our mental health crises?’. There were some fantastic STEM-based presentations from all the finalists, which they had all clearly spent a great deal of time and effort planning, and the judges had real difficulty choosing a winner.

Thank you to the three judges, Assistant Head Mr Dempsey and our guests Julia May and Kelly Turner from Cheltenham Festivals, and to Mr Parker for acting as compère.

The full list of today’s Year 9 finalists:

Winner: Alfie - A tyrant’s family tree

Runner up: Joe - Fermat’s Last Theorum

Runner up: Alex - Could magic mushrooms solve our mental health crises?

Oli - Why naked mole rats are real life superheroes

Theo - Radioactivity

Rafa - The magical science of misdirection

Musab - Why do we forget?

Martim - The great unknown: uncovering the secrets of black holes

Ed - MSG – the secret ingredient you’ve never heard of

Jovin - Where on Earth did water come from?