Visitors from Trinity bring uni life and experience to St Paul's

The event, which was held at St Paul’s Catholic School, was jointly organised by St Paul’s teacher Sharon Albone and Terri-Leigh Riley from Trinity College, Cambridge.

Students from St Paul’s Catholic School were joined by sixth formers from Denbigh, Oakgrove, Ousedale and Shenley Brook End and spent the day learning about what life at a top university is really like.

One of the highlights of the day was a talk by Baland Jalal who is currently researching Neuroscience at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Previously a research fellow at Harvard University and a visiting scholar at the University of California at San Diego, Baland’s research focuses on Neuropsychiatry. He is an expert on sleep paralysis and has explored this phenomenon in various countries around the world, including the USA, Denmark, Egypt, Italy and Turkey.

Year 12 students also had mock supervisions with a range of academics in the fields of Law, English, Chemistry, Maths and Medicine.

Supervisions are a central way of teaching at Cambridge University and offer the opportunity to study a subject in depth through discussion and debate. Oxford and Cambridge interviews are modelled on supervisions, so the mock supervisions at the teaching tour provided excellent preparation for students who might apply to these universities in the future.

St Paul’s student, Lily Maxey, said: “It was really helpful that they came to our school. I want to do Neuroscience at university so Baland told us a lot of useful things that furthered our understanding of the subject. The talk from Trinity College, Cambridge was good too as it explained about the extra tests that need to be done.”