Foreword from the 2024 Inspire Essay Competition Booklet

It is a great pleasure to collate Inspire Essay Competition entries from both 2023 and 2024 into a bumper edition, showcasing the range of interests, depth of research, and passion for ideas that our prize-winners have displayed in such abundance. As ever, pupils in Key Stage 3 were asked simply to choose a topic that interested them, investigate it independently, and write up their findings in essay form. The essays printed in these pages represent fewer than a third of those that were submitted. They were chosen for the quality of research, depth of analysis, standard of essay composition and originality of ideas. It is always interesting to see which themes emerge from our pupils’ work when we give them free choice of topic.

To my mind, four key umbrella ideas can be found this time round. Ethics and social responsibility feature prominently, with searching analysis around sponsorship, historic injustice, the role of history itself, the prison system, belief and systems of morality. Technology and Science also takes its place, with essays on medicine, AI, cryptography, electric cars, physics and biology. Our pupils also make clear their interest in the role and nature of education, with pieces on future curricula, the role of music, and the timing of the school day. And then there are the big, more miscellaneous topics that always take the judging panel by surprise: success, love, conformity, coincidence… Who could ask for more from an optional essay competition for Key Stage 3?

Pupils have been awarded prizes for their essays in school assemblies, but for the booklet this year we have taken what educationalists call a ‘vertical’ approach, placing entries alphabetically by surname so that pupils in Years 7, 8 and 9 (and indeed two Prep pupils who wrote during Year 6) are placed side by side. We hope that this allows readers to focus on the content of the essays and rather than the category of prize that was received. Our wonderful Inspire Programme continues to support pupils towards creative thinking, independent ideas and curiosity about the world. I hope that reading these essays showcases these qualities in action. The judging panel and I look forward very much to the next batch of entries in 2025.

Dr P Seal 

Deputy Head (Academic)