Learn practical DIY and decorating skills with our experienced Facilities Team. Some of the skills covered are – basic hand tools and how to select the correct tool for the job; the safe and correct use of power tools; how to hang a picture and put up shelves; selecting the right fixtures and fitting (Eg. screws, rawlplugs etc); basic plumbing (Eg. dripping taps and unblocking sinks); basic electrics: changing a plug and replacing the fuse, re-setting a breaker in a fuse board and selecting the correct lightbulb; basic decoration: using Polyfilla, preparing and carrying out re-decoration; building a piece of IKEA flat-packed furniture and repairing a bicycle tyre.

Have you ever come up with a good business idea and wondered how you might develop it? During this elective, students will get the chance to work with our link entrepreneur and business mentors who will guide them through an innovation sprint involving design-thinking and value propositions. The students will be expected to carry out a ‘dig deep’ research task relating to their concept and will present their research in a pitch to the group. This enrichment elective is designed to give the girls a real flavour of the world of work, particularly entrepreneurship.

This course is for coders and the coding-curious! We will try to engineer a web app using the same tools employed by Instagram, Spotify and Pinterest. We will explore how to generate an idea, create a design, collaborate on code, test code and deploy on a web server. Along the way we will learn some Python and the widely used Django framework, design an interface using HTML, CSS and the Bootstrap framework, and collaborate on code using the GitHub source code management platform. No coding experience or knowledge is required, but everyone signing up will be expected to try to learn the ropes using the rich selection of online resources.

It is inevitable that some medical issues will be relevant at some point in our lives. Often the time when we need to make an informed judgement is exactly the time when we are at our most vulnerable and it is good to have thought about these in advance. Subjects previously covered include Alzheimer’s disease, screening programmes, immunization, alcohol, hypertension, Parkinson ’s disease, sepsis, the NHS, cancer and thalidomide but the list varies depending on individual interests. Whilst this course is likely to be of particular interest to anyone considering pursuing a medicine-related degree (and many of the topics discussed will be useful as potential interview discussion points), there is no need for any specialist scientific knowledge.

The creative writing enrichment course is a lively, interactive session of book discussions, reading reflections, and writing sessions led by an FHS English teacher who is a published author and ran the Literary Club at NYU in London for seven years. Looking at extracts based on life and literature’s biggest themes, students will journey into their own minds to articulate and express their feelings about these topics and explore the mystical and surprising process of writing. Creative writing fosters and enhances well-being and empathy, ideas of identity and self, creative thinking, originality and the imagination. Recent themes include love, death, identity, the individual and society, coming of age, freedom, and discovery.

Is there a difference between a mainstream religion and a cult? Founder of Scientology L. Ron Hubbard was reported to have said “If you want to get rich, you start a religion.” In this elective, students are invited to explore the sociological and psychological roots of cultic religious movements throughout history. We will debate the morality of cults and the portrayal of such movements and their members in the media. Football teams, Extinction Rebellion, The Oprah Winfrey Show – to what extent do these modern-day phenomena share the characteristics of cults? This elective should be considered with caution as some sensitive topics are covered.

For weddings, a funeral, a party, a ceremony and most other events when humans come together, there will be music. Why is music such a prevalent part of our culture? We will be understanding the power of music, exploring the link between music and wider society. How is music influenced by and how does it influence social norms, the political economy, media industries and technological developments? We know music has extensively been used a positive tool and, therefore, what power does music have when used for evil? We will be looking at the history of music-making and listening and how conventions adapt over time and across cultures. We will look to research to gain an understanding of the social functions, and significance, of music in our lives, while listening to plenty of great music, old and new, on the way.

Have you ever gone into a bespoke bakery and thought what a wonderful gift personalised biscuits or cupcakes would be for someone important? This is an opportunity for students to let their creativity run free. On this course Sixth Formers learn a variety of techniques such as fine tip piping, making sugar paste flowers and transferring a personalised message/design which will result in beautiful cupcakes to present as gifts to rival the likes of Peggy Porschen and Biscuiteers!

Spend the term exploring creativity at The Fashion School. Learn to drape, machine and hand sew, thrift and flip customisation, even how to repair clothes in the first four weeks before embarking on personal projects. Prom dresses, revamped denim and trainers, mannequin stands, designer donated fabric, glue guns, corset making, haberdashery, sweat-shirting – the possibilities and supporting facilities are all there at an arty fashion studio just off the Kings Road.  Students are closely supported through their journey by Central St Martin fashion tutors as they unleash individual style and learn lifelong sewing skills.

Because we live in a multi-lingual, multi-cultural environment, the concept of identity keeps evolving. Are we defined by our nationality, cultural background, the language we speak? In this elective, we will explore what constitutes cultural identity from a theoretical approach to real life situations. This elective will cover the notions of ‘diversity,’ ‘inclusion,’ ‘cultural appropriation’ and the relation between identity and violence (work by Amin Maalouf) while trying to sustain cultural identity of individual/s. This elective will appeal to those who like reading and discussing questions of identity but also those who enjoy tackling and potentially solving challenging situations that involve diverse cultural identities.

How do cities and suburbs, fields and forests appear when viewed from a vantage point of nearly twenty miles above Earth’s surface? Would you like to picture the pitch black of the universe and visualize the Earth as a globe surrounded by its fragile blue atmosphere? What experiments would you do if you had a laboratory on the edge of space?

High altitude balloon (HAB) missions can achieve breath-taking views of our planet and are designed to carry out experiments in near-space conditions to gather a multitude of scientific data for analysis. Such large helium-filled balloons are released at ground level with payloads attached, climbing to an altitude of around 30 km, above 99.9% of Earth’s atmosphere. The balloon bursts and the payload will be returned to Earth, via parachute. Recovery of the probe is possible using GPS tracking. Sixth Form students can be part of an inventive FHS design and build team to achieve all of this without NASA’s help!

This project will provide pupils with an opportunity to complete research, problem solve and develop skills in the following areas:

• Atmospheric Physics and meteorology, to make flight path prediction
• Telemetry and data logger evaluation
• Power and battery issues
• Design experiments to detect cosmic rays, CO2 or ozone
• Complete exposure experiments with rubber bands, seeds or mould