March 5th 2020
Years 7 and 8 Visit Ampleforth College
Monday: We set off for Ampleforth School in Yorkshire from Moulsford just after 9 o'clock on Monday morning. It was a 5 hour minibus journey with various stops for snacks and lunch. When we arrived at Ampleforth, we visited the visitor entrance which gave us some history about the monks and their monastery.
After we had been let into our boarding house, we were taken up to our dorm, which was a big room with space for ten people (even though we only had eight boys). After we had unpacked, we were allowed down into the common room, which contained a table tennis table, a pool table, and multiple sofas. Next we headed over to the church, where we attended Vespers which consisted of the monks singing the entire service in Latin. We were given the translations to follow in our own service books but it was still tricky to do!
After this, we went over to Ampleforth’s own small pub/dining space that the Sixth formers use, where we had dinner (delicious burgers) and interacted with some other schools in a 40-question pub quiz. Afterwards, we headed back to the house to have showers, brush our teeth, and settle down for bed.
Tuesday: After a nice sleep, we woke up at around 7am, got ready for the day and headed down for breakfast (bacon, eggs, beans, etc. Yum.)
After all of our morning activities, the actual challenges began. The format for the day meant we got two papers at once to do in an hour, the only differences were the ‘Creative Production’ and the ‘General Knowledge’ rounds which we did on their own. In between each couple of challenges, we had a short break in which we had a snack and drink.
Firstly we had English, which consisted of the analysis of books, and Science, which was very much based on the decomposing of radioactive isotopes (like Plutonium-244 to Francium), in the first hour, we split up into 2 teams of 4 to tackle the challenges.
This was followed by Art and Poetry and Code-breaking - two completely different papers! The Art & Poetry challenge was a very interesting, yet fun challenge in which we had to compose a haiku around religion, and we were given a book to express the haiku in art. Our book was an open page, with hands cut out to represent the hands of God. We also used scrap bits of paper to create colourful flowers to represent God’s kindness. The words of the haiku were also written on small pieces of paper on the piece. In the Code-Breaking we had to decipher multiple codes, which consisted of PigPen, Caesar Cipher, three column encryption, and reverse writing.
The next couple of challenges were Engineering and Ideation. The ideation challenge consisted of the creation of a new interface and logos and icons. We created a retro gaming interface, named ‘Arcadia’. Arcadia is a hub for all retro games that aren’t too easy to access nowadays. It is made to bring several generations together. In the engineering challenge, we had to create a model plane out of: two paper cups; some paper straws; two knives; elastic bands; and card (along with glue gun and tape to stick things together). We were judged on how long it stayed in the air, the distance travelled, and the description of it.
After these 6 challenges, we had a quick lunch break of small sandwiches, crisps, and a delicious chocolate muffin. Afterwards, we had the Creative Production challenge, which was only 13 minutes long. In this challenge we were set the task of creating a 60 second play on ‘The Last Supper’ (the Da Vinci Challenge’s overall theme this year). We were allowed 4 minutes to plan, 8 minutes to rehearse, and of course, 1 minute to perform. Our short play was based on four prisoners having their last meal on death row: quite dark!
After this, we had a couple more challenges: Maths and Chess; and Cartography (the study of maps). The cartography exam was based on studying maps, understanding locations and knowledge of flags. The Maths and Chess challenge was where we had to work out how to get checkmate in a certain amount of moves, and the maths was a variation of very hard puzzles and problems.
The final challenge was General Knowledge. This challenge was a mix of questions about logos, several anagrams, and even a general knowledge quiz.
After all of this, it was the moment we had all been waiting for: the results. For each challenge, the markers announced the year 7 & 8 (us) winners, and the year 9 & 10 winners for each subject. Here are the 5 challenges that we won:
Science (captained by Blake W)
Art & Poetry (captained by Harry T)
Codebreaking (captained by Oli S)
Cartography (captained by Toby S)
General Knowledge (captained by Blake W)
This led to us winning the whole thing! Ahead of 2nd placed Twickenham Prep School and 3rd place Cheltenham Prep.
After all of this, we enjoyed a much needed Burger King!
Overall, it was an extremely enjoyable day and we would classify this as a huge success! And, in the end, the 5 hour trip to Yorkshire was definitely worth it and if anyone gets the opportunity to go next year you definitely should!
Written by Noah C and Oliver S 8G
The Moulsford participants were:
Noah C (Year 8), Oliver S (Year 8), Toby S (Year 8), Blake W (Year 8), James L (Year 7), Max F (Year 7), Harry O (Year 7) and Harry T (Year 7).
And we were cheered on and driven up by the very supportive Mrs Guy and Mr Sparrow.
