Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph from Scunthorpe, Humberside, England • 44

1 2 EVENING TELEGRAPH SPECIAL EDITION Tuesday November 25 1997 JJoIhiini ujb xdbI1I1iiudb tells us: "The college is very nice and independent You can find -a lot of friends in the college who can help you a lot The teachers are nice and friendly The standard of education is very good" From the Phillipinos Sony says: "College is very exciting because I have a lot of friends and all the teachers are so helpful that I don't have any problems with my work It is very easy to see a teacher and get help" Nigerian student Chidubem: "My first impression of the college was totally cool and really very impressive Everybody is really friendly and ever so keen to help at all times especially the teachers It is really easy to make friends and blend into the crowd" Haddy from Gambia: "I started the college in September 1997 and I was so excited in the first week because the teachers were helpful and the students were so friendly The college is very peaceful" Fateh Dahir from Denmark: "The college is nice and friendly and you are learning all the time The teachers are Jemina Sofaantus from Peru: "I like studying in the college There are so many facilities available which were not available in my country The staff are very nice and friendly and students also are friendly and easily sociable" Jennifer Binns (Colombia) says: "It is a very good place for studying The teachers are nice and friendly and there are many facilities available" (Jennifer is joined by another student from Colombia this year) Faisal Al-Kundi from Oman: "The college is a new experience for me as it is a new place and system of education I like the British education system because you can learn both theory and practical knowledge" Basilar Ibrahim from Jordan: "I find the college very interesting There is plenty of equipment available such as computers laboratory facilities and a very good library I also find the staff and teachers very helpful and friendly I enjoy it very much Yoong Lei Sze newly arrived from Hong Kong JOHN Leggott College's reputation has grown a lot both nationally and internationally The college has earned this reputation due to the excellent results achieved both by the local and the international students in both GCSE and A-level examinations One of the motivating forces behind the good results is the individual attention given to the students by the staff and students flourish in the friendly and helpful atmosphere Teachers have very high expectations from their students and as a result the college has emerged as one of the major institutions in North Lincolnshire to attract students from overseas This year the college has attracted students from many countries bringing varied cultures and adding flavour and colour to the John Leggott community Some of their comments follow: ESOL coordinator and Clare Ashdown support teacher (S171097B71L John Leggott College is My comments about the things including com puters and girls!" very nice and good Students with Shax Khan very friendly people and the students are good I have many friends in the college" Mohammed from Somalia joined the college very recently Although he has very little spoken and written English he reports that college are very positive The teachers are very good and friendly They look after you just like family" Nicolas from Spain says: "The college is nice and small There are a lot of interesting In addition to these students the college has a lot of home students whose parents have emigrated from Pakistan India Bangladesh Somalia Germany and Hong Kong Baha Ud-Din: "The college is a very friendly and educative place The students and staff are nice and friendly The college has very good facilities" Claudio (Italy) says: "College is very good New A-level physics course 1 lJ IW- 4 a mw mm tmt IM THE recent Dearing review of education in the 16-19 year old sector has already led to the planning of new syllabuses which await the government go-ahead for starting in September 1999 In Physios this process has been particularly exciting as it has enabled a complete re-think of how present courses can be modernised and extended For several years now Physics has enviously cast its eyes on the modern innovative Salters Chemistry syllabus This popular course was written as an applied A-level qualification linked to the needs of industry and commerce and aiming to show students why Chemistry was important in the modern world Consequently it was an important moment in 1996 when the University of York Science Education department (the organisational centre of the Salters Eroject) was able to announce that it had gathered over alf a million pounds in sponsorship promises from UK industry This has enabled it to commence the development of a radically new Salters A-level Physics course Since then a basic dream has begun to grow into reality and staff from John Leggott College Physics department have been heavily involved in a the researching planning and writing of course materials The new course will be a modular one in which the physics will be introduced through the practical contexts in which it is used As an example first year units will look at the physics background in space probes musical instruments sports food production medical imaging and archaeology In the second year the contexts will include particle physics astronomy rail transportation modern communication and the development of building structures to withstand extreme environmental conditions such as earthquakes Coursework will include individual experimental projects and an analysis of how physics is used in one industrial or commercial application which could be anything from a major industrial process to the refrigeration system in a supermarket or a fairground attraction David Neal and Howard Darwin from the college have been commissioned to write one of the first units to be produced provisionally entitled The Sound of Music In this they have managed to develop a strongly practical course in two sections lasting around 4 to 5 weeks of A-level study Section One looks at how musical instruments generate sound what gives different instruments their characteristic sound and how the modern keyboard manages to generate a copy of different sounds electronically through a process called synthe-sising Section Two takes as its central theme the compact disc and discovers how it stores information and how a combination of laser light lenses and prisms and electronics can convert the stored signals back into sound David and Howard have been lucky to be able to build several experiments around a newly released CD-ROM entitled Multimedia Sound written by Gil Graham of Cambridge Science Media This contains a bank of sounds from a range of musical instruments and other sources which can be analysed to show their waveforms and frequency spectra In addition it has been possible to adapt it to record sounds and analyse them as well as to manufacture sounds artificially by combining unrelated waveforms Although the first draft of the new unit has only recently been completed students presently doing physics at the college have already been using the multimedia computerised system in project work It has fitted in well with the department's aim of introducing more IT into its teaching and learning programme In addition the college has become a focus for training in preparation for Salters A-level beginning in 1999 November 7 saw the department host a training day for Physics teachers from eight northern sixth-form colleges in which the morning session was led by Dr Liz Swinbank and Chris Butlin (Directors of Salters Physics) The afternoon session focused on the multimedia sound package and was run by its author Gil Graham and John Leggott Physics staff Exciting times lie ahead for both physics students and staff in the college The challenge will be to maintain A-level pass rates at the present high standard of 95 with 61 obtaining the highest grades A to JULIA POLLOCK John Lrggolt's Head of Psyrhnlogy (pictured) has been campaigning for the Minister of Health to make time available in parliament fur legislation to bring the psychological profession under legal controL Julia is concerned about two things One is the fart that anyone no matter what their training or background ran set themselves up as a psychologist therapist or counsellor and offer supposed 'treatment to potentially vulnerable clients especially those who are depressed or suiridaL She is also appalled that some psychology teachers are letting unqualified and unsupervised students carry out research that is morally wrong "There is absolutely no doubt in my mind" she explains "that real damage will be done if things aren't changed I am regularly appalled to find that there are people in and outside the profession who have little regard for the protection of the public" Julia says that The GCSE and A-level Psychology courses at John Leggott require students to do some research of their own Therefore my colleagues and I have taken a lead locally in ensuring that our students have an ethiral understanding of their research" Julia is a graduate member of the British Psychological Society and has taken a leading role in their campaign by briefing local MP Elliot or ley He has now contacted the Health Minister Paul Roateng MP who has promised to consider carefully the case for registering THE Physics department within John Leggott College launched its own web-site earlier this year This new web-site contains information about the department and the physics and electronics course on offer It also contains several pages of links to many other physics electronics or general science web-sites of interest together with an area for students' own pages The main purpose for our web-site is to encourage students tn use the web as a research resource in it they can obtain specialist information required for projects and tasks or background reading in exciting areas not necessarily covered by older text books such as black hole cosmology or the physics of tornadoes The links pages available make an excellent jumping-off point for sites of interest enabling a student to move between NASA's vast web resources in the USA an electronics tutorial in Hong Kong and an Australian hurricane-monitoring station by merely exercising their forefinger: (clicking a mouse button) The web-site is also used in mainstream lessons on a fairly regular basis and we are looking to increase this usage in the future hopefully bv having Internet access facilities available in every laboratory An example of using the Internet as part of a lesson might be looking at satellite images and data to learn about different uses of satellites or we might visit The Virtual Laboratory a site where hundreds of physical phenomena are simulated or demonstrated in a virtual environment using small programs called 'applets' designed to run on your web-browser In one such applet a chaotic pendulum is simulated: another demonstrates the basics of projectile motion an important part or our first A-level Physics Module Aside from our on-line exploits the Physics and Electronic Department is moving rapidly in an Information Technology direction using computers to enhance learning in many areas We use electronics simulation software for example to design build and test some electronic circuits in a virtual environment This saves time as well as having the added advantage of not being too costly when things to wrong and components are destroved' An increasing number of our students are also us'ing hi-tech software to gather and analyse data during their experimental projects If you wish to visit our web-site you can access it via the main John Leggott College web-site httpVleggot-twvbjmpIcxouk or directly via the URL http leg gottwebrmplccouk'pageslcphysicshomehtml John Leggott College training day involving lecturers from 6th Form Schools and Colleges in North Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire Salters A-Levei physics project director Elizabeth Swinbank with Gil Graham from Cambridge Science Media and John Leggott College head of physics David Neal looking at the use of circuitry diagrams on computer (Ret No S071197E).