On Wednesday 7^th October, Thornhill Academy hosted their first virtual Oxplore LIVE event with a group of Year 10 high ability pupils. Oxplore LIVE is a collaborative virtual seminar event with the University of Oxford, and aims to inspire pupils to think of issues at a level beyond school.

‘Could there be real life X-men?’ was a question posed to them from professors from the University of Oxford and centred around topics such as biology, zoology, ethics, philosophy and psychology.

Pupils received interesting and lively supra-curricular mini seminars based on the latest research from the University of Oxford. There were plenty of issues to debate: ‘how could humans be altered biologically to have more superhuman powers?’, ‘do humans already have superpowers?’, ‘how can AI match human ability?’ as well as ‘is it right to alter genetics before birth?’

We certainly came away with a lot of inspiration to find out more about the questions raised in the virtual seminar!

Some sound bites from the pupils involved: “I enjoyed the seminar and I would do it again!”, “The materials that the professors discussed were clever and thought-provoking”, “I would have loved to have looked at this in even more detail!”

We hope to be able to host more virtual Oxplore LIVE events at Thornhill Academy very soon. Stay tuned!