Celebrating Project Qualification Success at Forest – 2023-24

One thing that makes a Forest education distinct is that all pupils benefit from the super-curricular enrichment provided by our outstanding Projects Department. A core part of our Year 10 and Year 12 curriculum includes the opportunity for pupils to complete the widely esteemed Higher and Extended Project Qualification.

The Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) continues to unlock doors to higher education, with a significant number of universities acknowledging its value through reduced grade offers.

This year, an impressive 37.7% of our Year 13 cohort’s university offers were reduced in favour of students excelling in their EPQs, highlighting the qualification’s substantial impact. The Russell Group, synonymous with academic excellence, endorses the EPQ as a testament to a student’s ability to engage in independent learning and rigorous preparation—skills essential for university success. The University of Cambridge goes further, actively encouraging prospective students to undertake an EPQ.

The trend is clear across the board, with the University of Leeds leading the way by reducing 32 offers, followed by Exeter with 23, and a host of other prestigious institutions. This endorsement of the EPQ underscores its role not only in academic enrichment but also as a strategic advantage in the competitive realm of university admissions. Other highly-selective institutions that have reduced offers for our pupils this year in acknowledgement of their EPQ successes include Birmingham, York, Sheffield, Manchester, Bath, Southampton, Nottingham and Liverpool.

Some excellent titles from previous years include:

• To create a Tic Tac Toe Artificial Intelligence system using a reinforcement learning algorithm.
• To what extent is society biased towards extroverts?
• To what extent is Momentum a threat to the Labour Party?
• Is the practice of saviour siblings morally justifiable?
• To what extent can it be argued that play with Lego has a positive impact on intelligence, and can I support this argument with an appropriate psychological investigation?
• Does the study or participation of the arts aid medical students to obtain skills beneficial to their careers as practitioners?

Last year, Forester’s EPQ results continued to be outstanding – demonstrating the strength of our pupils’ academic flexibility, independence, high-level research skills and resilience. Nearly 50% of all projects were awarded the highest grade of A*, and over 70% gained an A* or an A. Similarly, pupil performance in the HPQ (completed in Year 10 as excellent preparation) was excellent, with >40% achieving an A* and 70% achieving A*-A.