‘Can you keep a secret?’: De-coding the Billingham Society
The Billingham Society forms part of the Academic Enrichment offered to pupils at RGS. Named after the School’s distinguished alumnus Dr John Billingham, the Billingham Society is open to pupils in Years Seven to Eleven. Dr Billingham was a British Physician whose career led him to become Director of the Life Sciences Division at the NASA Ames Research Center in the USA. Dr Billingham spent his life pushing boundaries and challenging orthodox thinking through his enquiring mind, and the Billingham Society encourages our pupils to do the same.
Under normal circumstances, the Billingham Society would run on-site after school, but Covid-19 hampered this during the Michaelmas and Lent terms. However, it didn’t dampen our young Billingham members’ appetite for learning and discovering information about new topics. Recent sessions have been delivered online via an array of presentations, films and lectures authored by experts in their field, and provided thought-provoking content on fascinating topics such as; ‘How to Keep a Secret – the Mathematics Behind Cryptography’, ‘Plastic Fashion’, ‘Star Wars and the Magic of Myth’ and ‘The Economic Impact of Covd-19 on the UK Economy’.
With future sessions on the programme set to delve into subjects such as ‘To Bee or not to Bee: The Disappearing Bees’ and ‘History Through Coins’, RGS Billingham Society members will have much to think about and consider over the coming weeks.