The first two weeks of this research project have brought plenty of surprises and new experiences. Last week, we learnt that our research focus had been shifted to extracurricular policy – I was very happy with this change as, being the daughter of a teacher, I have seen how challenging it can be to run extracurriculars in schools without sufficient support. It is certainly a subject that I’m looking forward to exploring more.

When running the extracurriculars in schools, I was reminded of how important everything feels to a child. In our mystery-solving session, the students would dedicate all their focus to the mystery. At times, they would become so excited about who they suspected that they would jump around the classroom explaining their reasoning. When we first trialled our session with the rest of our Laidlaw cohort, they had been nowhere near as involved.

It has been great to experience Oxford outside of term-time. This week, we attended St. Giles Fair: a bright and busy funfair that covered the main road of the city. There were rides and games like hook-a-duck; and it was incredible to see another side to the city other than libraries and museums (although those are great, too).

The lack of lectures and tutorials has allowed more time to spend with others in my cohort. On Wednesday, six of us attended a pub quiz near to the SDG lab. Although we weren’t particularly successful, it was still enjoyable to get to know their interests outside of academia, and I think we are likely to give the quiz another try!