YEAR 12 STUDENTS ORGANISE DENTAL LECTURE AT PARRS WOOD

On Tuesday 1st December, we were delighted that Dr Nick Grey accepted our invitation to come to Parrs Wood Sixth form and give a dental lecture. Dr Grey is the head of Manchester University’s Dental School and recently received a Teacher of the Year medal, awarded annually to teachers from each University who have shown outstanding achievements in their teaching roles.

Throughout the lecture Dr Grey gave a lot of useful information about how to improve your chances of getting a place at Manchester University including what is needed for a good personal statement. Some of the key facts are listed below –

• A minimum of 5 A’s at GCSE for dentistry at Manchester
• A minimum of A A B at A Level
• To be a dental technician requires slightly lower grades but there is no contact with patients.
• Its also necessary to do at least 2 weeks of work experience at a local General Dental Practice (Work experience in year 11 can count towards this).
• It is possible to get into dentistry at University by doing a Foundation Year, but this is NOT for people with poor science A levels, but for non-scientists who got GOOD A levels.

Dr Grey went on to inform us about the huge variety of careers in dentistry you can follow after you qualify. Some of these included: General practice, Specialist practice, Hospital practice, Community work, University teaching and even the Armed forces!

The lecture went extremely well and everyone found it very interesting and useful. Dr Grey actually stayed longer than was originally planned as so many people had questions to ask at the end of the lecture. Around 40 people in total turned up to the lecture, and everyone learnt something new about the Dentistry course.

We also learnt a lot from organizing the lecture. There were four of us in the team, and we wanted to find out as much as possible about Dentistry before we apply to University at the end of year 12. For the lecture to be possible we had to –
• Find a time and date which suited both Dr Grey and Parrswood.
• Advertise the event both in Forum and with posters.
• Give out tickets.
• Book a large enough room.
• We also had to check what equipment/facilities Dr Grey needed.
• On the day we introduced him to the audience and encouraged them to take notes as they could be useful when applying to University.

We really enjoyed doing this project and meeting Dr Grey who was very friendly and helpful. We recommend other students to organise similar events to find out about careers they are interested in.

By Muhammad, Aisha, Rujina & Gulvash Year 12

 

For more information about studying dentistry at Manchester University visit LINK

For more information about courses at Parrs Wood Sixth Form visit LINK