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Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Duke of Edinburgh - Silver Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award - Buckingham Palace: Page 44
DofE GOLD AWARD BUCKINGHAM PALACE - 2022
By Ms Overbeck
We were part of the Record-breaking 12000 Gold Award ceremony held at Buckingham Palace on 16 May 2022. The Celebrations recognised young people who did their demanding Gold DofE programmes both before and during the COVID pandemic. Our morning celebrations saw DofE Trustee HRH the Earl of Wessex and Strictly Come Dancing’s Johannes Radebe give speeches of total inspiration. TV explorer Ben Fogle, DofE Alumna and actor Nina Wadia and The Apprentice’s Tim Campbell were also on hand with inspirational talks on careers and life skills. Johannes left us feeling like we could achieve anything we put our minds to:
PERFORMING ARTS
By Mrs Hollindale and the team
It has been an absolutely packed term in Performing Arts since Easter. We were thrilled to find out on the 8th of April that two of our talented musicians, Benji in Year 12 and Otis in Year 10, were finalists in a National Choral Composing Competition. Their pieces will be performed at the Cloth Workers Hall in Leeds on Saturday the 23rd July. There will be a prize for the highest voted piece, so please do click on this link to vote for them. https://www.orasingers.co.uk/2022-competition Several of our students participated in an Organ Recital and Workshop kindly provided by Dr Nicholas Prozzillo of St Giles Church. As a result, we now have several students learning the organ. In May, our KS3 Choir participated in the National Music Teachers Conference, singing songs from Birdland, which they subsequently performed at Magdalen College School and the Oxford Playhouse and featured on BBC South Today. https://twitter.com/MCSOxford/status/1542776181220573184?s=20
We were extremely lucky in the space of one week to have two of our extremely talented piano teachers, Ilya Chetverikov and Maki Sekiya, performing one of the A-Level set works, 'The Rite of Spring', to a packed audience of Year 9,10,11 and 12 students. This was incredibly impressive, as it is an extremely complex orchestral piece to play on two pianos. A brilliant ex-student, Ella de Villiers, came into school to explain to people how the flute is played. We are very excited, as she will be teaching flute here next year. We were thrilled and delighted that ex-student Bertie Baigent won the International Conductors Competition in Rotterdam. https://www.classical-music.uk/news/article/bertie-baigent-wins-first-international-conductingcompetition-rotterdam KS3 Dance Club were fortunate enough to participate in a Juka Dance workshop, which was demonstrated at the Cherwell Reconnect Arts Event. Hara also came in and taught a professional set of work to Year 11 in preparation for their GCSE. Year 7 really benefited from a devising workshop with Charlotte from Perform for Schools. Year 8 had a great workshop with Trestle Theatre, learning about the use of masks in Drama. The outcomes of both of these workshops were also showcased at the Cherwell Reconnect Arts Event. We launched our Friends of Cherwell music campaign, which was a great success. Thank you to the many people who have already donated instruments to the cause. https://friendsofcherwell.org/music-2023/ Last week was an incredibly busy week, with the fantastic three-act Cherwell Reconnect Arts Event, which included multiple performances: the Year 10 Samba Drumming, Samba dancers, KS3 Dance and Drama, several soloists, our Ukrainian staff parent and student Choir, KS3 Concert Band, String Quartet and Brass Ensemble. Following that, there was a fantastic workshop on Cello to enlist students interested in this particular instrument. Finally, the KS3 Choir performed with the Vox Chamber Ensemble on Saturday evening at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin in a concert of 20th century American music. This week, we look forward to our KS3 and KS4 Les Miserables reward trip. Our students have worked so hard and thoroughly deserve this opportunity. From all of us at the Performing Arts team, we wish you all a relaxing Summer holiday. A massive thank you for all your hard work this term!
