HM letter to Parents April 2018

HEADMASTER’S LETTER APRIL 2018

T0 PARENTS

Dear Parents I hope you have had a very happy Easter and I am conscious that many pupils will have been involved in the variety of activities that took place over the holidays, some of which are described here.

In addition, others will have come into school for extra sessions connected with public exams or will have been revising at home.

Amongst all of this, I hope there was some time to re-charge batteries.

Contents Page 1

Maintenance Work Adrianna Wojtyna Exams Rowing Staff News

Page 2

Duke of Edinburgh

Page 3

Duke of Edinburgh Chamber Concert School Fixtures

Page 4

Trip to Cern

Page 5

Geography Trip to Iceland

Page 6

Careers Convention Speech Day

Page 7

Summer Ball Blue Calendars And Finally

Maintenance Work The Easter holiday has been a particularly busy period for support staff. As well as battling against the elements in a race to get the cricket squares ready there has been

extensive works completed in the dining hall, boarding houses, staff accommodation,

drama centre, medical centre and the Old School. Preparatory work for the

forthcoming roof repair has been undertaken in Penn’s house and the swimming pool has been completely overhauled.

Adrianna Wojtyna

Rowing

In my last letter I explained that

Congratulations to Jack Cushway who

2030 National Engineering Competition

of term. Jack’s crew came 16th out of 52

Adrianna Wojtyna had won the Talent

rowed in the Scullery Head at the end

for Girls. Over Easter, Adrianna was

coxed 4’s and, as a result, will be

told that her project on ‘Detection of

representing the South East in the Inter

the Escherichia Coli bacteria using

Regional Championships this weekend.

biosynthesised silver nanoparticles’ has been deemed worthy of exhibition at

Staff News

Research Projects Competition.

We are delighted to welcome Miss

the

MEF

Education

Institutions

Francesca Porter who joins us this term

as a KS2 teacher. We will also be joined

by Mr Wouter Kolkman as Head of IT

Exams

Systems. We hope they will both be

Most pupils will have exams over the

very happy here.

coming weeks, either internal or external.

They should have received

We send our congratulation to Mrs

clear guidance about how and what to

Michaela

revise but we do appreciate that this

Chan

and

her

husband

Jonathan on the arrival of their son Isaac

period can be stressful. As always, if you

Yat-Shun Chan. We also congratulate

have any concerns please do not

Mr Aaron Thomas and his wife Chelsea

hesitate to get in touch.

on the arrival of their daughter Adalee

1

Duke of Edinburgh

twelve managed difficult conditions as they trained for three days canoeing on the River Stort between Bishop’s Stortford and Harlow.

Meanwhile, twenty-five Lower Fifth pupils carried out three days of walking and camping on the North Downs. Ten groups of Remove pupils carried out their bronze training expedition along the muddy Essex Way near Skreens Park in conditions which required real perseverance. Qualifying expeditions, walking and canoeing will take place for bronze, silver and gold later this term and early in the summer holidays. DoE requires completion of

As part of our expansion of outdoor learning opportunities, it has been very pleasing to see the increase in participation in the Duke of Edinburgh scheme. Last year, Remove pupils were able to begin the bronze for the first time

and of the sixty who completed the award, nearly two-thirds of Lower Fifth pupils have now begun silver. Of these,

2

Duke of Edinburgh

Chamber Concert

activities in four categories: volunteering, physical, skills and the expedition. Many of those who have completed the award recognise that they have developed skills, resilience, confidence and friendships whilst doing so.

On the penultimate day of last term, the Chamber Concert in New Hall offered an intimate setting, fitting for the generally smaller ensembles who perform for parents, staff and friends. These included string, saxophone and trombone quartets as well as flute, clarinet, percussion and drum groups who all played short pieces that flowed smoothly from one to the next displaying the range of diverse talents and enthusiasm of the pupils.

There was nothing small about the audience who enjoyed the excellent performances and congratulations go to all involved.

School Fixtures During this busy time of year when many students have important public exams, we would appreciate your continued support in encouraging your sons’ and daughters’ commitment to sporting fixtures throughout the term.

3

Trip to Cern

At 4.00am on 28th March, twenty-five intrepid explorers gathered in the Chapel Quad. Light drizzle and a temperature of 2°C did not deter them as they made their way to the coach for the flight to Geneva.

After arriving and dropping bags at the Youth Hostel, the group visited Geneva’s History of Science Museum before taking a water taxi across Lake Geneva to spend an hour or so looking around. As evening came it was off to the Swiss themed meal, where Alpine horns, yodelling, cowbells, spoons and accordions accompanied the cheese fondue and Swiss sausage meal.

Then it was back to the Hostel for an early night in readiness for the 8.00am departure for CERN the following day. Mr Sexton’s phone app said they had walked some 19,000 steps on the first day. Mr Porter thought it felt more like 190,000!

After breakfast, the party set off for CERN, the home of the Large Hadron Collider. After an introductory lecture, they went to a couple of sites in the CERN complex.

Informative talks, guides and animations explained how A level physics formed the basic theory of the LHC as it smashes protons together to create conditions similar to those microseconds after the Big Bang. Lunch and some free time followed before the flight back to Luton and the coach journey back to school, arriving around 11.00pm. It was a tiring trip, but well worth it.

4

Geography Trip to Iceland

At the start of the Easter break, twenty-eight Middle Sixth students travelled to Iceland for the annual geography trip with three members of staff. On the first day, the group took in the attractions of Reykjavik including Hallgrimskirkja Church which is modelled on natural rock columns as well as the Harpa Concert Hall and harbour areas. The next day, the party visited a number of beautiful waterfalls including Seljalandsfoss which spills sixty metres over a former sea cliff but is now inland due to isostatic rebound. They also visited Eyjafjallajökull to gain an insight into the impact of the 2010 eruption.

Another impressive site was Sólheimajökull glacier which has been retreating at the rate of one hundred metres a year for the last century. The final day included visits to Geysir spouting hot spring, a dairy farm at Efstidalur and the National Park at Thingvellir where Iceland’s parliament was established in 930AD. One of the very last stops on the trip was at the Blue Lagoon, the bathing pool where the geothermal seawater is drawn from a 2km borehole.

5

Careers Convention

attractive to potential employers.

Students from the Upper Fifth should attend but those from the Sixth Form and other year groups are also very welcome.

We are grateful to parents, Old Chigwellians and friends who have given up their time to make this event possible.

A reminder that we will be holding our careers convention on Wednesday 18th April. There will be representatives from a range of careers and we hope that students will take the opportunity to learn as much as possible about the potential opportunities available to them and how they can best make themselves

Speech Day

The programme for Speech Day and its related activities will follow the usual format: Friday 6th July

Saturday 7th July

2.15pm

3.30pm

9.45am

11.15am 2.30pm

Pre Prep, Lower I and Upper I Service in St Mary's Church

Pre Prep, Lower 1 and Upper 1 Garden Party Junior School Service at St Mary's Church

Senior School Service at St Mary's Church

Speeches and Prize Giving in the Marquee

The Guest of Honour at Speech Day this year will be Dr Sharath Jeevan who left Chigwell is 1994. He studied Economics at Cambridge University and went on to work with the Strategy Consultants Booz and Co. before moving to be Head of Social Ventures at Ebay and senior manager at NGO Action Aid. Five years ago Sharath founded the charity STIR Education which seeks to bring networks of teachers together across the developing world to improve standards in schools. STIR now works with 75,000 teachers and 2.6million children through three thousand teacher networks in India and Uganda.

Sharath has also gained a Masters degree and an MBA, and was recently awarded an Honorary Doctorate for his work in education. We look forward to welcoming Sharath back to Chigwell.

The preacher at the services on Saturday morning will be The Reverend (Colonel) Mark Christian FRSA, CF who was Brigade and Divisional Senior Chaplain in the Royal Army Chaplain’s Dept. He was also a Household Division chaplain, serving with the Grenadier Guards. The preacher at the service on Friday afternoon will be our school Chaplain, the Reverend Gary Scott.

6

Summer Ball

A ticket order form and details of the Summer Ball to be held on the evening of Saturday 7th July are being been sent out by e-mail. This is always a very popular event and you are urged to apply for tickets as soon as possible as they are allocated on a first come first served basis.

Blue Calendars

As usual, the Trinity Term calendars are being distributed to pupils who should also bring home a copy.

And Finally

I look forward to seeing you over the coming weeks at the various events that will take place.

With best wishes Yours sincerely

Michael Punt

7

TERM DATES 2018 Trinity Term Half term:

Saturday 26th May to Sunday 3rd June INSET Day Monday June 4th

Term ends:

Wednesday 11th July