The Churcherian 2021 by Churcher's College

The Churcherian 2021

Acknowledgements Editor

D Greenall

Design

G M Hadlow

Cover artwork by: Charlotte Matthews

Headmster's Foreward

Junior School

10 Nursery 12 Infants 14 Junior Art 16 Middle School 18 Upper School 20 Junior Music & Drama 22 Junior Sport 28 Senior School Houses 32 Sixth Form 34 Fifth Year 36 Art & Design 38 English 39 Mathematics 40 Humanities 46 Modern Foreign Languages 48 Science 50 Technology 52 Drama 54 Music 56 Sports Science & EPQ 58 Sport 64 Adventure 70 Charity 72 Development Office 74 Staff Departures

Simon Williams

Headmaster’s Foreword

There is a honeymoon period at the start of every academic ayear when there is an abundance of energy and excitement; a frisson of delight as friends of old meet up after a long summer break and new acquaintances are made. After 18 months of restriction, isolation and deprivation this start of year has been particularly special as we appreciate what we have that much more, because we now know what it is like when we haven’t got it. That is just as true of people as it is of activities and opportunities.

years, Al Saralis (Art) 24 years, Linda Blackman (Curriculum Support) nearly 19 years, Jane Smith (another of the ‘pink ladies’) 17 years, Gemma Heath 12 years and David five years (both Art), Charlotte Lilley (English) 12 years, Paul Shipley (Economics) nine years, Rob West (Physics) eight years, Jo Trench (Maths) six years, Peter Beard (PE) five years, Jackie Dredge (Art Technician) five years, Linda Tebb (Accounts) four years. A hugely impressive total of 244 years of contribution to Churcher’s; there is more of them and their well-deserved valedictions later on in this magazine.

I am sure conversations about ‘long Covid’ will go on for many moons, but for some staff who have been here for extraordinary lengths of time, tenures of a quarter of a century plus, the pandemic has been a catalyst for retirement and already we are missing their perennial presence. The roll of honour of such souls is legendary: Jean Millard (Biology) 34 years, Teresa Robins (one of the ‘pink ladies’) 28 years, David Robbins (Bursar) 25 years and Linda (Librarian) a mere 22 years, David Cave (English) 24

Many amongst the number are hanging up their chalk dusters and gowns and are so deserving of a long and happy retirement, but just as we have found with Covid, life can be very, very unfair. On the very first day of this academic year, almost the very first day of his retirement, the most tragic news of David Cave’s death shocked everyone.

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David was an English scholar and a man with extraordinary penmanship, and I sorely need his talents at this

moment to do him, and the sense of loss we all feel, true justice. David was a rare combination of exceptional academic, brilliant teacher, delightful person and the most modest of souls. His passion for his subject is legendary, but his dedication to sharing that passion with those he taught unsurpassed. It may be of no surprise to hear that he was a novelist, an author, but equally it will not be unexpected that he kept that side of his life rather private. No one could ever accuse David of being a ‘trumpet blower’. David was stoic, he just got on with it with undimmed energy and intensity whatever ‘it’ might be and that reflects so much of what went on at Churcher’s during the pandemic years. With so many reasons to say “no, it is not possible”, everyone, child and adult alike, found a way to make it happen. Orchestras may have been separated into year group bubbles or even performed as a technical embroidery of solo artists stuck in their bedrooms; expeditioners and canoeists may have not been allowed on Dartmoor or the Thames, but

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“…a year of much accomplishment, reward and well-deserved applause, without a shadow of a doubt”

This chronicle is probably a poor reflection of an ‘annus horribilis’ because, despite all, it is not how many will have seen 2020-2021. Different, undoubtedly; a challenge, certainly, but a year of much accomplishment, reward and welldeserved applause, without a shadow of a doubt.

it didn’t stop them taking on the challenge and walking the distances of Ten Tors or paddling the equivalent back-breaking miles of the Devizes to Westminster Canoe Marathon; sports teams may not have been able to compete against other schools but nothing was going to stop them creating internal championships; and plays may have had to be rehearsed online or from behind face-masks but the show certainly went on. Whilst the world ground to a halt and kitchen tables became classrooms, the most remarkable levels of ingenuity, innovation, inspiration and resolve abounded.

I couldn’t conclude without thinking what the most erudite and perspicacious of our Churcher’s family, David Cave, would have said about last year. No doubt he would have referred to literature, or those responsible for it, and in that sense I quote from one famous author who said, “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way”. That is how this last academic year has felt, constant adaptation to unseen twists and turns, but we have got to our destination in both good fettle and good heart.

Apart from one or two Hollywood disaster movie scriptwriters, few predicted a global pandemic and those that did probably suggested the world wouldn’t cope; but the world did and this magazine provides evidence of just that at Churcher’s. Outside the classroom and in, on the school site or remotely, there is so much to celebrate about the academic year just gone, arguably more than in a normal year where life is a little more plain-sailing. As is tradition, and for completeness, this foreword needs to carry a record of academic achievement in respect to academic results. What the raw data below doesn’t show is quite how much extra was required by both teacher and student to achieve such creditable results.

GCSE 2021 A Level 2021

Grade Cumulative Percentage 9

30.3

9-8

56.4

9-7

79.2

9-6

93.5

9-5

99.1

9-4

100.0

Provisional Cumulative Percentage A*

30.8

A*-A

70.7

A*-B 91.5

A*-C 98.9

A*-D

100.0

A*-E

100.0

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Junior School What does a fruitful year look like to you? To us, it’s one where we water, prune, nourish and cultivate members of our community and we all grow together. It happens every year without fail. For our children, just like plants, we provide a love (of learning), warmth and attention. And academic year 2020-21 has just required a different set of tools in which to create a bumper crop! This academic year was never going to bounce back as we had hoped. A different perspective and outlook were needed from the get-go. For staff, being fixed in one’s lesson plans and curriculum schemes was not going to bear the normal fruit and so, CCJS&N staff went all out to bend, flex, adapt and change with the demands of the learning of children during a global pandemic. The teachers and staff pushed hard at the boundaries of lockdown learning, working hard to upskill yet again and think outside the box of normal learning activities to provide the bedrock for our seedlings to thrive.

feathers from an angel’s wings causing distraction on stage. We made more than most of a difficult situation as we became dogged in our determination to keep children and staff in bubbles and the community out of self-isolation and in school. Maths week, virtual Book Day... it all continued. We became staggering masters of… drop off and pick up, Sports Day, a Covid-secure everything – from Drama Festival, move up sessions to managed day trips and outings; PGL, Hayling Island, Cobnor amongst others. Father Christmas even heard about our amazing endeavours and crash-landed on our field, for goodness sake!

Recording assemblies, filming carol services, Nativities and productions might have enabled polished retakes and even more accomplished performances and yet we mourned the childish charm of these annual events, the forgotten lines, the tea towel that obscured infant eyes or the flurry of

Sadly, the Spring Term school closure forced a rerun of lockdown learning but with benefits: the thorough reflection and review of lockdown learning #1 provided a detailed handbook and compilation tape of dos and don’ts. Do carry out a morning wake up and stretch class as well as a Thai Boxing masterclass as your games offer. Don’t underestimate anyone! Celebrate Chinese New Year with a special event. Do mirror the activities in face-toface teaching as much as possible, providing as many opportunities to stretch and give breadth through art and MFL to engage the children of all ages. Moreover, Nursery continued to operate normally as well as ensuring

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we looked after many critical worker children at school during the period of lockdown. Missed opportunities? Gaps in learning? Much has been written about this in the media and after testing and assessing our children’s experiences and progress when they returned to school on 8 March, there was never any doubt that staff, children and parents at CCJS&N threw everything into this lockdown experience to make sure that this was an opportunity not to be missed. The seedlings were flourishing! Proud. We all feel immense pride as we look back on a very fruitful year. Fruit that will bear a strong crop for the future. Rich and juicy, with a deep flavour and colour. Not perfect fruit but fruit staggering in shape and form with a mighty resilience to withstand any weather. Mrs F Robinson

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Nursery We have had a very busy year in the Nursery! In the Autumn Term we welcomed all our new Owls and Pussycats, with everyone settling into the new routines really quickly. With so many activities to choose from the children spent many happy days building, cutting, splashing and learning through play. When the rest of the school was in lockdown, our little Nursery carried on, welcoming children into our safe and friendly space. It was wonderful to be able to support the very youngest children and give them some semblance of

normality in what was a very strange time for everyone. Inside our four walls learning continued, laughter could be heard and friendships were forged. Some of the children stayed at home initially, but we enabled them to be involved and to keep in touch with their friends via daily story and singing sessions online. And when they did return, it was as if they’d never been away! It has been a very successful and happy year regardless of everything and we are all very proud of all of the children.

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Infants Reception

What is normality? Everyone’s “normal” is different, unique and completely right for that individual. However, for an average 4-5 year old, it is fairly safe to say that normality involves a lot of practical, hand-on, interactive and fun experiences. A life of watching, playing, interacting and exploring. When lockdown arrived, everyone’s “normal” completely changed. All of a sudden, these little children had to cope with a whole different agenda, and wow! …did they cope with it so very well. In an ever-changing technological world, our cherubs learnt to meet us online each day and embrace communication and learning over the internet. They learnt so quickly that we can carry on and Covid would not hold us back. They remained positive and knew that one day we would be back in the classroom and back playing with our friends. The children have amazed us with their resilience, understanding and hopefulness. They have accepted the challenges and trusted the directions

from adults, showing patience and acceptance. Indeed, our 4-5 year olds can teach us adults a few things too... that life goes on, that we can make the most of a difficult situation and that, in time, we will return to our “normal”, too. Should another obstacle come our way, we know that our Reception children can cope brilliantly and embrace the character-building notion that we all deep-down know is so true. Well done Reception, you are amazing!

meant that the occasion was videoed without parents being able to see them perform live, the show still did go on and the children were amazing.

Year 1

During lockdown, we had key worker children in school, ably supported by a variety of staff, and our daily story times, online, were lovely occasions for the children to ‘meet’ as a whole class. There was lots of waving, shouting and chatting but the story was read in the end! An impromptu ‘Friday dressing up day’ began to materialise with Harry Potter, fairies, Superman, princesses and snowmen, to name but a few, turned up for their lessons instead of the children! We also saw the welcome addition of kittens, puppies, mice and rabbits to the children’s home, via online technology, and we even tried to spot the pony in the paddock!

It was a busy Autumn Term, with the highlight being the Infant Nativity. The children of Year 1 were delighted to be cast as the main characters and learnt the songs and their lines brilliantly. Although social distancing

Whilst online learning went well, we were all delighted to be back together in bubble for the last three weeks of the Spring Term. With the luxury of being back in a beautiful classroom with great outside space, we have made the most of this on every

It has been another disrupted academic year for the children of Year 1 but, despite their young age, they have persevered and given of their best in all areas of the curriculum. Whether working at school or at home, the children were resilient and resourceful and simply got on with the job and made their teacher very proud!

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occasion. The children have loved being able to continue their learning inside and out. They performed their class assembly on ‘friendships’, and it was lovely to see their paintings and hear the special words they wrote about their friends. Our class trip to Fisher’s Farm was sadly cancelled, but the children were once again amazing and we instead spent the day in the woods near the school, climbing trees, making dens, having a fabulous picnic lunch and generally having lots of fun. Well done, Year 1, on all your efforts this year. We wish you a wonderful Year 2 as the ‘top infants’ and thank you for saying you’ll come back to help with “the little ones” next year!

Year 2

In January, the positive outcomes from the first lockdown became evident: everyone’s technology skills and levels of independence had grown significantly during remote learning. The obstacles to successful learning were no longer to do with understanding how to adapt to

online learning, replaced instead by overcoming the challenges and frustrations of poor internet signals and faulty microphones. With regular live lessons, the real highlight of home learning was the daily joy of seeing a screen full of happy smiley faces. Every lesson was full of enthusiasm and effort from the children, a testament to their love of learning. With so many hands up to answer questions, volunteers to share their work and a constant stream of completed home learning tasks on Seesaw, you could be forgiven for thinking we were still in the classroom. Opportunities to get away from the screen and engage in practical activities were the most enjoyable. For Year 2, one such activity involved a hunt for shapes around the house. With a spinner choosing a random 3-D shape, each child had to race to find an object with the matching properties as quickly as possible and bring it back to the virtual lesson to share their discovery. They also enjoyed our topic in science investigating different states of

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matter, learning about solids, liquids and gases and getting very messy along the way! Through mixing ingredients, they made their own slime, an amazing substance with both properties of a liquid and a solid. It was runny and gooey to hold but when pushed became rock solid! Later, whilst investigating melting and freezing, there were some particularly mucky hands as children held tight to pieces of chocolate to see how quickly it would melt. Emotions were mixed about returning to school but the overwhelming shared feeling was excitement to see friends again. Year 2 had a fantastic day out at the seaside engaging in lots of learning for our art, geography and history. However, it was the chance to spend the day together, playing by the sea and collecting stones and shells that made for such a memorable day. That, and witnessing the fierce ecowarriors they have become, sweeping across Hayling Island and tracking down every last piece of rubbish they could find!

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Art has played an important part in the school curriculum this year, as any other; we have simply had to find some innovative ways of developing the students’ artistic creativity when working from home. Notable highlights from the Junior School include: Year 3 listened to extracts from The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien before researching features that a dragon might have (claws, scales, wings). They drew out their dragon and painted with watercolours. They then created a background using a range of media and techniques. Year 4 studied Picasso, looking at his Blue Period they empathised with the

poor and homeless people he painted and after being photographed in sad poses, they traced themselves and painted in watercolours using tones of blue. We then looked at his Cubist still life work and his Three Musicians painting. Using observational drawings of musical instruments, the children created overlapping sections which they shaded using oil pastels to create their Cubist effect. The musicians had photos taken of them playing instruments in small groups. Working in pairs, they then combined two different photos to get a cut-up cubist effect. Year 4 Art Club drew animals in chalk and charcoal and were then introduced to Andy Warhol

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Endangered Animals series where unusual colours were incorporated over black and white photos. During lockdown, pupils were shown videos on how to draw a trainer and a sandal, and also how to make a sandal from scrap materials easily found around the home (cereal boxes, cardboard tubes, string etc) Year 4 really rose to the challenge and produced some amazing drawings, as well as some great 3D footwear! Year 5 designed and made printing blocks based on Islamic patterns, while Year 6 studied Georgia o’ Keefe and produced their own flower images using oil pastels.

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Middle School Year 3

In September, we welcomed an eager band of new Churcherians alongside existing pupils coming up from Year 2. Our team building afternoon went ahead, with a few adaptations, and the children really enjoyed low ropes, trim trail and orienteering in their new House groups. A wonderful opportunity to get to know each other and focus on teamwork. As we headed through the Autumn Term, life went ahead pretty much as normal with a few key adaptations to be Covid-compliant. Our fabulous and very practical trip to Butser Ancient Farm went on almost as normal, and the Saxon round house and Roman villa experience seemed to be virtually untouched by the ugly spectre of the modern pandemic. The children had a great time making a clunch wall, weaving fencing and digging in trenches to find archaeological treasures. It was all change again in Spring Term as everyone embarked on their second period of lockdown learning either from home or with Miss Dunning at school. What amazing spirit and fortitude everyone showed in their online lessons. Days were spent enjoying the usual broad range of activities and learning, with highlights including amazing author talks and activities for World Book Day. We have many budding authors in Year 3! Chinese New Year was celebrated with Chinese workshops and a chance to learn more about this fascinating culture and language. Finally, we were able to return to school before the well-earned Easter break. A chance to share our experiences and enjoy spending time with our Churcher’s family once again, after an incredible effort and resilience in lockdown learning.

Summer Term was filled with so much learning, field studies, drama shows and outdoor adventure days to name but a few of the highlights. Year 3 enjoyed “Showtime” with the whole school for the first time, singing about their Favourite Things. We gave it a new twist sharing all our favourite things about CCJS. We celebrated nature and explored the woods and meadows, using our creativity at The Sustainability Centre to top off a great year. The children have developed such resilience this year and can only be congratulated for all they have achieved in weathering the Covid storm so wonderfully.

Year 4

Bustling with activity and energy, Year 4 children have embarked on a huge range of activities throughout the year: amazing learning, investigations and even documentary making! Add to that the opportunities in the school grounds and class-based work and you will realise that this year has been incredibly successful and productive, despite Covid and home learning!. Over the year we have seen lots of learning taking place in the shape of VIPERS – a comprehension scheme which has enhanced the children’s reading skills. Alongside this the children have been writing Super Sentences to develop their creative writing. Throughout our home learning we studied Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ and the children really enjoyed the twists and turns of the plot, the magic and the mischiefmaking and trickery of the characters. On our return to school in March the weeks flew by, and suddenly we were in the midst of rehearsals for ‘Cats’. Year 4 loved working on it and their singing and choreography were outstanding! Every one of them relished the idea of a performance

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(to a very appreciative audience) on the incredible outdoor stage! Seeing every child performing to their peers and their parents was truly wonderful. The beautiful costumes, all that anticipation and butterflies in the tummy and an extravaganza to be remembered for ever more. We were extremely lucky to be able to take the Year 4 classes on a Bushcraft experience in June, although with the organisers no longer able to host our residential in Kent, it fell to Mr Forbes – like a true hero – to step into the breach. He and Mr Maton, at incredibly short notice, set up a superb camp in the woods near Bramsdean. The children made fantastic shelters, learned how to safely use a knife to make tent pegs, lit fires, practiced archery, made and cooked bannock bread over an open fire and toasted marshmallows (without burning too many)! Throughout this academic year, we have been documenting a lot of our work and activities on Seesaw. As a result of this, the children were able to continue to ‘post’ their activities during lockdown so that their teachers and families could share what they have been learning. This is an exciting, innovative addition to their learning journey and it has also proven its extreme usefulness! Although we have spent a lot of time separated in our bubbles, we have been able to wave across the field to friends and check that everyone has been keeping fit and healthy. An incredibly strange experience, but one which we are sure the children will carry memories of for a very long time.

Upper School Year 5

One of the main observations made by all who have had contact with this Year 5 is how they have matured as the time has progressed. Another is how cohesive both classes have been, always offering the hand of friendship to each other. The challenges of the year have helped develop this mature approach, but the kindness and team spirit have come from within and it has been a pleasure to witness. Early in the Autumn Term, the two classes had individual trips to Selborne, as part of their science topic on the lifecycles of plants. Dissecting flowers in a ‘real lab’ environment made the children feel like grown up scientists, with gasps from microscopes and profound observations. Time walking around Gilbert White’s beautiful gardens brought the valuable day to a calm and peaceful close. The residential trip to Cobnor was replaced by a day trip instead. But what a day! It was certainly action-packed with archery and team building activities on land and canoeing and kayaking on the water. The children returned to school somewhat scruffier than on departure but full of smiles and stories to tell. The Maths curriculum was enhanced by a ‘Maths Hats Day’ and an escape room activity where the children needed to solve a number of mathematical problems to win keys to open doors and make their way through a maze of rooms. They all loved it! Term was brought to a festive close with 5G’s assembly about Christmas, following hot on the heels of 5R’s assembly about teamwork. Although filmed rather than live, it was still wonderful to see the children giving their best performances on stage. Although not together for most of the Spring Term, the children were fantastic at adapting to their home learning environments and really embraced their live lessons and class time. On return to school, it was encouraging to see that their

academic skills were very much where they should be and for the last three weeks of term, much time was spent enjoying being together again ‘in the flesh’ before a well-deserved Easter break. This Summer Term flew by. The children have worked tirelessly, played furiously, managed to get in some sports fixtures and a Shakepearean drama workshop. They have performed a song from Oliver, making very convincing Victorian orphans and filmed two more assemblies – Space by 5R and Tudors by 5G. Although the end of the year was abruptly curtailed by a return to home learning for the last three days. Our amazing children just took it on the chin and there was 100% attendance for every one of the three days – incredible. What a year and what a year group!

Year 6

No doubt it has been a challenging year, a year when the Junior School values of resilience, resourcefulness, reflectiveness, responsibility and respectfulness have been ever-present and reflected in the efforts of the children. In the first term the children’s teambuilding skills were put to the test at PGL, where activities included archery, Jacob’s Ladder, zip wires and The Giant Swing. The children needed to work as a team to support and encourage each other and most found the courage to take the plunge and enjoyed the ensuing sense of achievement. At the start of the Summer Term, the children rolled their sleeves up for an action-packed citizenship curriculum. Although trips to London and France were out of the question, the children threw themselves into the activities that were able to go ahead. Nurse Julia introduced the children to basic first aid where they applied a range of bandages, slings and looked at epipens and how they work. The children also practised putting each other in the recovery position and learnt about bleeding, sprains, head injuries and

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choking. The much-loved Masterchef challenge returned: the children found a recipe, selected and budgeted for their ingredients and created a tempting menu with cooking instructions. They were encouraged to cook a simple meal safety and hygienically, while showing an understanding of a healthy, balanced diet. Washing-up proved to be a new skill for many! Other highlights of the citizenship curriculum included Lifesaving in the Senior School pool, learning invaluable lessons about how to save themselves should an accident occur near water. The also met via Teams with the Houses of Parliament Education Centre, learning the processes and make-up of parliament and having a very informative Q&A session with Damian Hinds, MP for East Hampshire. As part of their English curriculum, the children studied Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. They wrote agony aunt letters from some of the characters, created montages and freeze-frames from key scenes and filmed news reports from significant moments in the story. When it came to learning their lines, the children had a fundamental understanding of the characters and plot, which helped enormously. Despite the continued restrictions, Year 6 were determined to perform their play to an audience and so, with Covid rules in place, two masked family members were treated to a live performance! The children thoroughly enjoyed the occasion and showed great camaraderie in supporting each other during the two separate performances. Although many fixtures and trips were cancelled, the children showed their true colours by embracing all that home schooling offered. Those events that could be reorganised and rescheduled were and the children topped their year off with a hugely successful play, Sports Day and Leavers Assembly, thankfully with parents present.

“The challenges of the year have helped develop this mature approach, but the kindness and team spirit have come from within”

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Junior Music & Drama Faced with any challenge, unforeseen positives often arise and this past year has been no different. The resilience, positivity, creativity and flexibility shown by the children has been astounding and has kept music at school very much alive.

important these aspects of life are to us and how lucky we are to be a part of such a busy, thriving musical community. Music really has the ability to bring people together and helps us to celebrate occasions within our school calendar.

The most challenging aspect of lockdown was the simple impossibility of being together to create and enjoy music. We missed our choirs, musical ensembles and concerts so much and this has really made us realise how

The children displayed such strength of character during our period of online learning and some special moments definitely stand out: we had great fun with the Infants when we held a 10-minute super dash from

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our computer screens to find items around the house to make percussion instruments with, then bring them back for show and tell. I really enjoyed watching the children dashing past the computer screen as they found saucepans and wooden spoons, cardboard boxes and elastic bands to create a cacophony of different sounds in our online percussion orchestra! The children threw themselves into online music tasks with gusto, composing raps, completing listening

tasks, learning new songs for our Chinese New Year celebrations and Black History Month, and sharing their thoughts, ideas and contributions of music they had heard/ created at home. Such was their love of performing to each other that we held many online concerts, becoming pros at being a respectful online audience and enjoying each other’s musical items. Once we made it back into school, performing and singing together were

slowly introduced back into our lives, leading up to the sparkling Nativity and Christmas films, the fantastic Year 4 Cats play, the wonderful Year 6 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and of course our Drama Festival which had all the children back on stage performing and enjoying themselves on a lovely sunny day on the field. It was so lovely to finally see parents back on site to share these moments with us.

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Junior Sport Resilience with a capital R has underpinned everything we have done this year and nowhere more so than in sport. New rules, lots of restrictions and endless cleaning of hands and equipment have certainly added to the frustrations, but it has been the lack of ability to play sport against anyone from outside of bubbles, for the majority of the year, that has been the most challenging. We certainly missed the interaction, competitiveness and pure fun that comes from competing against different opponents, and so we very much enjoyed getting back to fixtures during the Summer Term

and welcoming parents back on site to support!

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However, there has definitely been a silver lining to the change in routine: the need to be innovative and creative has seen new sports introduced in an effort to bring breadth to the curriculum. Table tennis, yoga, kickboxing, circuit training, baseline testing and in-house competitions have helped to reinvigorate the sports provision this year and the children have risen to every challenge with characteristic energy and enthusiasm. The ‘Churcher’s Champions League’

during the Autumn Term saw all children in Years 3 to 6 competing across netball and football, to see which team would be crowned as ‘Churcher’s Champions’. Well done, Team Atkinson! With large-scale sporting events being few and far between, a definite highlight of the year has been the Junior House Swimming Galas for years 4, 5 and 6, complete with video highlight reels to showcase the talent on display to the wider school community. Again, the children approached these events with

“The need to be innovative and creative has seen new sports introduced in an effort to bring breadth to the curriculum” gusto and the videos will endure as testament to the effort, determination and fun on display. Finally, in the Summer Term and managing to hit the only (mostly) dry day in a five-day stretch, the ‘7 Sports Days in 1 Day’ extravaganza saw the children throwing, jumping and running; all to the best of their abilities and in front of cheering and applauding spectators! Very well done to the winning House, Hamble. At last, a little bit of (almost) ‘normal’! Go Team Churcher’s!

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Churcher’s College Senior School 2020-21 Captains and Vice Captains of College Tommy Howells, Sophie Porteous, Jacob Tutt and Zoe Blackburn.

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As our Heads of House reflect on this most unusual year, our congratulations go to Grenville on winning the 2020-21 House Cup!

Collingwood House

were not able to meet all years in person, but they did manage to spend time with each group virtually and tried to help the younger years as much as they could. They even managed to get into the First Year Induction videos at the start of the year. They were a great support to me and will be missed. They have been backed up ably by the rest of their year and, in particular, the House ViceCaptains of Connie Batt, Izzy Brower, Guy Drake and Louis Barrowcliffe, who have all been stars during their time in the House.

The Collingwood spirit remains strong and this was reflected by getting stuck into all the House Competitions that we were allowed, fulfilling our ‘no lane empty’ target - until all lanes became empty when the competitions were cancelled. We were well placed in the Academic Cup and we were just gearing up for another strong showing in the Sports Cup and Performing Arts Cup when global events got in the way. We did get stuck into the Sports Days in the Summer and I’m sure we all missed the enjoyment of a full programme but we will just have to work, run and play harder to enjoy next year’s competition all the more.

As ever we will miss all our departing students. I was pleased that we were able to say goodbye at the end of the year and hope to see you all again in the not too distant future. You leave behind a lot of memories of your amazing achievements. I hope you will look back with fondness on your time in the purple House and come back and visit to let us know how you are getting on.

Looking back on another “year like no other” I am struck by the way the Collingwood community has risen to the challenges that have been put in front of them; the student body have been consistently impressive with the way that they have not just coped but thrived and innovated in these interesting times. Collingwood staff have had to improvise, too, with challenges like working out new ways to do quizzes, online talent shows, scavenger hunts and more.

Mr B Seal

Drake House

Given the year group bubbles, our excellent House Captains Natalie Sparks, James Arnold and Eve Rushin

The final weeks of the academic year usually see the new cohort of First Year pupils in school for the day as the first part of the induction process, yet like many things last Summer, we had to come up with a Plan B, a plan

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that would somehow allow the new Drake pupils to meet each other and their Form Tutors and Head of House from the comfort of their own homes. And so came about the very first remote induction process, with the pupils and staff meeting online and then submitting video clips that were edited into the masterpiece that was the ‘Drake First Years 2020-21’ short film. The energy and enthusiasm with which the pupils threw themselves into the project was a good indicator of what to expect from the newest members of the House, and whilst it may be a cliché to say that first impressions count, in this case, the first impression of a warm, friendly, lively bunch of pupils was spot-on. As the academic year got underway, despite the tweaks and changes that were inevitably needed because of the restrictions, the First Year trip to Calshot, an annual event in the school calendar, still took place, albeit with no overnight stay, and whilst House assemblies were put on hold (due to the need for year group bubbles), the pupils in the lower years were still able to meet with the House Captains, Charlie and Kaitlin, via a series of remote Q&A sessions. As the second period of remote learning kicked in, the pupils once again rose to the challenge, with breakout rooms on Teams allowing

Form Tutors to see their tutees (at least the ones that were willing to turn their cameras on!), and, in some instances, their pets! A bake-off with virtual tasting/judging by the Form Tutors, as well as ‘events’ such as wearing yellow from top-to-toe, and incredibly competitive quizzes, ensured that the remote tutorials were fun and varied during the cold, dark months of lockdown. The House Quizzes in the Autumn Term were once again fiercely contested, with 4D continuing with their unbeaten run, and the competitive side of the House system was able to reconvene in the Summer Term with two swimming galas (both of which were won by Drake!), and, in the absence of the traditional format for Sports Day, an extended programme of year group events. Impressively, every pupil in 1D, 2D and 3D took part in this year’s events, and our two year group victories, and two further top three finishes bode well for next year – whatever the format! Mrs S Herrington

Grenville House

As an octogenarian, the celebrated American poet, Robert Frost, declared, “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.” And so, in rather different

circumstances to usual it must be admitted, life has certainly gone on in Grenville, and splendidly so too! New protocols didn’t mean things had to stop, but we had to adapt – it was great to see 1G keep up the Christmas Hot Chocolate Sale tradition, but doing it as a much more civilised, pre-order affair; 2G enjoyed the open spaces and fresh air on the high ropes at Wild Wood; and 3G, as well as the Lower Sixth had the run of New College to do Laser Quest, although I am not sure they enjoyed having to wear gloves and hats on the hottest days of the year! In another example of Covid bringing opportunity, 1G also helped Petersfield Shine Radio raise money to help broadcast church services to those unable to leave their houses, and it was great to hear them being rewarded for their efforts by being allowed to record Christmas dedications. Remote Form times could have been difficult, but the Grenville tutors were adept at keeping things different and lively, and none more so than when I joined a Teams call to be greeted by the entire class wearing “Mr Seaton masks” – thanks for the disturbing memory, Mr Wilson & Miss Dickson! One thing that has remained constant is the sheer hard work and determination of the Grenville pupils and the dedication of the tutors. At times, when numbers were depleted

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due to absence, so many pupils stood up to make sure Grenville were fully represented in all the activities. Sometimes the reward is just the satisfaction of saying, “I did it, I helped out,” but this year the effort of the Grenville pupils on the sports field saw them being rewarded with a victory in the overall Sports Cup. Combined with their fine all-round academic effort in the classroom and the House quizzes, it meant that Grenville were crowned as the winners of the House Cup 2020-21. I am delighted for them; it is nothing less than they deserved for their unfailing spirit this year. Mr J Seaton

Nelson House

The Nelson year has been governed by changing guidelines like never before; however, what has shone throughout is the importance of the House structure through these evershifting sands. The stability provided by our tutor groups became the foundations of the academic year for all Nelson pupils. Although the Autumn Term started sadly with the annual Christmas ice-skating trip being put on ice, the new First Years took part in the first online induction programme and created a fantastic video that enabled them to meet each other, the House

Captains and Mrs Daniel and Mr Hegan. 1N also enjoyed a BBQ and the landmark visit to Calshot Activity Centre. As the term progressed, it was with pride that I witnessed the Lower Sixth winning the (non-competitive!) laser quest in New College. This competitive spirit was trumped by the efforts of 1N, 2N, 3N, 4N and 5N in the ‘Nelson Plankathon’ in which hours of time were cumulated in the plank position, with Orion O’Connor deserving of an individual mention for achieving the longest time! The final throw of the dice in the Autumn Term saw Nelson supporting the Hug-A-Hospital campaign and resulting in 102 front line NHS nurses receiving a handmade card thanking them for their efforts. The Spring Term saw the wheels of remote learning grind quickly back into action. The Nelson tutor team picked up the baton of interactive quizzes, lunch time sessions, group chats and PSHE talks. There were break-out rooms, discussions, surveys and so much more going on, ensuring that the House felt together even while apart. Summer Term ended in a triumph of Sports Days, swimming galas and the prospect of old norms peering over the horizon. As is traditional, many members of 1N put in a sprint effort with their Churcher’s 100 to tick off some of the final targets. And as we raced towards the end of term, it was time to thank the House Captains

and Vice Captains for their efforts in a strange year and for the new House Captains to take up the badge of office. Mr J Harris

Rodney House

What this year has proved beyond a doubt is that team Rodney is certainly greater than the sum of its parts. With long periods where pupils remained away from school, or were confined to bubbles when on site, the Team spirit within the House appeared stronger than ever. With a new shape to the day, three different lunch periods and only one Form period a day, what amazed me more than anything was the way the pupils took these changes in their stride, happy to adapt to a situation none of us had any control over. Throughout the year they also demonstrated their resilience and determination to make school life work. Outside of school many were involved in supporting their communities while still maintaining their academic endeavours. Calshot, quizzes, cross country, swimming galas and many other inter-House sporting events still went ahead this year but inevitably with alterations to our traditional programmes. While this proved challenging, it also brought each Form group closer together. Realising that they could only draw from within their own Form, pupils were more willing

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to contribute to the team effort. When Sports Day became sports days, with each Year having their own separate day, we had more pupils participating than would normally be the case. When all the scores were counted, Team Rodney came a very close second place overall in the House Cup. Truly an excellent performance... and one to build on next year. My abiding memories from this year however must be from the period of lockdown and dropping in on Form time. Many of the Rodney tutors had regular activities arranged with their Forms which served to give the week a structure, whether it was a weekly quiz or ‘bring your pet to Form time’. It was during these sessions that the pupils tended to have their cameras on and tended to chat, sharing their experiences. The longer lunch period also gave pupils the opportunity to get some fresh air and some exercise, so it was not surprising when some joined Form time on their phones from high up on the downs while dog walking. This increased exercise became evident during the Summer Term with many Rodney pupils regularly attending athletics training at 7:30am on the school field each week! Mr J Yugin-Power

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Sixth Form

It was lovely to welcome the Sixth Form to Ramshill this year, in particular the new Lower Sixth, albeit that the situation this year necessitated year group bubbles. Despite the restrictions in place the students impressed with their adaptability, making the most of the opportunities available to them, and working hard through the period of remote learning to ensure no ground was lost. The Upper Sixth returned to the toughest term of their school life, where the workload increases at the same time as UCAS applications need completing. Personal Tutors worked hard to ensure the students’ UCAS applications were the very best that they could be, and the hard work paid off with some excellent university offers in an extremely competitive year. With a larger Sixth Form to accommodate, the decision was taken during the lockdown in January to knock through two classrooms in the Forrester Centre to make a new social and work space, and in place of the marquee that had been put up on the Ramshill lawn to facilitate the

bubbles, a new all-weather surface was installed, proving hugely popular when the better weather eventually arrived. It was on the all-weather surface after the summer exams that we had our first dodgeball tournament of the year. It was great so see a bit of normality return with keen competition between the teams and some decidedly questionable fancy dress. The Sixth Form Committee did as much as they could this year to organise events, and will no doubt look forward to a year without restrictions in order to carry on their excellent work. Although the Sixth Form Ball to celebrate the end of the year had to be cancelled, we were delighted to put on an in-house event in the Sports Hall for the Upper Sixth, with great food, casino tables, a photo booth and victory for England in the Euros on the big screen helping to make the evening one to remember! Mr W Baker

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“…the hard work paid off with some excellent university offers in an extremely competitive year”

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Fifth Year What a whirlwind the GCSE years have been for our Fifth Year! They have overcome enormous challenges: two years of disrupted learning, changing exam requirements, and changes to the final exams themselves. All of this was met with strength, determination and a smile. They excelled through the various stages of in-school GCSE exams and it was an utter delight to revel with them at their last day celebration in July. There were some outstanding costumes and epic slides on the slip and slide, all washed down with a delicious BBQ lunch. Nonetheless, they didn’t let this stress and uncertainty affect their devotion to their extracurricular activities! Our Fifth Year kept their dramatic skills flourishing in the Senior Production ‘Follow the Star’ and our musicians participated in all the remote music events of the year, topped off with the chance to perform to parents in the ‘Big Open Rehearsal’ in July. Despite no competitive sport being able to take place, the PE Department were particularly impressed with their commitment, skill and passion during ‘The Churcher’s Champions’ game play.

of A Levels - a real positive and highlight of the Summer Term. A huge variety of content was covered, from investigating whether the ‘Blitz spirit’ really existed during WWII in History, to working out how much acid is in a lemon in Chemistry. A special thank you to the Committee and the Prom set-up volunteers, who, despite Covid changing the original plans, helped to pull off a fantastic end of year Prom in July. The casino theme ensured much fun and friendly competition, and it has to be said that some students had remarkable good luck whilst playing roulette! They feasted on carnival food and insisted Mrs Butler play all of ABBA’s greatest hits, both delighting and surprising the staff in attendance! Mrs L Snowball & Mrs H Butler

Once again, the changing exam schedule enabled them to participate in a series of Bridging Courses to help them prepare for the rigours

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Art & Design

Throughout the pandemic, arts and crafts have been used to help people through difficult times and to express their moods, frustrations, fears and gratitude. Whether it has been the millions of rainbows displayed in windows across the country or people learning new skills to occupy long hours at home, art has been a comfort to millions over the last 18 months. Once again in 2020-21, Churcher’s College pupils have risen to the challenge of Covid restrictions and lockdown and produced some outstanding artworks. Having experienced working remotely last year, the pupils in the Art Department were more than ready for the challenge and applied themselves admirably producing some fantastic Land Art photography and writing inspired by Mrs Roff, or reflecting their experiences of the pandemic with their creations for the A to Z of lockdown.

At GCSE and A Level our Fifth Year and Upper Sixth faced a more difficult task of completing their work for their course, but as you would expect from Churcher’s pupils they rose to the occasion and produced some outstanding work. At GCSE, the pandemic featured in a number of the pupils’ work, notably in paintings by Frank Hodges and Darcey Scott, and many works representing environmental issues with exceptional pieces by Nellie Lofthouse and Lola Texier. Highlights of the Upper Sixth were wonderful textile-based landscapes by Tim Emmens, the surreal worlds imagined by Ella Conder, and superb portrait studies by Charlotte Matthews, Holly Goddard, Lucy Jackson and Iolanthe Sheene. Mr D Robertson

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English Lockdown was inevitably a difficult time for some, but with a little encouragement and initiative (and, of course, an enthusiasm for their subject) it also provided opportunities for students to push beyond what would normally have been covered in class. This was nowhere more apparent than in Zoe Blackburn’s reshaping of our LitSoc into an online forum, with weekly presentations from the Sixth Form on subjects as diverse as A Clockwork Orange, Kipling’s poetry, Jericho Brown, Frankenstein and Maya Angelou. Such was the interest generated that discussion often extended far beyond the allotted hour, fostering those skills of research, presentation and critical engagement that will enable students to excel at university.

this year, we instead brought the Globe to Churcher’s. On 26 May we hosted Olivia, a practitioner from the theatre, as she delivered a series of workshops to our First Year pupils who have been studying The Tempest. She gave us a ‘behind the scenes’ tour of the inner workings of the Globe, a perfect opportunity for pupils to dazzle her with their knowledge of the theatre and the life of an Elizabethan actor and playwright. Following our virtual tour, the pupils then had the opportunity to explore aspects of The Tempest in a lively, practical and interactive workshop.

Having been deprived of the opportunity to visit the Globe Theatre

Once settled back into school, our First and Second Year students learned the art of writing mini-sagas (a short story of 100 words) for a new book to be called Unsolved – Adventures in Crime. With so many budding writers across the two year

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groups we were able to proudly submit 165 mini-sagas, 149 of which were selected for the book: we now have a nail-biting wait to see if any of our entries will make the final five to be announced in the Autumn Term. Whatever the outcome, the students have delighted their English teachers with their endeavours and we hope that many will continue to keep writing. As Albert Einstein once said, “Creativity is contagious, pass it on...” Dr D Cave

Mathematics

At the start of this extraordinary year, we managed to enter pupils for all three categories of the Maths Challenges, albeit all online. These Challenges, run by Leeds Univeristy, are designed to encourage mathematical reasoning, precision of thought, and fluency in using basic mathematical techniques to solve interesting problems. In the Junior Challenge many of the pupils achieved either a gold, silver or bronze certificate and six went through to the Kangaroo Round which is a fantastic achievement. In the Intermediate Challenge we entered 39 pupils, of which four did well enough to get through to the Kangaroo round. Given than only 6% of approximately 200,000 of all those that enter nationally receive a gold and even fewer get through to the following rounds, this is an amazing achievement. By Easter, the first stage of the

Goodfield Centre was complete and the Maths Department moved into its new home. Though this meant a lot of packing and unpacking, it was very exciting; the views from the classrooms are magnificent and the new Department feels incredibly light and spacious, a really lovely space to work in. We now have two large offices and seven classrooms which means all the Maths lessons take place together in one clearly defined area. The cancellation of the external Summer exam series saw the return of the bridging courses for our Fifth Year, providing an early introduction to their A Level subjects. Redesigned from the previous year’s online provision, we wanted the course to be demanding, useful for pupil’s preparation for the A Level course, but also fun. Mr Wilson came up with an amazing Escape Room; each room had various sets of clues, based

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on their GCSE Maths. The clues were hidden randomly around the room in balloons, under desks and inside magazines with no obvious connection. he pupils had find the clues, solve them and then connect the pieces together. The clues led to a code to unlock the room. I was amazed at the problem solving skills and perseverance of all the pupils! Meanwhile, Dr Jackson also ran very exciting and challenging Churcher’s to Campus course for our Upper Sixth, which saw students starting to work on degree level Mathematics. Thus ended a challenging year, but with a new home and Maths continuing to be one of the most popular A Level choices, the Department is in good health! Mrs T Greenaway

“An extremely tightlyknit group during the Spring period of Teams teaching – adversity breeding something of a siege mentality!”

Humanities Business

They may have been a small group of eight Upper Sixth Business students this year, but they were lively, engaged and enthusiastic. They certainly had a lot to live up to after excellent results in the previous two years, but despite their disrupted Lower Sixth and Upper Sixth years, the Business students performed excellently. Four out of these eight students will study Business or a related degree, such as Marketing, at university.

The 23 Lower Sixth students have been working very hard too, having done especially well during the lockdown period, maintaining their work ethic and willingness to keep progressing through the A Level course content.

students have embarked on the GCSE course with great commitment; it will be fascinating to see their GCSE results next summer - the first ever Business GCSE results at Churcher’s College. Mr R West

Classics

The popularity of all Classical subjects remains buoyant at Churcher’s, with interest and numbers high for our whole suite of Classical subjects: Latin, Classical Civilisation, Greek and Ancient History. It has been great to see such enthusiasm and interest throughout the school, despite the circumstances.

GCSE Business was launched this year, too. Our first group of Fourth Year

Miss Elson has introduced a new Greek Club working towards an Intermediate Certificate in Classical Greek open to all Third and Fourth Year Latinists. It has been great to see

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such dedication and enthusiasm to learn and also the speed with which they have picked up the language, which shares much of its grammatical base with Latin. During the Summer Term, the Fifth Year relaxed after their assessments with bridging courses in Latin and Ancient History. We took the opportunity of visiting the Nero exhibition at the British Museum to give some historical context to their set texts and visualise some of the characters and key moments of the Roman empire. On their return, pupils also researched a piece of Latin literature to present to the rest of the class, whilst the Ancient Historians researched objects from the Persian empire. Our A Level pupils in both Latin and Ancient History have all shown great passion for their subjects, with a few looking to read a Classical subject

at university. We ran a bespoke C2C course on Classics with a module on Greek tragedy, focusing on Euripides’ Bacchae and Sophocles’ Antigone, as well as an introduction to Greek language. We have also piloted an exciting new Latin course for the Second Years with extra emphasis on the literature and mythology of the Greeks and Romans, but also a stronger focus on grammatical accuracy in the Latin. The course will really help pupils to decide whether Latin or Classical Civilisation is the right option for them in the Third Year. Mr J Hegan

Economics

2020-21 has been a fascinating year to study Economics with governments around the world using unprecedented tools to support their

economies. This has provided a rich source of information for us to use as we moved through the course. It also added an extra dimension during the second period of remote learning when we were studying the economic impacts of the pandemic, while living the social consequences. The determination and resilience our students displayed during this period were fantastic to see. This year has also been a year of innovation and that was a key theme that Simon French, Chief Economist at Panmure Gordon, talked about in our remote CCALS event in March. This was attended by over hundred people and we were reassured by his upbeat projections for the UK economy. Challenging our students to go above and beyond the A Level remains a key part of our role and I was delighted to see so many students asking Simon some very

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good questions. It is also great that a large number of our Lower Sixth are hoping to enter the Royal Economic Society’s Young Economist of the Year essay competition, requiring them to research extensively on a specific topic and write an undergraduatestyle essay. Our students have also had many opportunities to experience Business and Economics outside of the classroom, even during lockdown. Our Tycoon Enterprise teams adapted their businesses for the pandemic with one selling Churcher’s branded facemasks and the other selling bags made out of recycled clothes. Both found online platforms to advertise and sell their products. Sixth Former Alex Lambrianou also received investment from the Peter Jones Foundation for his business ‘Share a Smile’. This is a gifting platform which is aimed to help local

businesses in the pandemic while enabling people to share a smile with their loved ones. Stuart Chapman from Draper Esprit also innovated to ensure that we were still able to run the annual Dragons’ Den event. We had more than 30 students working as teams in the Lecture Theatre to watch company presentations and then decide where to invest their money. This was a unique opportunity for them to learn about the world of venture capitalism. Mr M Hill

Geography

At times this year, the continuation of remote and blended learning has seen Geography lessons largely delivered through Microsoft Teams. Re-ordering the programme of study allowed the most remote-friendly units to be delivered under lockdown. Fieldwork has become more complex with venue restrictions on numbers and bubbles, socially distant seating plans for transport, PPE and wipedown arrangements for shared equipment. Despite all this being in place, both Fifth Year trips were subsequently cancelled - our beach day at Highcliffe due to the arrival of Storm Alex and our day investigating Portsmouth Harbour due to visitor restrictions at Gunwharf. Fortunately, we have access to excellent ICT on site and were able to complete both investigations virtually using Digimap, Google Earth and historic data. In the Autumn Term, the Second Years had better luck with their trip to Marwell Zoo and the Upper Sixth students were able to pilot their NEA data collection techniques at West Wittering and Chichester.

their respective GCSE and A Level courses in full. In the Summer Term, the Third Years were also prevented from visiting the New Forest, but we were able to get the Lower Sixth to Somerset for their three-day fieldwork skills course and the First Years enjoyed a day in the sunshine at Marwell Zoo, despite the weather warning for rain! Mr D Nighy

History

This year, Churcher’s historians should have had the pleasure of visiting Berlin, Paris and Ypres, as well as many UK based trips, but it was not to be. Instead, the Department had to innovate with new and exciting ways of delivering our Curriculum remotely. Remote teaching has led us to some off-piste lessons such as treasure hunts, composing History songs, a multitude of Gimkits and much more. Miss Swindells (now Mrs Butler) has continued with the Covid archive as means of recording these unprecedented times for future generations of Churcher’s students. Lockdown and remote learning were no hindrance to our thriving CCALS programme, however, and we have held many lectures over this academic year, some live and some virtual. Highlights have included:

January’s reopening of the classroom brought a welcome return of real faces, admittedly masked, to interact with and to teach. As a school member of the Royal Geographical Society, we were able to invite pupils and parents to an online lecture by best-selling author Tim Marshall on The Power of Geography.

• The Holocaust Educational Trust’s lecture to all Fourth Years on Holocaust Memorial Day, in which 90-year-old Eve Kugler shared her testimony. • CCALS by Claire Brockdorff: The July Bomb Plot of 1944, providing a personal connection to the plot to kill Hitler. • CCALS by Prof William Doyle: Could France’s experiment with Constitutional Monarchy have survived? • CCALS Prof Chris Corin: 1917: Russia’s Great Lost Opportunity. • CCALS Prof David Andress: Napoleon: Where Did It All Go Wrong?

Despite Covid, the Fifth Years and Upper Sixth managed to complete

Mr McLearie and Sixth Former Amy Gaisford have created a thriving

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Lower Sixth History Society. Meeting at lunchtimes, the club looks at key historical figures and debates events beyond the curriculum. Set up to bring history alive, its success is evident in the fact that it attracts non-historians too. Special mention must go to Third Year Katerina Masic, who was awarded an Honourable Mention in the annual World War One art and poetry competition ‘Never Such Innocence’. Her piece ‘Despair’, featured opposite, deeply impressed the judging panel, who received more than 3,000 entries from 99 countries. Very well done, Katerina! Mrs H Jolliffe

Politics

The students in the Politics Department have endured all of this year’s upheavals with good humour and spirit – their stoicism and maturity a real source of pride. They stuck to the task of remote working extremely well and became an extremely tightly-knit group during the Spring period of ‘Teams teaching’; adversity breeding something of a siege mentality!

Whilst looking at a screen of black squares does not inspire absolute confidence in their learning, the work they submitted certainly did and, if anything, the students reached new heights while we were away. Apps were the name of the game and getting familiar with Quizlet, Gimkit and all manner of remote gamified learning really stretched the students and gave the opportunity for staff to learn a few new tricks. Despite the usual CCALS, roundtables and trips being decimated by Covid, we have still managed to fit in a number of online talks, tuning in to Professor Tim Marshall speaking on his latest bestseller The Power of Geography, which proved incredibly useful for the students’ understanding of geopolitical trends in the coming decade. Students also attended (remotely) a fantastic Congress to Campus talk at the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University. They had the opportunity to meet and grill

“Lockdown and remote learning were no hindrance to our thriving CCALS programme”

ACADEMIC LECTURE SERIES

Could France’s experiment with Constitutional Monarchy have survived? by Prof William Doyle

Thursday 11th March 2021 4:30-5:30 Lecture Theatre

ACADEMIC LECTURE SERIES

Napoleon: Where did it all go wrong? By David Andress Prof of Modern History, University of Portsmouth Monday 24th May 4:30-5:30pm Lecture Theatre

THE JULY BOMB PLOT 1944

Claire Brockdorff will be giving this talk about a family connection to the 1944 plot; she is a relation by marriage of Fritz von der Lancken, who was General Olbricht’s adjutant and one of the plotters. Thursday 4 March 2021, 5pm

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former Republican congressmen and women Ben Chandler and Ann Marie Buerkle. The event also featured Professor Adam Smith, Professor Edward Orsborn from Oxford and Professor Robert Lieberman from Johns Hopkins University. It proved a fascinating insight into the workings of the US’s legislature and a useful point of comparison for their study of the UK’s system. Whilst there was perhaps less political drama to gorge on than in recent years, the various machinations of Boris Johnson and his inner circle has kept us more than busy. The Government’s response to Covid generated some fascinating classroom debates about the extent and limits of executive power, protection of rights and individual freedoms and the importance of the economy v. that of public health. Mr P Cheshire

Psychology

As we are now finishing our fifth year of Psychology at Churcher’s, the Department continues to grow and as a result we will soon be a Department of four teachers; it is amazing to think how fast and big Psychology has grown in such a short space of time – it is in fine fettle! We should have felt ready for another bout of Teams lessons when they struck in January, but you need to get used to not having your class in front of you and experiencing the fizz and buzz of the classroom. Uncertainty abounded, again, and again we asked more of our students; they rose to that challenge wonderfully. They turned their cameras on and, when possible, we tried to lose ourselves in the lesson like we would have done in person. Certainly, none of us will forget the very particular chime of the Teams call! We greatly

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enjoyed the imaginative, and at times psychologically revealing, backgrounds they adopted in their Teams calls whilst also benefiting from the use of ‘Breakout’ rooms in order to not lose the discursive element of Psychology. We had some excellent trips and events planned (Southampton Uni and Brain Day), but they were Covid-cancelled. After the Covid-related absences of the last 18 months it was lovely to be able to say goodbye to our Upper Sixth in person... and with cake! Students wrote some of their memories of Psychology on a Freudian inspired iceberg, before we all enjoyed a slice of Mrs Clark’s famous cake. Dr G Glasspool

Religion & Philosophy

‘If I cannot do great things, I will do small things in a great way’, so said Martin Luther King Junior. And so it

was with R&P in terms of Covid and the second lockdown. Although we were unable to offer our usual trips, Mr Lofthouse was unperturbed... instead of our annual visit to Neasden Temple for the Second Years, he took them on a Hajj around Churcher’s College which culminated in his students throwing paper balls at a rubbish bin, symbolising Muslim Hajjis re-enacting Ibrahim denouncing the devil on his way to sacrificing Ishmael. Our fabulous A Level leavers departed on a high… they left us with a reenactment showing Peter trying to imitate Jesus walking on water. The conveyance, however, of symbolism can be a delicate business, and so it is with this image. The key to understanding the image is to note the dark clouds in the background! In front of the image we have our young brave student attempting to imitate

the master (Mr Baker) in writing the perfect essay. It can look so easy, but if you should lose faith and have a wobble when the storm clouds (the final exams) come, thankfully the R&P team is always there ready with a helping hand! Our Department has expanded in terms of both GCSE numbers and staffing requirements… all have contributed marvellous teaching, each adding their own individual stamp to the Department.

“An extremely tightlyknit group during the Spring period of Teams teaching – adversity breeding something of a siege mentality!”

Mr T Ostersen

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“Throughout remote learning, our students were kept fully engaged, whether in groups or individually”

Modern Foreign Languages As is tradition in the French, German and Spanish Departments, the year started with our Love Languages poster competition and we were overwhelmed by the creativity and enthusiasm of our First and Second Year pupils. The standard was high and we congratulated Jessie Lofthouse on her prize-winning poster whose linguistic message was “Start today”. We could not agree more!

from Europe during a pandemic, and there were many, our Language Assistants showed amazing resilience and patience, helping to bring another dimension to our work both in the classroom and at home, even while they themselves had to return home for a while mid-year. Thank you to Sara, Verena and Charlotte for being amazing.

Despite all the difficulties of arriving

Outside the classroom, virtual or otherwise, Jonas Flohr came in eighth place out of 10,000 in the Nutty Tilez global online language competition run by This is Language, translating and typing target language words in French, quickly and accurately. No mean feat! Oliver Fogelin gained a Bronze award in the UK Linguistics Olympiad, placing him in the top 15% in the country, impressive considering the tricky linguistic problem solving involved. Harry Cooper entered a story into the Oxford Flash Fiction competition, a complete story in Spanish in no more than 100 words. A Level students Kristina Krylova and Arwen Jones competed in an online French debating competition

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Modern Languages continued to thrive throughout remote learning and despite the steep IT learning curve, our students were kept fully engaged, whether in groups or individually. Working on our four key language skills gave us plenty of variety and opportunities to think inside and outside of the box. In addition to our usual activities, pupils enjoyed scavenger hunts around the house and in the garden, baking traditional recipes such as Torrijas, Vanillekipferl and Bugnes, and making Lego towns to practise building names and directions.

against nine other schools, lively and passionate debates were held on “Les bienfaits du bénévolat sont une illusion” and “Les hommes et les femmes ne seront jamais égaux”. A year with no trips abroad is a very strange year in Modern Languages so we are very much looking forward to embracing the opportunity to bring the culture and language alive for our pupils once again in the near future. Mrs K Shaw

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Science

Biology

The Department endeavoured to inspire our young Biologists with some innovative remote teaching again this year, and the experience of the first lockdown meant we could at least hit the ground running. Students were sent out into their gardens on a flower safari, hunting for flowers of different shapes that attract pollinators of different types. They sampled tree trunks to quantify the amount of algae growing on different aspects of the trunk and undertook studies to investigate how different vegetation grows and develops over time as the soil is enhanced by added organic matter. They even conducted some fieldwork indoors, creating a complete self-sustaining ecosystem in a jam jar and creating home-made quadrats out of straws or pencils to sample organisms (beads or seeds) on the living room carpet.

BioSoc Live moved online for this year, an interactive lecture with the Fourth Year and above, which explored the importance of fat in the diet and involved tasting home-made fat free cakes!

unperturbed, undertaking interesting and fun science experiments. Unfortunately, Covid restrictions meant they were unable to play host to the Junior School Fifth Year, which is usually a highlight of the Science calendar for both them and us. The Lower Sixth were able to go on the Slapton Sands Field Trip, investigating sand dune succession, trapping moths and small mammals and going on a bat walk. And the Second Years were treated to an amazing raptor display at the end of the Summer Term by Hawkeye Falconry. A wonderful end to the year! Ms M Westwood

Chemistry

Chemistry lesson plans were reorganised before the start of the year to maximise the amount of practical work we did in the first half of the Autumn Term, just in case there was another lockdown. This proved to be a good decision and the subsequent lockdown put paid to some of the more practical teaching, including the Chemistry of Art sessions for the Fifth Year.

Some core components of the Churcher’s Biology year were untouched: thankfully the First Year Gophers Club was able to continue

Cosmetics Club continued in the Autumn Term despite all the restrictions, although it did mean that the Sixth Form were not able to help as in previous years. Some enthusiastic Second Year pupils made soaps, lip balms, body butter and more.

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In the Summer Term, the Second Year academy group learnt about gunpowder and other explosives. For obvious reasons practical work and demonstrations in this area are more limited, but pupils were able to investigate aspects of explosives such as the role of oxidising agents, the difference between substances burning and exploding, and the difference in power output when the same fuel burns or detonates. ChemSoc has grown this year under the guidance of Mr Chen. Aimed at the Sixth Form to provide them with a forum to investigate, present and discuss Chemistry ideas beyond the scope of the A Level course. The enthusiasm of the students made it a real high point of the week. The Chemistry Olympiad is aimed at the most able Upper Sixth students, although it is open to the Lower Sixth, too. The aim is used to select the best four students in the country to form the UK schools’ team which competes in the International Chemistry Olympiad. This year it was held remotely with staff invigilating remotely via Teams. 7,160 of the best A Level chemists entered this year with the top 635 (8.9%) awarded a Gold certificate, the next 1,663 a silver and the next 2,356 a Bronze. Over a third of those that entered did not achieve a certificate.

This year we had more than a quarter of our Lower Sixth students asking to do the exam, despite only having completed a term of the A Level course, in addition to three students from the Upper Sixth. Lucy Jacson and Jacob Tutt were awarded Gold, Hari Tote, Emily Killing and Santiago Clements-Rodriguez received Silver and seven more Lower Sixth students achieved Bronze. These excellent results bode well for next year when many of these students will have done another year of Chemistry. Dr D Dunster

Physics

Locking down at a different stage in the academic year of 2020-21 meant the Physics Department had to think creatively about remotely teaching a different aspect of the curriculum. We were able to replace some of the practical work with PhET computer simulations across all years, while other practicals were simply re-imagined, transferring the laboratory to the student’s kitchen! Hooke’s Law was tested using elastic bands instead of springs and water bottles with differing levels of water as weights. Straw structures helped them investigate design and forces on bridges and tall buildings. The Second Years undertook some project-based work under the ‘I Robot’ theme to learn about design and electricity.

Remote learning proved no barrier to academic success, with the Olympiad and SATRO challenges proving fertile ground for Churcher’s students to exercise their competitive spirit. In the British Physics Olympiad (BPHO), Seb Kelson came out in the top 17% in the country, with a further seven Upper Sixth students hitting the top 28%. Most of them leave us to pursue Engineering, Physics or Natural Science at University. The SATRO Problem Solving Challenge sees schools from across the country compete to solve a tricky engineering problem using nothing more than their wits, ingenuity and a box of handy materials. This year, the required equipment was issued directly to the schools, allowing each to host its own ‘virtual’ challenge. Three teams, representing the Second and Fourth Years and the Lower Sixth, competed against others in the same age group to design and build a device to allow an electric motor to move in a horizontal circle, moving only due to the force exerted by a propeller attached to the motor. The propeller itself, along with all the supporting structure, would have to be manufactured from some basic materials and ready to test in just 90 minutes. As the teams headed home it was hard for anyone to know whether the scores they had achieved were above or below par, but just after the

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end of term we received the welcome news that both our Second Year and Lower Sixth teams had emerged as victors in their categories! One of the first trips to be allowed to resume on our return to school was the annual visit to the Planetarium, a rite of passage for our First Year Physicists and one which last year’s cohort regrettably missed (although they are booked to go this year). With the cancellation of the Summer external exams, our GCSE and A Level students were treated to bridging courses to help them with the transition to the next stage of their studies. At GCSE, these included practical investigations: calculating CD and DVD storage capacity using lasers, investigating the behaviour of springs in different combinations to find a value for gravity and using video analysis software to investigate projectile motion. At A Level, they built water clocks and investigated extended relativistic effects like time dilation and length contraction. Mr M Kelly

Technology Computing

Once again, we have all had to learn new technologies and ways of working. It brings home to us all how important ICT is for our students and how becoming an independent learner is key to being adaptable when faced with new apps, new interfaces or new software tools. Remote working, the world over, is yet another change in societal behaviour brought on by technology innovations in times of need. It is Computer Science that teaches students how to develop and innovate those changes. I’m sure we can all reflect how core this is to our existence and, indeed, it is reflected in the number of students opting for Computer Science, especially in the Third Year where we have had to put on an extra class of Computing. GCSE and A Level uptake has increased also, but not

enough to create the talent we are going to need in our workforce. It is always rewarding to see students graduate from Churcher’s to take up a Computing related degree and we have two remarkable students going off to study Computer Science. Once again, we have had success in competitions, run remotely of course. Particular highlights were coming third in the Lockheed Martin UK CyberQuest competition early in the year and more recently a 1st place in the UK for both the advanced and novice category in the Lockheed Martin CodeQuest. A remarkable achievement, demonstrating the great talent coming up through the school. More cups for the cabinet! Oliver Fogelin has added to his remarkable list of achievements by coming very close to the podium for the best in the country in the final of the Oxford

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University Coding Challenge. I am also excited to see amazing talent and enthusiasm in our First Years, some of whom attend Coding Club and are already entering game creation competitions. The future looks bright! We managed a trip to the National Museum of Computing Bletchley Park in October for the Fifth Year, which was a real treat between lockdowns. Clubs continued as best as we could this year with the ever-popular Gaming Club and a new Coding Club for First Years which will be available to a wider audience when bubbles are removed. Mrs K McCathie

Design & Technology

The last fifteen months have certainly impacted upon our ability to deliver

our traditional curriculum; however, we did find ways to ensure some practical activities were carried out. The entire Design and Technology team were extremely pleased to get back to the classroom environment where we are graced with a sea of keen faces rather than a sea of initials on a screen. We were also elated to get back into the practical tasks, turning the designs created during lockdown into practical outcomes. The D&T accommodation has emerged from the cocoon of scaffolding to spread its wings in the form of a brand-new suite of classrooms and workshops. All staff and pupils appreciate the new accommodation with its high ceilings and ample viewing windows, giving the overall effect of a bright and airy teaching environment.

We have been very lucky to have had extra funding to add new facilities to our lovely new accommodation, adding a range of smaller machines to reduce pupil waiting times during practical lesson, a new laser cutter capable of cutting metal and a suite of new 3D printers to enable rapid prototyping to occur. Our usual end of year project showcase was a casualty of the pandemic, with no opportunity for the Fifth Year and Upper Sixth to present the fruits of their labours. In lieu of this, we curated a portfolio in the form of a design catalogue, complete with an array of images to best show off the students’ practical pieces.

to visit a range of different venues, for a range of experiences, including Ben Ainsley Racing in Portsmouth, Mini in Oxford, a Product Design seminar in London and a potential to trip to Paulton’s Park to focus on the designing of a new roller coaster. Mr S Edington

“After a year confined to home or school, we are eager to extend our students’ horizons”

After a year confined to home or school, we are eager to extend our students’ horizons and are planning

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Drama Once again, we have been truly astonished by the efforts made by our Drama students this year, particularly given the difficulties they faced due to the pandemic. Students have adapted and demonstrated the utmost resilience throughout, particularly during the remote learning period where they were still able to produce outstanding work. Students were pushed out of their comfort zone and managed to create some fantastic performances, ranging from Verbatim Theatre, Monologues, Duologues and some even wrote and produced their very own radio plays!

of the Autumn Term, our planned promenade Senior Production was amended for the big screen and our cast demonstrated their ability to adapt, with lots of re-rehearsing, to produce a fantastic version of the famous Nativity story. We saw our talented students bring the characters into the 21st Century and send us off into the Christmas break with some quality acting, dance and vocal performances to enjoy!

The creativity did not stop at remote learning either! At the end

The Summer Term saw an array of events by the Drama Department, kicking the term off with a virtual version of our annual Drama & Dance Showcase where our GCSE & A Level Drama students performed

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the scripted and devised pieces that they had worked so hard on during the pandemic. The quality of these performances is, once again, testament to the resilience shown by our students this year, despite the restrictions on physical contact. This was swiftly followed by our very witty performance of The Real Inspector Hound, where our senior students, led by Mr Lofthouse, gave a fantastic portrayal of Stoppard’s famous whodunit play. The energy and humour were second to none; it was fantastic to see our students finally performing in front of a live audience, albeit much smaller than usual! The final addition to our summer trilogy was our production of Arabian

SENIOR SCHOOL PRODUCTION 2020

A LOWER SCHOOL PRODUCTION 2021

Adapted by Dominic Cooke

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COMING SOON

Premi er Inn

Monday 21 & Tuesday 22 June Gates open at 6.30pm with performance starting at 7.00pm Tickets £10 available online Outdoor stage, Churcher’s College, Petersfield We will go ahead whatever the weather – bring a blanket, picnic and brolly in case!

Nights, performed by the Lower School students. Given that much of the rehearsal process was conducted remotely behind a screen, or at the very least behind a mask, we were absolutely blown away by the standard of acting and meticulous direction.

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What a fantastic way to end the year and it was great to see the cast finally showcase the fruits of their labour. A huge well done to all those involved!

Inspector Hound By Tom Stoppard

Miss S Carty 14 & 15 June 2021 7.30 - 8.45pm Tickets : £8 available at ChurchersCollege.com/WhatsOn Assembly Hall, Churcher's College by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd. on behalf of Samuel French Ltd.

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Music The Music Department has spent much of this year developing new and exciting ways to rehearse and perform. In place of our normal programme of evening concerts, we developed year group bubble lunchtime concerts, which quickly became a highlight of each week. While friends from each year group were able to form an audience, the concerts were also recorded so that the wider community could see and hear the performance.

for the Spring Concert, using a film company to record the Senior Choir in the College grounds singing ‘Waving Through a Window’ from Dear Evan Hanson, amongst others.

We did manage to re-interpret some of the usual highlights of the Churcher’s musical calendar: the Carol Service moved location to St Peter’s Church, where some clever filming of each year group’s choir enabled us to re-create the service as close to the ‘real’ event as possible. A virtual Remembrance Concert saw the year group choirs all recorded performing outside, accompanied by the orchestra of wind and brass players recorded at home and string players in their year group bubbles. Our amazing tech team spent countless hours piecing it all together to produce a beautiful video, fit for any Remembrance Concert, and one which will remain a lasting memory of this extraordinary year! We became even more technically adventurous

Given the challenging year our musicians had faced, we had one hope for the end of the Summer Term which was to achieve something that we hadn’t managed to do all year – a live concert! Following the relaxation of restrictions in May, we were finally able to resume our cross-year ensemble rehearsals, albeit still with social distancing. We had high hopes that our Grand Summer Concert at Cadogan Hall was going to be able to take place, but sadly when restrictions didn’t ease in June, that plan had to be cancelled for the second year running. And so, we set about working out how to enable parents to see and hear the amazing work that had been taking place whilst conforming with restrictions, hence an outside ‘open rehearsal’ on the date of the Cadogan concert. Plans were put in place to move the mighty Grand Piano outside, in preparation for a long-awaited performance of Rachmaninoff’s 2nd Piano Concerto, postponed once already from the previous year. The

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weather may have scuppered plans to move the Grand Piano, but we nonetheless ensured that George Whittle was able to achieve his dream of playing this wonderful piece with the College Orchestra. His extraordinary performance was not the only treat of the day: Anna Lezdkan had also been preparing a concerto and performed the Carmen Fantasy by Sarasate – and again, this was truly virtuosic playing at its best! We were treated to exceptionally exciting playing from not only the College Orchestra, but also from the Junior Orchestra (75 musicians consisting of the Junior Wind Band and Junior Strings ensembles), the Jazz Band (with the very talented Florrie Ransom singing ‘On the Sunny Side of the Street’), all the strings in the school playing ‘Dreams of Fireflies’ with the amazing guitar player Alex Way and the Senior Wind Band who delighted us with three wonderful pieces. Our singers were also in good voice! The year group choirs have been a great success and when we joined all the singers together, the Senior Choir totalled 95 and the Junior Choir 55, so when put together to sing an ever popular ‘Queen’ medley, the volume level was impressive even if it was

outside! The SSA and Senior Chamber Choir treated us to some wonderful music, with madrigals from the SSA choir and a collection of movements from the beautiful Liebeslieder Walzer by Brahms, sung by the Senior Chamber Choir and accompanied on the piano by George Whittle and Valentina Seferinova. One can always rely on the Barbershop to offer a complete contrast to our programme of music and given that the England football team were due to play the Quarterfinals of the Euros that evening, it was inevitable that the boys would be getting everyone in the zone with their rendition of ‘Three Lions’! Whether outside or inside, it really doesn’t matter. It was clear from that Saturday that our musicians were no less impressive and our audience no less enthusiastic, which is truly remarkable and a fitting end to our musical year. Mrs H Purchase

Orchestra & Jazz Band Tour July 2021

With a truly terrific amount of effort and against all the odds, the Music Department managed to create a

fantastic tour for the orchestra and jazz band. While Europe was off the cards, we took our tour around Somerset and Devon in the equally beautiful weather. It was a week of music, fun, and of course, getting very, very wet! Our accommodation – a gorgeous manor house in a picturesque valley which we had entirely to ourselves was perfect for rehearsals, our music bouncing off the hills back to us with just the sheep as our audience. Our first big activity: a morning of watersports, followed by a quick change from our soggy wetsuits to our performance suits and dresses, complete with the iconic Churchers’ cummerbund, and off to our first performance, playing in Sidmouth, in a beautiful public garden with a stunning backdrop of red cliffs and blue seas.

sandcastles, as Mr. Wickham rightfully taught us. That evening we dined on delicious Latin American food, and as a last night celebration sang songs in the dark outside Nettlecombe, accompanied by Mr. James’ guitar. That wasn’t quite the end, however... our final performance was at the most spectacular venue yet, with the backdrop of the stunning Wells Cathedral before we headed off home. It truly was a fantastic week, and even though we may have been more local than a usual tour, there is no doubt the experience was as enjoyable as always. Anna Hughes (L6)

After a precious half hour lie-in, we were off again to Torquay, where we performed beside the harbour. It was a beautiful spot, despite the sweltering heat. Luckily, that afternoon was spent on the beach, swimming, sunbathing, and exploring the pier. It also turns out that one never grows out of

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Sports Science To use an apt sporting analogy, it has been a year of shifting goal posts, from in-classroom teaching to remote learning and back again, masks off then on then off again. Our Sports Scientists have remained resilient and hardworking throughout. We all certainly missed competitive sport but it meant we could concentrate on the academic side and we were very pleased to fit in some of the annual Eaton Games (mixed hockey in the Autumn Term and mixed netball in the Summer Term), which is always entertaining but also quite the opportunity to showcase some skills for some teams! We endeavoured to keep the classroom activities as interactive as possible, including our ‘label the body’ competition and pairs quizzes. Mrs L Snowball

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EPQ Despite the difficulties of researching an extended project during a pandemic, our students have continued to impress. In November, our Upper Sixth students were presenting their EPQs in Covid-secure classrooms instead of the usual open event in the Sports Hall. For many students Covid was another challenge they had to overcome and became a part of their EPQ journey... Tim Emmens explained how he had to adapt his photography project because he was unable to leave his local area for large parts of the year. Megan Hassanali also spoke about how she had to grab a canvas from the Art Department on the last day of school before the first lockdown so she had the materials she needed for her project in lockdown. The pandemic has also provided opportunities, and James Hill and Jonas Flohr took advantage of the extra time they had last summer to get a head start in their EPQs. Not only did they do the ‘Flying Start Programme’ for all Fifth Year students, they also worked tirelessly so their research was pretty much complete by the start of the Lower Sixth. Both students presented their projects in the Summer and have completed their EPQs well ahead of schedule. This is a remarkable achievement and one which we hope inspires the students that took part in the Flying Start Programme 2021. Mr M Hill

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Sport Athletics

Even Covid couldn’t stop Churcher’s students from running; Mr Daniel was to thank for the remote “Couch to 5km” and such was the uptake that he regularly had up to 50 runners training on a Wednesday before school upon our return. That so many students were disciplined enough to be ready to start running at 7am was testament to their dedication and enthusiasm. Unfortunately, that was the limit for cross-country, but some students were able to enjoy the track and field season. Across the junior and intermediate events at the South East Hampshire Championships, 14 students qualified to represent the South East team at the Hampshire Schools’ Athletics Championships, the biggest number from any school in the region! The year finished with Sports Day for each year group on consecutive days, and its new format was a fantastic advert for athletics at the school; it was incredible to see so many students participating and a fitting way to end the year. Mr K McGuire

Cricket

A wise man once wrote, “Cricket is a glorious game of uncertainty and no one should make it lose the charm of uncertainty by making it predictable.” This year has delivered more than our fair share of uncertainty, mainly in the form of the weather and, of course, Covid; we have had to work incredibly hard to get games played, especially as schools would suddenly be unable to fulfil fixtures due to Covid outbreaks. However, seeing the fields full on a Saturday has made all these other challenges pale into insignificance.

four and losing four. There was also a Senior 2nd team for the first time in many years and it indicates that our strong pyramid base and success in encouraging participation is clearly working. Meanwhile, it was a tough year for the U15 side this year, coming up against some excellent teams. However, the boys were incredibly committed and great fun. This age group is very much a stepping stone into the world of Senior cricket and many of them will be knocking on the 1st XI door in the not too distant future; a particular mention should go to Fergus Weatherhead for his 56 against KES Southampton and to Dom Porter for his 73 against Ryde. The U13s have been a delight to work with: enthusiasm, effort and energy, mixed with a dedication to training and match days, together with some talented players has been a terrific recipe! Unfortunately, we lost in the semi-final of the cup against a team who had one very strong player backed up by two other strong bowlers and although we really created some pressure, the truth was we didn’t score enough when we were batting and lost by just one run. From one match where we gave away over 50 extras to then playing local rivals PGS and conceding just six was a real moment of growth for the As. They continued to develop and on the last match of the season managed to beat Salesian U14As, a team which included some big, powerful boys. The Bs beat PGS at a bit of a canter and won all of their fixtures through the season.

Boys The Seniors have enjoyed a solid year, playing eight games (including representing the school at the National Cup at Bradfield), winning

The U12s season saw the year group have their first ever Churcher’s College fixtures against other schools. The first game took them a bit by surprise, having been beaten by a well drilled KES, but they rose to the challenge as the season went on. To say they were enthusiastic would be a huge understatement with 50+ boys regularly turning out to practice with a real buzz in the air every time. So focused on trying to improve their

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individual skills, week in and week out, the boys were queuing up to play in the fixtures and we really look forward to seeing how they develop next year. Girls The girls’ commitment to cricket in the lower years has been outstanding and they have made remarkable progress. The U15s have had a fantastic season: in both batting and fielding they are a force to be reckoned with, and this led to two convincing victories against King Edward VI and Ryde. At U14 level, attendance at training, at Churcher’s Development League and at inter-school fixtures has been fantastic, frequently having over 25 girls involved. Huge improvement in their bowling and batting technical ability has now initiated the transition to hard ball. Two excitingly close fixtures against Ryde and KES were the highlights of the season, with top performances coming from Rosie Bruce, Bella Gaunt and Elise Millington. We have also seen excellent participation from the Second Year; their enthusiasm and motivation for the sport was inspiring to work with. Regularly on a Saturday we would have 36 players for A, B & C teams. Although we didn’t have too many competitive fixtures against other schools, the girls have taken this opportunity to develop their game play and tactical knowledge brilliantly and there is a significant amount who are ready and raring for hard ball fixtures next summer. M R Maier

Hockey

Girls We welcomed a First Year that really engaged and bought into their hockey. Participation numbers for internal matches were exceptionally high with almost the whole year group consistently in attendance! To compensate for the lack of external

“Our strong pyramid base and success in encouraging participation is clearly working”

fixtures, we adopted various themes to our weekend matches, such as the FIH Pro League with pre-decided teams adopting a nation, their colour, playing style and even learning some of the hockey specific language! Boys We had just three weeks of hockey during Games, but unfortunately were not allowed to have any Saturday activity due to Covid. However, those three weeks passed in the blink of an eye and it was clear that many were delighted to be back. In the final

Games week we played House hockey with a new format for the U12s and U13s comprising two mini matches between Houses with combined scores. This resulted in more engagement and participation and will now remain as a permanent fixture to the programme. Churcher’s Champions Festival The introduction of the Churcher’s Champions Festival proved to be another success with the boys playing a rugby tournament at the same time the girls were playing a hockey

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tournament. Scores carried over from the two sports – tries were a point, as were goals in hockey. Teams adopted a sporting Old Churcherian: Team Pedder, Chambers, Rodber, Cairns, Pocock & Tuffin. It proved to be such a success that we ran a second Festival in the Spring Term to compensate for the continued lack of external fixtures. Covid Hockey Club During the lockdown period after Christmas we started a remote hockey club over Teams, led ably by our Senior Captains and Vice Captains, with skills, tips and tricks galore! We even finished with some hockey specific yoga from an external instructor. Mr P Beard

Netball

The pandemic brought with it lots of challenges, ensuring that no day was the same and we all had to push ourselves out of our comfort zone, continuously adapting like never before. This was true for our Chucher’s netballers, too, and despite the setback of a netball season in

lockdown, the girls continued to show commitment, determination and resilience through online initiatives aimed to encourage learning, training, and wellbeing for all in our Churcher’s netball family. Throughout lockdown, the extracurricular club met on a Thursday lunchtime and frequently had over 45 members attending across all year groups. Each week offered a new and fun-filled focus; some of the highlights were an interactive netball quiz, Churcher’s Netball Bingo, Captain’s Takeover with Katie Harris and Isabelle Brower and the Ramseyer sisters led a fantastic fitness session. The sock shooting championships also created quite a stir with 48 competitors faced with the challenge of shooting 15 pairs of socks into a bin five metres away. The knockout rounds concluded just as we returned to school, and congratulations to our overall winners, Charlie Williams (1G), Mia Clark (5C) and Izzy Harris (5N). In February, Saracens Mavericks Superleague player Jo Trip delivered a remote netball fitness session. More

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than 50 girls from the First Year to the Upper Sixth took part in a 60-minute circuit session which included footwork, cardio, muscular endurance and muscular strength - there were lots of red, sweaty faces and high intensity activity! Jo then kindly took part in a lively Q&A session, giving insightful and inspiring answers and sending out a really important message: with many setbacks in her playing career, she has not always been selected for a squad, but she never gave up. She sat on the bench for many years, and understands that other people may be better than her; however, this did not stop her training as hard as she could to be the best she can be. An inspirational lesson for our young netballers from a true professional. Mrs K Higgins

Rounders

We had a handful of fixtures and even managed two rounders festivals, so all in all it was a good season under the circumstances. The festivals involved U12, U13, U14 and U15s and on one of them we had some 90

girls participating, which was quite a sight to see! The highlight of the competitive season was an away trip to Ryde with the U13B team, which we narrowly lost but managed to find time to sun ourselves on Southsea beach with an ice cream whilst we waited for the Hover! Mrs L Snowball

Rugby

Returning to school post lockdown with a multitude of Covid protocols was certainly a daunting task for all involved. However, once again both students and staff were amazing in their positive, determined and enthusiastic response to the difficult situation placed in front of them. Just before the start of the new school year, the rugby staff arrived for preseason training to be greeted by swarms of students ready and eager to get started on their rugby, including 60 students for whom this was their first taste of Churcher’s rugby. It was fantastic to see on average 40-50 students per year group take to the fields and express themselves on the

sporting pitch, particularly after so long in lockdown and away from their teammates. These fantastic numbers were to continue throughout the Autumn Term. Once again, Covid wreaked havoc on school life; we were unable to play other schools for fixtures, we played no contact rugby and there was a mini lockdown in November. However, students were not to be deterred and Saturdays saw the boys participating in the Churcher’s Rugby Cup. Each year group bubble had its own individual tournament and the boys were put into sets for a five week period. The tournament was a great success and saw some closely contested league tables. The main focus within the tournament was on speed of play, quality of skills under pressure, teamwork and game scenario adaptation. This was promoted through a different touch game variation on each Saturday. Games such as Fiji Touch, Bounce Touch and a superhero week enabled the boys to experience a wide range of games of touch that continued to stretch them both physically and mentally. There

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were fantastic performances from all year groups and it was a real pleasure to notice a strong development of core skills such as passing and receiving of the ball, along with some outstanding individual skill expression over the term. During the term and on the last weekend before the Christmas break, the boys joined forces with girls’ hockey for a combined Churcher’s Champions Festival. This was a great competition and a fantastic opportunity for students to experience a competitive festival atmosphere. Students were put into teams named after old sporting Churcherians and they competed for top spot in rugby and hockey leagues. Prizes were awarded and both pupils and staff had a brilliant day. Throughout the term there have been over 250 boys participating every Saturday and their enthusiasm and ambition every week have created a fantastic atmosphere, in what has been a difficult rugby term. The pupils should be commended for their efforts. Mr B Skirving

Swimming

The swimming pool has been a hub of excitement since we have been allowed to return to the water post lockdown. Our club swimmers welcomed some training time in the school pool before public pools reopened and our development and competitive sessions saw swimmer numbers soaring, particularly amongst the First Years. With separate House galas for the First and Second Year, it meant twice the fun! Some excellent individual performances from Charlie Stevenson (1G), Isobel Jordan (1R), Max McIntyre (2C) and Ruby O’Reilly (2D) saw them come away with trophies and in Max’s case, a school record too! The First Year gala came down to a single point with Drake stealing the victory from Grenville and in the Second Year competition, Drake were victorious once again! We were so fortunate to be able to compete in the Henley Classic Open Water Swim again this year, an event that has brought Churcher’s so much success in the past. With a team of

swimmers from the Third, Fourth and Fifth Years, Lower Sixth, staff, parents and even Old Churcherians, this year was no different. Churcher’s not only remained champions and retained the Senior Schools Cup with top four performances from Henry Plewes, Tom Hogg, Lewis Jordan and Alex Sandberg, but also achieved a clean sweep winning the Junior Schools Cup, too (top four finishers: Felix Brockdorff, Lottie Jackson, Kitty Hogg and Alex Paton). Mrs K Higgins

Tennis

Tennis participation has skyrocketed during the pandemic and at Churcher’s we are reaping the rewards of this increased interest with some significant results – our U16 boys beat Seaford 9-0 and the U17 racked up an impressive 8-1 victory against the same competitor. From our youngest competitors, the U12 girls beating Ditcham Park 5-1, right through to our Upper Sixth playing their final matches representing the school (with standout

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performances from Skye Bardoe and Ben Rowley), tennis continues to thrive at Chucher’s. Our U14 girls played an unbeaten season and our mixed U15 team won the last game of the season against Worth. Bearing in mind it was the first season for both our U12 and U13, the results bode well for tennis as these young players move up through the school. Our annual parent-pupil competition continued, although the Open Day on which it usually takes place did not. Indeed, it proved a real success, with more than 50 pairs playing across all year groups. After meticulous planning and flawless execution, the weather was almost perfect and there were some very polished performances from parents and pupils alike. Overall, it has been an impressive season with all 15 courts full for after training on Wednesday and Thursday evenings... the scene of some quality tennis, excellent attitudes, improving strategy and tactics. Churcher’s tennis is going from strength to strength! Mrs T Jenkins

“Rugby staff arrived for preseason training to be greeted by swarms of students ready and eager to get started!”

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Adventure CCF: Army

The Autumn Term started almost normally, with basic and advanced drill being taught to the Third and Fourth Years respectively, ahead of a socially distant, year group-bubbled Remembrance Parade. The new Third Years were then introduced to fieldcraft on Exercise Chameleon at Bramley Common, where cadets practised not being seen, using camouflage and concealment, tactical movement and the two-man field shelter. Exercise Sharpshooter allowed the Fifth Year cadets to hone and test their weapons handling skills, live firing the L98A2 cadet rifle on the Moody Down range in Winchester. During the Spring lockdown, Tuesday evening training continued remotely, delivered by officers and our Sixth Form NCOs through Teams. Despite Covid, the 11 Brigade Cadet Training Team has managed to run courses over the Autumn and Spring Terms. 14 Fifth Year and Lower Sixth cadets completed the SCIC (Senior Cadet Instructor Cadre), gaining promotion to sergeant and three Upper Sixth cadets passed the prestigious Master Cadet assessment. The return to face-to-face training in the Summer Term saw the Third Years practising navigation and patrolling using the school site and farmland to east of Penn’s Place, the Fourth Years completing the Skill at Arms syllabus and the Fifth Years experiencing TIBUA (Training in Built Up Areas) in the corridors around the gym. Lt Gibbins introduced clay pigeon shooting to the programme and the Parents Association kindly funded the acquisition of a second clay launcher. June’s Exercise Night Owl allowed the Third Year cadets to practise and demonstrate their field admin and patrolling skills - living, eating and operating out of a patrol harbour. In the final week of term, the Fourth Years participated in Exercise Striking Tiger, a two-stand blank firing exercise using the L98A2 rifle at Longmoor. Cadets cleared a Close

Quarter Battle (CQB) lane practising their pairs/fire/manoeuvre drills and set and executed a planned ambush. Lower Sixth NCOs provided the enemy force. Capt David Nighy

Army Summer Camp Covid restrictions regrettably made the camp non-residential this year, but the training team excelled themselves with the delivery of a very full, highquality programme at Longmoor. Day 1 was a fieldcraft day, starting with a paintball section attack and defence, with NCOs leading and directing their sections using quick battle orders. Then on to TIBUA, executing a room-by-room house clearance. The afternoon started with an escape room challenge, set in 1917, with constituent PWRR regiment teams competing to solve a succession of problems to find and deliver orders to Piccadilly Circus. The day finished with a STEM challenge, with the four teams competing to build and fire catapults. Day 2 focused on Survival Skills: tracking - reading the signs and building the narrative, fire lighting without matches, obtaining water and making it drinkable, trapping prey (mangle, tangle, strangle or dangle!) and building shelters using naturally available materials. Day 3 was our AT (Adventurous Training) day, where the cadets took part in a variety of wet and dry activities, raft building and racing, kayaking and paddle-boarding, archery, climbing and mountain biking. Day 4 found our cadets on the ranges – firing the L98A2 cadet rifle on the ETR (electronic target range) and clay pigeon shooting.

CCF: Navy

As the world ground to a halt with the outbreak of the pandemic, so too did the opportunities for us to get together as a proud Naval section. However, we did not lie dormant, and our Senior cadet team of Josiah Wilson, Mathew Wagstaff, Mark

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Childs, Jared Lucraft and Henry Tasker were hugely instrumental in supporting and driving our section with their online Tuesday evening Teams sessions. While not compulsory, the majority of cadets signed in, recognising the value of the weekly sessions. Towards the back end of the year, as Covid restrictions eased, we did manage to get together in our bubbles and although it did not feel ‘normal’ we were, at least, together again. Being able to parade, albeit in separate bubbles, and to implement some of the Naval programme for the cadets were of huge benefit and value to all that attended. One of our major highlights was a day at Queen Elizabeth Country Park, orienteering and mountain biking. This was a wonderful day for the cadets to enjoy some freedom and fun and made up for the disappointment of not having any of the usual assets available to us from Naval command. Lt Rob Maier

CCF: RAF

This year has been a tough one for the RAF section, as it has been for many. The lack of flying has been a big blow to the section as it is a major part of what attracts cadets to the RAF section, so not being able to provide that has been a challenge. However, we have been able to do a great deal of virtual flying on the brand new simulators, with the cadets learning how to do basic circuits around an airfield. The simulators have also given the cadets the opportunity to get to grips with the flight controls of an aircraft, which will be helpful when they finally do go flying. The CCF as a whole did very well with the annual Remembrance Service. While cadets were not able to parade in Petersfield, the CCF performed exceptionally at the school’s own service, even with the restrictions. It has been a privilege to be the Leading Cadet for the last year, and I hope that this year the cadets are able to get back to some more hands-on experiences. Jasper Browne, Senior Contingent Cadet

“It has been a privilege to be the Leading Cadet for the last year”

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DofE

Unfortunately, Covid guidelines restricted the overnight element of DofE expeditions, as well as setting new challenges with planning and organisation. However, our Adventurous Activities team never shy away from a challenge and have rescheduled expeditions lost earlier in the year and also added in this year’s cycle, too. In October, the Bronze assessed expeditions took place over two weekends with 117 pupils participating. Hiking in the South Downs, across Hampshire and West Sussex, 16 teams of pupils travelled independently over the two days, following their own planned routes via checkpoints where assessors met and evaluated their skills and progress.

expedition. Although Exmoor is not a mountainous area, with a full pack the hills and moorland set a real challenge for our youngsters and the high temperatures of June added a further dimension to the challenge. Whilst the sunshine brought the reward of phenomenal views, high temperatures made for some very demanding conditions where hydration and skin protection became top priority. However, smiles and success hopefully lead these youngsters nicely on to their Gold Award in Sixth Form.

Silver medallists had a busy Summer, with practice in the New Forest comprising a 3-day expedition learning and developing their campcraft skills. Sunshine and hills in beautiful Exmoor provided the fantastic setting for our 57 Fifth Year pupils completing their final

Blessed with further extraordinary weather, the leavers of 2021 had a fantastic experience in our glorious Lake District National Park for their final Gold expedition. Scaling mountains of over 3,000 feet and long days including wild camps and stunning ridge walks, this was a special way for our eldest pupils to complete their DofE journey with Churcher’s College. Four days and three nights being completely selfsufficient is a great achievement and, with treasured memories and increased confidence, our intrepid students leave Churcher’s with not just their Gold Award completed

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but also the skill set, determination, initiative, independence and desire to keep adventuring and exploring.

Devizes to Westminster

Despite the impact of Covid, K2 endurance paddling and the DW programme has remained as popular and busy as ever. This year, we began with 55 paddlers from the Lower Sixth, an impressive third of the year group; to enable them all to take part we ran double sessions every Sunday in the Autumn Term. While this really stretched our resources to the limit, the sessions were great fun and very rewarding.

In addition to the Sunday training paddles, many of the squad were circuit training on the school fields on Tuesday lunchtimes and also frequently practising technique on the kayak ergos at lunch breaks or in free periods. Thus, the Spring Term lockdown and the subsequent cancellation of the 2021 race came as a huge disappointment. Not to be deterred, as soon as restrictions allowed, we were able to devise an alternative challenge for the

“Four days and three nights being completely self-sufficient is a great achievement” pupils to give them the opportunity to stretch themselves in some sort of event and put all their hard training to good effect. We devised the BCK250 Challenge which, in essence, was to paddle the entire length of the Basingstoke Canal (50km), with 30 portages, in one journey. Training sessions were a tough jump up in hours and kms paddled but on Sunday 2 May, 25 paddlers chose to take on the challenge. Supported by their parents and a team of staff, we saw the entire fleet complete the challenge and rightly feel very proud of their achievements. It was not the DW race that they had signed up for, back in September 2020, but it was nonetheless a superb challenge, proving their endurance, skills, resilience and teamwork and an achievement they will no doubt remember for a long time. Mr A Rowley

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“Our 122 pupils in the OSCA gang move onwards with a fantastic range of outdoor skills and experiences”

OSCA

Lockdown and ongoing restrictions gave us much to overcome, but in line with the OSCA ethos we were determined to do all we could to keep the programme running. With some very creative thinking and planning we have been delighted to be able to reschedule and run all our evening OSCA challenge sessions for the 122 pupils who take part in the programme across the year. As always, OSCA sessions and learning have been filled with fun and learning as Oscaneers have built and raced chariots, survived a tsunami, catapulted their way up the leader board, rock climbed, lit fires without matches and cooked their dinner, orienteered, pitched tents, learned first aid, worked with knives to make useful campfire gadgets to cook on, route planned and so much more. In addition, Scuba diving introductory sessions took place in the Summer Term, as did our three watercraft days on the sea down in Chichester Harbour where canoe adventures were a firm favourite. With only four days’ notice, due to changes to Covid restrictions in Wales, we had to reorganise the whole OSCA residential programme from Brecon to English destinations. We were delighted to be able to solve the challenge and took all 122 pupils away on an OSCA 3-day residential adventure. Across the week pupils were able to enjoy a wide range of activities including rock climbing, abseiling, high ropes courses, canoe, kayak, paddle board, giant paddle boards, giant canoes, forest foraging, campfire lighting and skills, hikes, team building challenges, archery, raft building and raft racing and of course the great adventure of being away from home with their friends for three days. We can proudly say that the 122 pupils in the OSCA gang of 2020-21 have had an amazing experience and move

onwards with a fantastic range of outdoor skills and experiences which we hope will encourage them to continue to search for opportunities, both through our many and varied school programmes and in their own time outside school and to embrace and enjoy the wonders, beauty and fun of our amazing outdoor environment. Mr J Lucraft

Ten Tors

In November, students in the Fourth Year and Lower Sixth started training to take part in the gruelling ‘Ten Tors 2021’, 35-mile and 45-mile challenges held annually in Dartmoor. Teams were formed and training started with a six-hour hike in daylight, dusk and dark in the South Downs area. When the country went in to lockdown, students were tasked with continuing to train in their own time and in their local areas, and to record their training using Strava, sharing their achievements with the leaders. It therefore came as a great disappointment to be told that the challenge had been cancelled for the second year. However, inspired by Old Churcherians Will Duke and Adam Childs, who had been hiking extensively during lockdown and creating their own routes, a new challenge emerged. The pair had created a route between Churcher’s Senior School and Funtington Churchyard, the location of Richard Churcher’s grave. This route was extended to reach the coast at East Head, and so the “Ten Tors Team College-to-Coast Challenge” was created. A 45-mile (72km) route with 1034m ascent for the Lower Sixth, and a 35-mile (56km) route with 810m ascent for the Fourth Year students. A total of 27 students signed up to take part and after some group training hikes in April they were ready to start the two-day challenge. On Saturday 8 May they set off from College shortly after 8am. The 35-mile teams

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headed south and hiked through Buriton, West Marden, Stoughton, and Kingley Vale to reach the Funtington churchyard. The 45-mile teams headed east towards Durford and Woolbeding before turning south to go through Bepton and over the South Downs to Stoughton, Kingley Vale and Funtington Churchyard. The teams reached Funtington Churchyard by late afternoon and, after a quick chat with Mr Williams and Mrs Dixon and some blister treatment, they continued on their set route. Unfortunately, due to ongoing restrictions, the teams were unable to camp and had to return home in the evening, so the following day they were driven to their Saturday finish points, to set off again on their routes. They hiked via Chichester, Hunston and Itchenor to finish victoriously at East Head (West Wittering) on Sunday afternoon where they were met with a wall of admiration and pride by parents, staff and friends! Mr A Rowley

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Charity Non-uniform days are a staple part of our fundraising calendar, but no less appreciated by the students for their regularity – in the Autumn Term alone we raised more than £1,800 for UWS Mude and a further £1,500 for the St Peter’s Appeal, raising money for a new clock for our local Church. Christmas Jumper Day for Save the Children was bigger than ever, raising £684 - much more than previous efforts. Meanwhile, the Charities Committee also ran the much-loved Reindeer Run for Chestnut Tree House for the First and Second Years, raising a further £1,363.

all over the country. Churcher’s lower school students got thoroughly stuck in with lots of different activities; 100 lengths of the pool, 100 cricket balls bowled and 100 netball hoops shot were just some of the challenges which raised £485! Our final effort of the year came on the very last day of term, when we held our first Food Bank Friday. Conscious of the fact that in the last year food banks have given out 47% more food and home supplies due to Covid, much of this to young families with children; students collected tinned foods for the local food banks of Petersfield and Liphook.

During lockdown and the second period of online learning, the Charities Committee felt it was still very important to continue our efforts... we reversed the traditional non-uniform day for Shooting Star Children Hospice in January and raised £1,956, with students choosing to wear uniform or dress up as superheroes from home. By March, we were back in school and could run a normal non-uniform day for Smile Train, a charity supporting children all over the world born with cleft lip and palate, raising just shy of £2,000. The Summer Term rolled around quickly and Captain Sir Tom’s family decided to honour his legacy with a 100 Challenge for students and adults

UWS Mude

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The Charities Committee have done fantastically well this year in challenging circumstances, and should be very proud of having raised well in excess of £10,000 for good causes. Ms C Evans

Our support of UWS Mude has become even more important with the disruption to schooling as a result of Covid-19. At the time of writing, the school is closed and remote schooling is completed using radio to reach the furthest corners of Nepal. An estimated 10,000 students tune in daily for the two-hour lessons.

Some members of the Charities Committee took part in the international campaign launch for UWS ‘Happily Ever Smarter’, where they had the opportunity to listen to three key speakers championing the importance of education to battle the cycle of poverty. Speakers sharing their own powerful stories were: Alicia Herbert OBE, Surya Karki (UWS Nepal, Country Director) and Vee Kativhu (Education Influencer on YouTube). “This insightful talk really opened my eyes to the difficulties that so many young people have to face and many will continue to face without our help. Alicia’s inspiring talk about girls’ rights and opportunities was an insight into terrible issues such as underage marriage and female discrimination.” Alice Fimpel With all money raised from various College endeavours matched by the Government Aid Match programme, UWS Mude will have received around £4,000. Mr J Harris

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300 Stay in touch...

Community.ChurchersCollege.com community@churcherscollege.com 01730 236 833 @ChurchersAlumni

Development Office This past year has been another very busy, unpredictable but productive one for the Development Office. Like many others, we spent a good deal of time organising, rescheduling and cancelling events, much to everyone’s frustration. We also had to innovate…

rugby ball, hockey ball and netball to their virtual team mates. The OCs responded in force and in the absence of an on field referee, it was declared a draw!

events, publishes recent school and Development Office publications and hosts the school archive, where you can access the Churcherian magazine from 1914!

The annual 1722 Society lunch, attended by supporters of the Richard Churcher Foundation, went online including a remote Sixth Form enrichment lesson from History teacher, Hannah Swindells. With OC Day and the competition for the Eaton trophies unable to happen at school, the Captains of Sport challenged the Old Churcherians via some ingenious filming of themselves passing a

We are delighted that we now have over 1,000 Old Churcherians, former parents, staff and other supporters signed up to the Churcher’s Community – https://Community. ChurchersCollege.com – our online portal where the school and wider community can connect, interact with one another and share information. Through this, the Development Office shares news from school, Old Churcherians and the community, promotes and sells tickets to

Please stay in touch with Churcher’s by creating a profile and/or updating your communications preferences at Churcher’s Community – https:// Community.ChurchersCollege.com.

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Mr N Smith Head of Development

Mark Preston (73) Switzerland

‘Doing the family history’ has been a common occupation for many years, especially for we retirees. Several months’ enjoyable research threw up some chance discoveries and unexpected coincidences. My father’s family, the Pococks, are an old Isle of Wight family, with my branch of the family moving to the mainland – Bromley, then still in Kent – in 1818. Unaware of this, it was quite coincidental that, upon return from New Zealand in 1969 with my parents, we chose to live in Hampshire and I was accepted at Churcher’s. More striking was the discovery that I was not the first family member to attend Churcher’s. Two second-cousins of my father, John J.B. Pocock and Anthony Pocock, both Hampshire-born, were both at Churcher’s during WW2. Both boys came from a military background, with both their father James, (Royal Navy, Fleet Air Arm) and their grandfather, also James (Royal Engineers), seeing service. As is inevitable with service families, tours of duty in various parts of the country were often short-term. So, John Pocock was at Churcher’s only from 1938 to 1940 – he left at the

end of the Fifth Form to go straight into the RAF, right in the summer of 1940, with the Battle of Britain gathering pace. I am sure I cannot fully appreciate what he faced at such a time and what bravery he was required to show. Happily, John Pocock survived the ordeal of aerial combat, although I have no details of his service record. We do know that he did stay on in the RAF after the war, and that he was aircrew, retiring with the rank of Flight Lieutenant in the late 40s. He married Lena in April 1946 and they decided to go out to what was then Southern Rhodesia. They settled in Bulawayo, where all his three children were born, and where he set up the John Pocock Estate Agency in 1955, a company that still trades and still carries his name today, in modern day Zimbabwe, with branches in Bulawayo and Harare. John died in Natal, South Africa, in 2012 at his son’s house, where he spent his final years. His pastime in those final years was… doing the Pocock family tree! John’s half-brother is the retired Surrey and England cricketer, Pat Pocock, who has been key in piecing this story together, and who presented me with a copy of John Pocock’s work, which thankfully matched my own research.

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Anthony Pocock’s story is, sadly, shorter. He started at Churcher’s in 1940 at age 15, and went up through into the Sixth Form where he was a Prefect. He left in 1944 and it is noted in the school records that he went into the Fleet Air Arm. In October 1947, at age 21, he was playing rugby for the Royal Navy at their grounds in Gosport when he suddenly died on the pitch. A Hampshire Telegraph report of the inquest said that the RN Surgeon Commander advised the Coroner that Anthony had an undetectable condition in his liver/spleen, which meant that death could be brought on by ‘the slightest shock, mental or physical’. He is buried in Haslar Royal Naval Cemetery and remembered on the grave of his grandfather, Major James Pocock, OBE, in the village of Evercreech, Somerset. Just like the two brothers themselves, I imagine that their Churcher’s contemporaries are no longer with us. But I felt compelled to record their passing through ‘my’ school: a reminder of school days and of expectations that would have been quite different to what most of us have since known.

Staff Departures

David Robbins

Most people, most of the time don’t refer to schools as multi-million pound businesses, but that is what they are, albeit we rightly steer away from words like, ‘conveyor belt’ or ‘product’. As the second biggest employer in the Petersfield area after Whitman Laboratories, managing Churcher’s as a business is no mean feat and the ‘Chief Operating Officer’ keeping the juggernaut running true, for a prodigious quarter of a century has been David Robbins. During this time, the school has undergone some remarkable changes, not least in growth both in the number of people and acreage. When David arrived there were 700 pupils in the school, 137 in the Junior School and 563 in the Senior School; as he leaves it will be 1,226, of which 233 will be on the extra 14 acres of land and buildings in Liphook which David has to manage; acquired in 2004 and housing the Junior School. With almost one thousand children in the Senior School, the extra playing fields at Penns Place and the consequential substantial increase in staff, David’s job has just got tougher and tougher.

determined, but there is none of the single-mindedness or pursuit of glory, nor the “you’re fired” fire and brimstone of Alan Sugar when he wears his business hat either. David has achieved so much by a collaborative approach; investing his heart and soul in Churcher’s and with his wife Linda as Junior School Librarian, and children Emily, Andrew and Michael all enjoying hugely impressive school careers here, there is no doubt that David has lived and breathed Churcher’s. Its success is a consequence of his tremendous financial acumen, his patience with all and his quiet persistence to encourage the juggernaut in the right direction. David understands people as much as he does spreadsheets. If success is simply measured by numbers then David comes out on top, but in a school success is measured in more diverse and subtle ways, not least in the smiles of children, their parents and staff faces. Over 25 years David has been the cause of many an excuse to smile; so much that has been achieved, so many opportunities and experiences enjoyed are a consequence of David’s brilliant touch as Bursar.

But David has never been afraid of a challenge, including wearing Lycra in public. David is also an international triathlete and has the GB triathlete kit to prove it. Most triathletes are renowned for a single-minded determination to battle through the pain of the event in pursuit of ultimate glory. David certainly is

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Linda Robbins

Linda Robbins has been a vital component of Churcher’s Library since 1999, when she joined the Senior School, subsequently moving to the Junior School in 2007. The Library at the Junior School has had many forms under Linda, the first version of the Liphook site library was a hall with room dividers, the library was then moved to the “bungalow” and then most recently our purpose-built beautiful library facility. During this time, she has worked for two Senior School and three Junior School Headteachers and she has lived through all the changes and improvements to the buildings, the new Junior School, the new Nursery and many staff changes. Linda describes Churcher’s as her life and family since 1996 when her husband David joined the staff, with all three of Linda’s children having been through the school.

We are grateful for Linda’s work over the recent years with her help and leading Accelerated Reading as well as her invaluable energy in joining in and working on Book Week and Book Days. She will be long remembered for her Book Week appearance as Gangsta Granny, complete with wetsuit, goggles and a handbag wrapped in clingfilm! Linda will start her retirement competing with Team GB (Triathlons) in September - the Valencia European Triathlon Championships - and hopes to visit Australia (Covid permitting) to see daughter Emily. We wish Linda every happiness.

David Cave

Ian Crossman was once challenged to make an on-the-spot translation of an English idiom on behalf of myself in front of an audience of the great and good of the town of Warendorf in Germany. Ian, I think, was spot on, the gathered throng seemed to understand. The idiom goes ‘Children are like wet cement. Whatever falls on them can make an everlasting impression’.

It is clear from the torrent of correspondence I received, as the tragic news about David got out, that David made the most significant and lasting impression on so, so many and very much to the good. Ian Knowles penned the following short epilogue to David’s career at Churcher’s before we lost David. I know there will now be lengthy eulogies aplenty about a person that was clearly hugely admired by us all but, being such a modest man, David would suggest his time amongst us should be recognised through his passion and not through him. As such, when the time is right, we will have a celebration of David’s life through poetry, prose and probably the odd dram of whiskey. For now I leave you with Ian and a few snippets of David the teacher. Mr S Williams

David is a man of few words but when he speaks, people listen. His understated, no fuss and no nonsense approach, together with his impressive academic credentials and dry sense of humour have made

him hugely well respected within the Churcher’s Common Room and amongst the pupil body. Even after such a long career his passion for the English language still burns bright and he is at his happiest in the classroom dissecting a poem or a passage from a novel. An academic heavyweight, Dr Cave made significant contributions to two key initiatives for the most able Churcherians – The Academy and the Extended Project Qualification. As Head of The Academy for several years David kept a watchful eye over our high attainers and ensured they were mentally stimulated. He also helped to launch and run the EPQ at Churcher’s before handing it over to Mr Hill, though he continued to be a key member of the EPQ team and Mr Hill greatly valued his judgement in the marking and moderation of the final projects. As one would expect he is a spelling, punctuation and grammar stickler. I once made the mistake of suggesting that he had made a punctuation error when including the novel ‘Tis a Pity She’s a Whore in a Sixth Form Prospectus entry. He politely explained my mistake with the tiniest of smiles and I was suitably chastised. I never challenged him again. Even Mr Crossman wouldn’t take on Dr Cave in a punctuation argument.

Tutor, David has helped countless students navigate their A Level studies, providing wise counsel and sound advice on their university applications. A highlight for me was the U6 Collingwood Leavers Video of 2014 masterminded by Bret Cameron where David starred in the opening scene. As Eminem’s Lose Yourself played in the background, Dr Cave swept through the staff room in slow motion, scooped up the contents of his pigeon hole and, after a bored flick through the various notes and letters, dropped them with disdain into the bin outside the clock tower on his way to registration in 309. David’s one error of judgement is arguably his lifelong dedication to West Ham, although with their best ever top flight finish last season, and consequently their qualification for the Europa League, maybe his lifetime of support has been bearing fruit for them. Dr Cave, even the name is almost iconic, and has become synonymous with extraordinary scholarship and a deep-seated passion to inspire all with a love of English language and literature. His legacy is long-lived through all of us who have been inspired by him both inside the classroom and out.

Mr Seal and Mr Baker will be sad to see Dr Cave go as well. As a loyal and dedicated Collingwood Sixth Form

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Susie Arnold

It is with a heavy heart that we share the sad news of a colleague passing. Susie Arnold passed away in September leaving a much-loved family, both at home and amongst the Churcher’s community. Susie seemed to live and breathe drama and had over 11 years’ involvement with Churcher’s as a parent and LAMDA teacher. She started teaching LAMDA at Churcher’s College in 2007 as a single teacher for 25 girls and boys from the Senior School in Petersfield. The very first exam session was held in the Summer Term 2008 featuring Verse and Prose Grade One exams before moving on to Acting exams the next year.

When all the world is crumbling around your ears; whatever the disaster at one’s door; however badly something is going there are those who just seem to rise above all the chaos and see the positives when no positives appear to exist. With a perpetually reassuring smile, a “never mind, dear” or a “it will be alright on the night”, Susie was one of life’s perpetual glass half-full people, which is why the children (and adults) at Churcher’s loved her so much. She will be sorely missed by the entire Churcher’s community.

As interest and take-up of LAMDA grew, so did the team with Zoe joining Susie and the beginning of the annual Churcher’s performances at the Godalming Speech and Drama Festival every March. Susie’s talent for teaching and passion for drama was evident in the large number of trophies and cups her pupils were awarded during this time. The team would continue to grow with the addition of Jenny and Suzanne and 139 pupils participating in LAMDA lessons across the Senior School. When Susie retired in 2019 she mentioned a high point of her time at Churcher’s was the huge number of students who had reached their Grade Eight Gold Medal Acting exam, something that is recognised by UCAS, and what a far cry it was from her little First Years taking their first Verse and Prose exams all those years ago.

Linda Blackman

An English teacher by trade, Linda Blackman joined Churcher’s in 2003 as a part-time teacher of pupils with specific learning difficulties. Such was her instant rapport with pupils and colleagues alike, her role quickly grew: a year later, she was promoted to Special Needs Coordinator, and then full-time Head of Curriculum Support. What made Linda such a standout member of staff, was her significant contribution to both the academic and pastoral sides of school life. In 2011 she acquired a diploma, at merit, in counselling children and adolescents, thus providing Churcher’s with an in-house counselling provision rarely matched by other schools. Often working oneto-one with pupils, who did not always find school straightforward, Linda, with her varied skillset, attributes and talents, was adept at boosting self-esteem, deploying all-important strategies and, in the simplest terms, making individuals feel better about themselves and equipping them to succeed and make the most of their ability. Added to this, Linda was the architect of numerous innovations: a carefully devised screening programme, handwriting and spelling clubs, ASDAN and Gold Award and exam anxiety workshops to name but a few. Her oversight of exam access arrangements was managed with unstinting integrity, fairness, as well as her customary eye for detail and accuracy. In summary, as a much admired and respected colleague, Linda’s professionalism, dry sense of humour, her penchant for a handwritten note, but above all else her devoted care and support for her pupils will be sorely missed by all members of the Churcher’s community, and we wish her well for her retirement.

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Peter Beard

Lee Edwards

Peter Beard began his Churcher’s journey 12 years ago as a visiting hockey coach; he had an instant impact, with his passion and creative coaching approach. When the opportunity arose five years ago to become a full-time teacher, the school jumped at the chance to capture his energy towards all areas of the sporting curriculum, on and off the pitch. Initially Peter had the role of Head of Swimming, which saw an increase in participation rates and performance with successful campaigns at the national relay finals and Bath Cup.

Lee Edwards joined Churcher’s College in 2001 to assume the role of Physics technician, deploying her wealth of experience and technical expertise to support the teaching staff. 19 years later, we will remember Lee for her tremendous efforts in helping us teach the many wonderful pupils in Physics and her innovative ways of using new and old apparatus in different ways, including during lockdown. With the STEAMship and electronics clubs, Lee was an integral part of the extra-curricular programme which many of the students have enjoyed after school or during lunchtimes over many years. Lee has loved her own project on Open Days where she would transform one of our laboratories into a mini Solar System, complete with music, ambient lighting and plenty of enthusiasm! Both young visitors and parents/grandparents would marvel at the spectacle on offer and Lee would provide a guided tour of Jupiter, Saturn and of course the Earth! Lee is looking forward to spending more time with her grand-daughter and travelling the world with her husband, building and sharing good memories.

However, Peter’s passion has always been for hockey and as Head of Hockey, with his high level of coaching and vision for ‘forward, fast, first’ hockey, the sport has thrived, with increased participation rates and high-level performance achieved across many age groups, with strong links with Havant Hockey Club and other neighbouring clubs. Peter has instilled a love for the sport in hundreds of children, some of whom have adopted ongoing participation in the sport after leaving Churcher’s. A real highlight was the 2019 U15 Independent Schools cup run which resulted in the boys achieving the highest honours as National Champions. He will be sorely missed by pupils and staff alike for his constant enthusiasm and passionate approach to physical education. We wish him luck as he develops his career and educational experience at the Royal School.

The Churcherian 2021

Maggie Grimes

Maggie Grimes joined Churcher’s in 2002 and became a key member of our Pink Ladies Team. The Sixth Form Centre at Ramshill was the main area of responsibility for Maggie and working closely with another former staff member Sue Cross, they established a very strong team covering the housekeeping duties in a friendly, supportive and most efficient manner. Indeed, at each Sixth Form leavers day they were both presented with a selection of gifts by the students. This form of support provided by Maggie and Sue endeared themselves to many of our former Sixth Formers who I am sure fondly remember those days in Ramshill including the large quantities of toast consumed at the morning break. Even an unfortunate fox that got stuck in the Ramshill lawn football netting was rescued by Maggie one morning. Maggie’s daughter Claire has retained the family connection by also being a current member of our Pink Ladies team. With two dogs and four grandchildren plus a caravan in Devon it is evident that Maggie will continue to be very busy in her life after Churcher’s. We all wish you well for the future.

Elena Hall

Modern Languages said a fond farewell to Elena Hall, who after 22 years working as a language assistant in the Spanish Department, has bid us “adiós” to enjoy her welldeserved retirement. During her time at Churcher’s, Elena has been a charismatic and energetic assistant, with unparalleled knowledge of Spanish culture and current affairs. She has been untiring in her efforts to prepare students for their speaking exams, particularly at AS and A Level. She was always so generous to share the wealth of her knowledge on so many different topics related to Spain and South America. We are all indebted to her for bringing such energy and sense of fun to the Department. Elena has been instrumental in organising au pair placements in Valencia for our Sixth Formers, as well as developing an unofficial role as “auntie” to our annual French and German assistants, taking the time to chat to them and to nurture their confidence and happiness when in school.

David Heath

David arrived at Churcher’s in 2016 having previously been at Alton School, where he held a key Sixth Form role. His interest in teaching and learning and pupil progress was immediately evident and he quickly became actively involved in academic committees and working groups. Unsurprisingly for an Art teacher, David was particularly interested in the importance of creativity and this was a theme in his dealings with the students, particularly the older ones as they looked to prepare themselves for life beyond Churcher’s. Amongst other artistic contributions to the Lower Sixth Enrichment programme for example, David devised and delivered a very popular course entitled “Creativity: Why Do We Need It?”. We were hugely grateful to David when he agreed to step in as Acting Head of Art following Mr Saralis’s retirement last summer. Many GCSE and A Level students were worried about Mr Saralis leaving and how this would affect their grades but Mr Heath steadied the ship and inspired confidence in the exam groups. Their grades at the end of this year are testament to the excellent job that he did.

David made other notable contributions to school life outside the Art Department, as an active member of the OSCA team and even as school photographer, a job which has left quite a legacy in the various Churcher’s publications and archives. David was also a dedicated Grenville Sixth Form Tutor. Kind and attentive to his personal tutees, he always had their best interests at heart. David moves on to run the Art Department at Wells Cathedral School and we wish him every success and happiness in his new role.

The Churcherian 2021

Gemma Heath

Hundreds of Churcher’s Art students have been taught, counselled and inspired by Mrs Heath since she joined in 2009; indeed, she is the reason that many went on to study Art at A Level and beyond. An exceptionally talented artist, Gemma’s kind and empathetic approach to teaching made her hugely popular with her students. She always put the pupils first and always had time for them, no matter what time of the day they needed help; it was a very common sight to see Gemma guiding and helping them in between lessons to get their work finished. Whilst Gemma largely took responsibility for the Lower Sixth course, every Spring, as the portfolio deadline approached and tensions rose, Gemma’s reassuring presence eased the pressure as Fifth and Upper Sixth students’ creative juices ran dry. She listened to their problems and calmly put them back on the right track. Many would not have got there were it not for Mrs Heath! Teaching Art lessons remotely during lockdown was tricky, but Gemma’s passion for her subject shone through as she continued to inspire setting imaginative and engaging tasks for pupils to complete at home. We wish Gemma all the very best for the future.

Charlotte Lilley

Back in 2009, Charlotte joined the English Department on a oneterm contract, soon extended to a permanent part-time position and then in 2016, much to everyone’s delight, Charlotte became a full-time member of staff. First and foremost, she is a superb English teacher; the pupils that find themselves fortunate to be taught by her thrive in her care and her determination to get the very best out of them knows no limits. She is held in high esteem by all who know her; her wickedly dry sense of humour, as well as her down-toearth practicality and no-nonsense approach, will be sorely missed, especially by her colleagues in the Department who count themselves lucky to have had the opportunity to work so closely with her over the years. Charlotte takes on the role of Head of English and Media at The Royal School, and whilst it may be a cliché to say that The Royal’s gain is very much our loss, it is also true. We wish her every success in her new adventure.

Jean Millard

It is difficult to know which has more impact: being a parent of a child in a school or being a teacher at a school for over 33 years; both require the most significant investment of time, energy, effort and emotion. Jean Millard has been both, parent to Howard who left in 2011 and Biology teacher, Head of Department, Head of Faculty, Pastoral Form and Personal Tutor, Sports Coach and lately the Senior Teacher (Staff). In all her roles Jean has had a hugely positive impact and influence on all she has taught and guided through their teenage years but in her senior management roles she has likewise been such a positive force for those who also do the guiding. Jean has always shown a most healthy mix of personal and corporate ambition, with a liberal sprinkling of pragmatism. The mantra for many a Biologist is Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ but that suggests a cut-throat, dog-eatdog process of education. Jean’s approach, however, was more parallel evolution where individuality was encouraged, supported and celebrated. Not all are budding scientists but few, if any, passed through her or the Faculty’s charge without gaining an appreciation of and reward from their exposure to Churcher’s Science.

Moira Noble

Moira Noble joined Churcher’s in 2015 as PA to the Head of Junior School and in January 2021 also took on Junior School & Nursery Admissions. During Moira’s time at Churcher’s the school has changed greatly, as the new middle school building and the nursery opened, with an increase in the numbers of children and families. In her role at the heart of the school Moira most enjoyed the chance to get to know the children, particularly the little ones who have such a sense of awe and wonder at the simplest of things. Moira particularly enjoyed working with Jo Tremlett and Ffion Robinson because they shared a sense of humour as well as a love of chocolate and cake, all three of which are essential when there are tricky times! Moira will miss the close team she works with, Jo’s continuous supply of cups of coffee and tea – she will now have to make her own! Retirement will give Moira the chance to spend time in the outdoors in her garden, exercising, walking and cycling, travelling (when it is allowed!) and seeing much more of her family and friends – she is planning lots of adventures and we wish her well in all of them!

When it comes to individuality, Jean had that in bucket loads as well. Never content to simply do as others do, Jean was the inspiration behind many a new initiative. Through her attempts to make everyone a member of the ‘Mini Club of GB’ she has certainly encouraged and inspired many in her and her husband’s support of the MND charity efforts. After 33 years one leaves as much an imprint on a place as a place has on one; that Science is top of the league table when it comes to A Level subject choices is probably one of Jean’s greatest legacies. The Churcherian 2021

Teresa Robins

For most of the 26 years that Teresa Robins was a member of our Pink Ladies team she was the face of the ‘Pound’, the Churcher’s lost property service. A number of charities have benefited to the tune of £13.5k from the 50p charge required for pupils to be reunited with lost kit and bags. This friendly service enabled Teresa to get to know and chat with thousands of Churcher’s pupils over the years and as you might expect some were more frequent visitors than others. Although strictly only open at break and lunch times Teresa would often reunite bags and kit with worried pupils ahead of lessons and games during the day to complete this unique service. The New College staff room was another work base for Teresa which included numerous staff coffee mugs neatly arranged and freshly washed and arranging fresh flowers in key locations was another of her much-appreciated duties. She was a friend to many and her support continued during the recent Covid lockdown periods with home baking supplies being delivered to school and enjoyed by the staff on site. In addition to baking, knitting, crochet and gardening will keep Teresa busy for many years to come and we wish her a long and enjoyable retirement from Churcher’s.

Paul Shipley

Paul Shipley (or ‘Shippers’) leaves us after 9 years of service as an Economics teacher. In the classroom he has had many years of success with his Economics classes, always pushing them to work harder. He led teams very successfully in the Bank of England Target 2.0 competition and inspired students with his love for monetary policy. Ever the professional, his students could expect tests from him even on the last day of term. He has also made very valued contributions to the new GCSE Business course and the EPQ programme. Shippers was also a longstanding member of Nelson House, having been a Form Tutor to a wide range of age groups. He organised the annual Nelson House curry night, which only a global pandemic could scupper! I will also remember his Form’s enthusiastic campaigning in the EU Referendum, which had a significant impact on the overall result (no doubt inspired by his political leniencies).

Although we all know him as a lifelong supporter of Birmingham City, Shippers has shown his skills and talents in many sports, not least by coaching rugby for many years. He has also pursued his own sport goals by becoming a very capable swimmer and completing a Half Ironman. With sons Liam and Noel both having left it will seem strange not having a ‘Shippers’ around, but we will all remember his humour, straight talking honesty and periodical whole staff emails. Thank you for everything you have done and we wish you all the best for your life in Italy.

The Churcherian 2021

Jane Smith

Jane Smith joined our Pink Ladies team in 2004 and since then has been a key member of our cleaning and caretaking staff, with specific responsibility for the Sports Hall and Old College. Being very much part of the caretaking staff team and helping with many event set ups has been a feature of her time at Churcher’s. From staging to seating for plays and concerts Jane has worked in a friendly and efficient way to support the busy range of school activities. Jane looks forward to spending her retirement with her husband, family and her three grandchildren. Jane has been ever present over the last 17 years and we will miss your sense of humour and smile but wish you well for the future.

Linda Tebb

Linda joined Churcher’s in 2017 as our Accounts Assistant and quickly settled into the Finance Team. Dealing with suppliers, contractors, staff, invoices and associated queries Linda has overseen circa £60m of expenditure in her four years, all of which needed recording and logging with a keen eye for the detail as an essential skill. She has indeed been a huge asset to the Finance Team. For Linda an energetic retirement awaits with her love for hiking and costal trail walks taking the fore in all the weather conditions that the British climate offers. We wish her all the best in her retirement.

Jo Trench

This Summer, we said a very fond farewell to Jo Trench who leaves us after six years to take up a teaching post at Bedales. Jo joined Churcher’s in 2015 and she has been an integral part of the Mathematics Faculty ever since. She is one the most organised colleagues I have ever worked with, meticulous in her planning but also a real team player. A popular teacher, Jo’s kind, caring and engaging approach will be missed by our pupils. She has inspired many pupils to love Maths and helped them towards excellent exam results. She also liked to get involved in the full life of the school and was in charge of the equestrian club, organising events for the School’s keen horse riders, as well as helping students towards their Bronze DofE Award. Jo’s great sense of humour will be missed by the whole Department as when she was around the office was always full of fun and laughter. We wish her the very best.

The Churcherian 2021

Rob West

Rob West joined us from teaching abroad in 2013 with a huge wealth of experience and new ideas. He made an immediate impact in the Physics Department with his innovation and refreshing approach, quickly gaining the respect of the pupils in his class and his teaching peers. Rob has been keen to promote different approaches to traditional teaching methods and the changes he has helped implement during his time with us will become part of his legacy at Churcher’s College. A true professional in the classroom and as a reliable and dedicated team member, he had at the centre of all his work the pupils’ very best interests. Rob took on the responsibility some years ago for the British Physics Olympiad for GCSE and A Level Physics students, and each year he has inspired many pupils to great success in these competitions. Rob was due to retire last year, but due to his popularity and that of Physics, he was persuaded to stay on part-time for one last blast round so our sincere thanks go to Rob, with our very best wishes for his future.

The Churcherian 2021

ChurchersCollege.com

The Churcherian 2021

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