Downe House School Magazine 2020-2021 by Downe House School

Our Year

2020-2021

House Life

Our year

Academic Life

Creative

Music

Drama & Dance

Sport

Founder’s Weekend

Day of Discovery

108

Beyond the Curriculum

114

School Officers

133

Head and Deputy Head Seniors

Introduction

Lucy Barrie

Teal Uahwatanasakul

Teal is an absolute legend! We first met in Upper Fourth and from the outset, her kindness, humility and sense of humour are what stood out to me the most. Since our Upper Fourth days of chuckling in class together, we have become very close friends and I cannot think of anyone I would rather work alongside. Teal is very ambitious and will most definitely try anything. From her incredible art, or belting out Adele on the piano, to scoring a winning goal in lacrosse, to say she is multi-talented would be an understatement. I cannot think of anyone who does not marvel at how much she does. Teal is not only very hard-working and talented (at almost everything), but she is also, above all, compassionate and always puts others before herself. She is a supportive friend to everyone and greatly valued by all. Teal’s wit, charm and enthusiasm are also very much appreciated when writing and brainstorming for speeches, songs, or even raps, for assembly. I know we will continue to support and rely on each other.

Looking back on our first-time meeting in Upper Fourth cookery, I would say that our Victoria sponge cake (save what it might suggest of our combined cooking skills) stands testament to how amazing it is to work alongside Lucy. Since our food technology years, we have grown to be inseparable friends, sharing many similar interests and eventually a dorm in the Lower Sixth. Throughout this time, I have seen first-hand Lucy’s incredible talent for excelling in basically everything she tries, but also her characteristic positivity and enthusiasm which has always inspired those around her. Whether Lucy is charging down the lacrosse pitch, rapping to AJ Tracey in ‘Search for a Star’ or indeed cooking up her renowned dishes in the Willis kitchen, it is impossible not to be impressed by her tremendous confidence, honesty and infectious smile. There is no doubt that she will make an incredible Head Girl, and I could not be happier to support my best friend throughout the coming year.

Teal in three words: honest, kind, supportive

Lucy in three words: charismatic, talented, genuine  Downe House Magazine

Letter from the Headmistress It is impossible to reflect on the last academic year without being overwhelmed by how much was achieved against incredible odds. This is not an accident but reflects the exceptional teamwork and mutual support that was evident amongst and across the staff body, teaching, pastoral and operational, as well as amongst the girls, parents and alumnae too. The community did flourish; I will not pretend that it was always easy with periods of isolation necessary, lockdowns, bubbling, online learning, continuous uncertainty, illness and tragically loss of life too. The fact therefore that the Upper Sixth and Upper Fifth achieved exceptional examination results, not because they were Teacher Assessed Grades, but because they worked extremely hard and consistently throughout the year, alongside making an enormous contribution to other areas of School life, should give us cause for great celebration. This was mirrored in other year groups too where a general zest for life was never far away and, whatever the challenge, the community rose to it, demonstrating exceptional innovation and commitment. I hope you will enjoy this very special record of all the events that took place over this last year; it was not a case of keeping things going, although that happened too, it was a case of pushing the boundaries and using our technology to ensure that whenever we had to be apart, we were connected and developing. Virtual choirs, concerts, drama performances, dance rehearsals, sports routines, charity evenings and talks all became routine. The Downe House Radio Station was born and broadcasting live from the Murray Centre Auditorium became second nature. It was amazing but, for my part, there was never a happier day than 8th March 2021 when schools in England re-opened and we were able to come back together again physically, and gradually begin to enjoy matches, receiving visitors and finally celebrating Sports Day, Founder’s Weekend and Leavers’ Day with our parents present. Our guest speaker, Her Excellency Dr Uzo Emenike, reminded the Leavers and us all of two important messages that perhaps sum up what we have learned from the pandemic in particular:

‘If you remain focused and refuse to give up, before you know it that which you think is impossible becomes possible, once you give it a push’ and ‘tough times do no last but tough people do.’ What very fitting and special messages to end an exceptional year.   Mrs Emma McKendrick, Headmistress 2

Our Year 2020-21

House Life

‘Remove was all about getting to know what it’s like at a boarding school, and I came to really love it.’

HOUSE LIFE

Lower School:

Darwin, Hermitage & Hill What a year we had! As new pupils coming into school during a pandemic, we faced many unusual obstacles, however this did not get in the way of forming new friendships. Even though the first night was tough and we were all quite nervous, Mrs Collingwood, Miss Hennequin and Miss Davies, were very supportive and made us feel at home. One of our first memories of when we arrived was Mrs Hamisi teaching us the chaotic game of spoons, which we still play today. By the end of the first week, we were all feeling like true Hermites. Our Lower Fourth social reps always made sure we were kept busy when we returned to the House after exeats or holidays. We often played sardines or House Cluedo, which we really enjoyed. There is never an opportunity to feel lonely in Hermitage as throughout the week we have a range of activities we can join in, for example baking with Mrs Hamisi, or Tuesday night crafts with Mrs Essex and Wednesday movie and tuck nights. Although we were unable to leave the site for trips most of this year, the Co–Curricular department did not let us down. We had an amazing array of activities brought on site, these included open air cinema nights with delicious food from around the world, a fun fair with a full-sized Ferris wheel and an inflatables day on the Sports Field.

It did not take us long to get involved in the wider School community by joining extra activities such as Dance Academy, debating and an array of sports teams, all of which welcome a range of abilities. We really enjoyed inter-house sport competitions, which present a chance to meet girls from other years and engage in some friendly competition! One of our favourite things is when it is someone’s birthday, we wake them up early with Wacky B’s (small gifts) whilst singing a very out of tune ‘Happy Birthday’. In the Summer term, we enjoyed Happy Day which involved the whole school dressing up and participating in a range of activities; this year the Remove were given the theme of the 60s, which was certainly a blast from the past! Throughout the past year we have all made friends that will last us a lifetime. We feel like a big family and support each other like one too. Although some days were long, each one presents an opportunity to try something new, whether that be making the most of Downe’s facilities or eating some delicious food in the dining room. Downe House provides an endless number of possibilities, and Hermitage gave us the perfect start to our journey. We cannot wait to share our experiences with the new Remove girls and make their first year as welcoming as ours was. As much as we are looking forward to moving into our Upper School houses we will always carry a piece of Hermitage in our hearts. Phillipa Drysdale (Head of Remove Summer term 2021)

Our Year 2020-21

HOUSE LIFE

Lower School

Being in Remove had its highlights, the fact that I got to spend my Remove in Hill made it even better. At the beginning of Remove, I used to get very homesick, but I had all my friends supporting me. So, by the end of Michaelmas term, Hill was the place I felt at home. All the Housestaff looked after us so well and we were around all our friends keeping busy and doing loads of fun activities, from treasure hunts all the way to huge movie nights outside the Murray Centre. However, suddenly all of that stopped as we had to go straight home before Christmas due to Covid. After that, things started to get harder again as we went into lockdown and online learning, and we could not see our friends anymore. So, when the time came to spend the last two weeks of Lent term back at School, we spent our time having fun, working hard and being positive. When Lent term ended, I did not want to leave – I was really enjoying myself. Then the Summer term came, everything to do with Covid and challenges that were thrown at us were not so hard anymore. We went skateboarding in the sun and had lots of fun; Summer term was definitely my favourite. The time went past so fast and suddenly we were nearly at the end of the term, and we would soon be lower fourths! That was a fun and kind of scary thought, but we still had to get past summer exams, which were okay, as all our teachers had helped us so much to prepare. My highlight of the Remove was simply just being around friends and teachers who were always so nice, it made me feel part of something really special. My second favourite thing was our residential trip, going to Calshot where we learnt lots of new skills and had loads of fun. Remove was all about getting to know what it was like to be at a boarding school, and I came to really love it. Eloise Harrison, (Hill House)

Downe House Magazine

Upper

When we all started at Downe House we were really quite nervous. The School seemed huge and the start to the Michaelmas term seemed a bit daunting. However, when we stepped into Darwin, we all felt excited and ready to start the first term. Meeting our dorm mates was the next step, we were a bit shy, and it was a bit awkward, but after a short while of getting to know one another, we all started to get along well. I remember, on only our second night, we couldn’t stop laughing when it was lights out.

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The House team went above and beyond in the first few weeks and continue to do so now. With hot chocolate at check in, fun evening activities, and an infectious cheery voice first thing in the morning, we felt comfortable and settled in extremely quickly. By the end of the first week, there was constant laughter and giggles, no one was ever on their own.

A d A st r a

HOUSE LIFE

Lower School continued…

Our first weekend in Darwin was so much fun. We all woke early and started running into each other’s dorms. We played Uno and Twister which made us all laugh. Then we had House breakfast which was amazing, and chilled in our pyjamas. Tuck time was another favourite. On a Wednesday evening we would visit the tuck shop and pick out a bag of sweets to eat on the way back to House. Then we would snuggle up on the bean bags and watch a movie.

Our Year 2020-21

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Eimear Planner and Sophia Bones (Darwin Remove)

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To end the term, all the Remove girls went to Calshot Activity Centre. It was the most amazing experience ever. We all had such fun and got to take part in a huge variety of activities and some new challenges from sailing, kayaking and canoeing to a slingshot ride, the aero track, rock climbing and more. What an incredible and an amazing trip to round up the fantastic (if slightly crazy) year.

In the Summer term we all headed back into School and back into Darwin. We had some of the best times! We had lots of fun in the evenings with baking sessions, spa nights, arts and crafts. While Covid meant many off-site trips weren’t possible, the team still put on a variety of in-House activities. Capture the Flag and Laser Tag were firm favourites as well as pottery decorating, tie dye and more. And sometimes, we just had a quiet, albeit full of laughter, weekend in House.

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In the Lent term, we had to move to online learning. We were all disappointed but made the most of it. We all stayed in regular contact with Darwin Teams calls and regular House meetings, and we would play games with each other online. We loved the House bingo and House charades. One evening we even had ‘Darwin’s Got Talent’ with a compilation of videos, showcasing everyone’s talent and we all watched them together. I remember submitting a card trick that I did with my sister. We also had an online social with the boys from Elstree, it was in the form of a mini ‘Bake Off’, and everyone had such fun. Being online was challenging but we certainly embraced it!

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Over the course of the term, we went out to visit many different places on the weekend trips, such as Avon Tyrell Activity Centre where we took part in lots of team building activities, archery, wall climbing and tree climbing to mention just a few. We also went to Paulton’s Park which was everyone’s favourite as we enjoyed being flung through the air on the rollercoasters!

U buntu

Last year presented many hurdles for everyone in the Downe House community and across the globe. However, the members of Upper School adapted swiftly to new routines and a change to the way house life presented itself. As with everything, the girls took it all in their stride to make such a unique year a successful one. Weekly House meetings, virtual breaks and regular one-to-one online check ins meant that the House spirit lived on. We held daily evening activities such as Quiz of the Week, mindfulness club and of course Zoom baking! Miss Rosalie McCann, Holcombe Housemistress After leaving School early in December 2020, we were all still unsure and nervous about whether we would be returning in January. A few days before the beginning of term, we heard the news that we would all be staying home. We all went back to our online learning and online House activities, disappointed to not be back at School. Mrs Mears-Smith and Mrs Monkhouse knew how we were all feeling, and we checked in every week with them about the activities we would like to do at home, and how we were feeling. All through MS Teams, we had an online baking club and quizzes with our year group. Sometimes, a baking activity would be oneto-one with the Housestaff, which was a great time to relax and speak to someone! We baked cookies, bread and butter pudding and lots more. Our House families joined a story writing competition, where each member wrote a line. It was so much fun collaborating and seeing where the story ended up. We also had mentoring by the Seniors which was great, they gave us different

HOUSE LIFE

School:

AGN, AGS, Aisholt, Holcombe & Tedworth opinions on subjects and exams. As well as this, we had a House meeting every Monday which meant we could check-in and see what was going on which made us come together when we felt the furthest away. Isabella Hudson (AGN) When we came back from the March lockdown, all the houses changed to horizontal boarding, and we went to AGN to be in the Upper Fourth house. Although we were only in AGN for a term and a half, it was a tremendous experience. This year, life has been far from normal but the activities that our Housestaff put on for us were amazing. We have done things like s‘mores and campfire nights outside on the AGN lawn, and Bubble Tea making in the common room, which is often a House favourite. We even had an Earth Day celebration! We rated different vegan food options, watched nature documentaries and thought about what planet-saving things we can do in House. As well as those funfilled activities, to wind down in the evenings there was a mindfulness club lead by Mrs Mears-Smith, where we listen to recordings from the Netflix series ‘Headspace’ in ‘the mindfulness room’, which is filled with crystals and salt lamps to add to the meditative atmosphere. Freya Hanbury (Tedworth) Although the Housestaff usually plan activities for us, we were able to propose our own ideas, like the cookie baking club Iris and I ran with Miss Joice and Miss Bowyer, where we made delicious chocolate chip cookies which were very popular throughout the House. One evening, we even watched Eurovision together. One of the main highlights of the Summer term was Happy Day, where our theme was the 70s, everyone looked amazing! The day was filled with activities like a photo booth, a TikTok dance challenge and there was even an ice cream

van! Although during the weekends we were not allowed out of School because of Covid, we still managed to have a blast thanks to the Housestaff and CCA activities. From inflatables to movie nights and laser tag in the woods, we do not feel as though we missed out! Alice Gillham (Tedworth) During lockdown, life got pretty lonely and I found it was easy to get overwhelmed and tired from working long days, sat in my room without any activity, apart from the few steps it took to get to my desk. However, Holcombe Housestaff made sure we got up every morning with smiles on our faces, they encouraged us to enjoy this time at home with our families, and even held many activities to help dispel our boredom and somewhat loneliness, and for that I am truly thankful. I remember when I was still new to the House, Miss McCann and a couple of others in my year did online baking; we made cookies and talked about how our day had gone, this felt like a breath of fresh air, it felt like normality again. Over lockdown, Holcombe Housestaff held one-toones with us, just to check in to see how we were coping with being home again after a term at School. The Housestaff might not know this, but it truly helped us settle in and comforted many of my peers that this close-knit community we had been a part of during Michaelmas term had not faded during another lockdown. I can say truthfully that Holcombe House handled lockdown amazingly well and made me feel very welcomed during life offline and online.

convinced were correct. We also had opportunities to go on trips and outings, such as trampolining and cinema trips. I think that Holcombe House takes every opportunity it can to make life at School as interesting and fun as possible, I am truly thankful to them for every second has brought endless laughter and joy. Katrina Stubbs (Holcombe) Even though we faced lockdowns and virtual meetings, Holcombe had a great year adapting to the situation with new activities and ways to keep the House spirit alive. The Upper Fifth girls thoroughly enjoyed the virtual cocktail evenings with the prefects, allowing us to continue to stay in touch and make lockdown a bit more bearable. Sadly, some of the most anticipated house events, such as House Drama and Dance, were not able to go ahead in the normal way. They were both amazingly adapted to the virtual world and the girls created some incredible performances, and this resulted in Holcombe girls winning lots of awards! We have thoroughly enjoyed welcoming Miss Pickford into the House and getting to know her as our new Assistant Housemistress and Miss McCann has done a great job stepping into the shoes of Housemistress. Lauren Raeburn-Ward (Holcombe)

Now that we are offline, Holcombe has gone back to a somewhat normal life, we have been able to do activities such as House supper, where everyone dressed as something British, my group went as British car brands, and we took part in a hilarious quiz were our stomachs hurt afterwards from laughing at our incorrect answers - that we were Downe House Magazine

HOUSE LIFE

Sixth Form:

Willis & York

A collective group of strong independent girls and staff who refused to let the pandemic ruin our fun! It is safe to say that we did not have the smoothest running year in terms of physically staying in Willis, however, we never succumbed to the lows of our situation and all persevered through! Looking back at our ‘interesting’ and ‘creative’ year, we achieved so much! In the Michaelmas term of 2020, many of us embarked on the challenge of managing our Upper School house events, like House Drama. This was not easy, given the restrictions placed on us for social distancing and mask wearing, but we did end up performing online in the end and ‘Virtual House Drama 2020’ will certainly be one to remember. To boost morale during the second lockdown in February, we hosted our first charity event to raise money for our House charity, The David Nott Foundation. Despite the Willis community being spread across the globe, we all came together virtually to enjoy a chocolate tasting evening. The event was a marvellous success with parents, students and staff enjoying six different types of chocolate. Towards the end of the Summer Term, we were fortunate to be able to complete our 10-mile walk, also in aid of the David Nott Foundation. Eleanor Gibbs who proposed the charity for Willis was delighted with the amount of money raised. The Co-Curricular department excelled themselves over the year and put on endless events to entertain not only the Sixth Form but also the whole School. From our year’s perspective, the outdoor cinema was fantastic as we had the pleasure of watching Mamma Mia! on the big screen during the short but sweet Lent term. Many of us agreed that the highlight of the Summer term was the School’s first Funfair. There were lots of rides set up across the campus and the endless amounts of candyfloss and slushies were both major hits. At the end of the Easter holidays, many of the girls were lucky enough to be awarded Senior positions. I would like to take this chance to congratulate Teal and Lucy on their new roles as Head and Deputy Head Senior. They will be leading the whole School and we are all so excited to see them take on these roles with the help of their Senior team. In the summer, the Upper Sixth experienced our last ever Founder’s Weekend – who would have thought this day would have ever come? The weekend was slightly different to what we would normally experience, however, this did not take away the fun we had! On the Saturday, we put on our House vests and represented our houses in Sports Day – of which Holcombe were victorious (although AGN did win the Senior category). It was wonderful to share the day with our parents and we all had the opportunity to watch some incredible displays of Downe House talent, from the Dance Showcase, starring our very own Gwyneth Choi as Mulan, to the Music Alive! concert. Many of us enjoyed watching the Musical Theatre movie, Let’s Go To The Movies’ featuring many Willis and York girls. Founder’s Weekend was also one of the first opportunities for us as a year group to embody our new Senior positions and we were all very happy to be wearing our green robes for the first time. We must also thank our parents for coming as it truly would not have been an event without you! Although we make our Housestaff’s lives much harder, we could not have survived this year without them all, and on behalf of our year, we would like to thank them all for making Sixth Form such a welcoming and supportive environment – we cannot wait to see what next year has instore! Susannah Field, Head of Willis 8

Our Year 2020-21

HOUSE LIFE Downe House Magazine

HOUSE LIFE

House Drama & Dance In March 2021, we held the House Drama and Dance Virtual Competition judged by Miss Jodie Steele, a West End actress appearing in hits such as Heathers and Six.       As House Drama and Dance 2020 was cancelled, it was decided the competition would move online combining the two events into a competition showcase. Girls from Remove to Upper Sixth had the chance to submit an entry for the following categories: Dance, Contemporary Monologue, Historical Monologue and Musical Theatre.      Throughout Lent term, the Drama and Dance department held consecutive judging rounds of girl’s submissions and those who got through to the next round were mentored by a Lower Sixth member from their Upper School house. They were then given the chance to re-record their submission and implement improvements for the next round, giving them the chance to refine their skills.    The final competition round began with a Q&A with adjudicator Miss Steele, where we learned about her career as a West End actor. This was an insightful start to a wonderful evening. The girls provided an evening of incredible performances which really showcased the amazing talent of our young entertainers. The girls really made great progress with the help of the Lower Sixth and we are very thankful to Miss Steele for giving up her time. Thank you to Mr Boswell and his team for a smooth flowing night.   Clementine McNair Scott & Elizabeth Lukama (UVI)

Our Year 2020-21

HOUSE LIFE

House Science On an evening in May 2021, Dr Pilkington and I hosted our annual inter-House Science Competition in the Murray Centre Auditorium. As well as being the third year following its inception in 2019, this was also the first time we streamed the competition, allowing parents to watch the competition live. Many thanks to the AV team for making this possible.   For those unfamiliar with House Science, it is an annual quiz that brings together girls from all three sections of the School to compete against each other whilst representing their respective Upper School house (Aisholt, AGS, AGN, Holcombe or Tedworth).   Due to the restrictions involving year group mixing, the competition was organised into five rounds of questions. Each round involved a different year group with questions covering all three areas of Science: Biology, Chemistry and Physics. The competition began with the Remove and culminated with the Lower Sixth in the final round.   The girls each gave their all to their round, resulting in a fiercely contested competition with some impressive individual displays of knowledge. Given their contribution to the overall House score, the following girls deserve special mention: Sasha Cork (Holcombe, Remove); Cherie Lau (AGS, Lower Fourth); Georgia Ainscough (Aisholt, Lower Fourth); Maya Gazzard (AGS, Upper Fourth); Charlotte Mackinnon (Aisholt, Lower Fifth), Madhulika Kaushik (AGS, Lower Sixth) and Annie Yang (AGS, Lower Sixth).   Of course, there could be only one winner and that honour went to AGS with an incredible score of 300 points – comfortably holding off the challenge of Aisholt, securing second place with a very respectable score of 200 points. Third place was an incredibly close affair; in the end, nothing could separate Tedworth and Holcombe, who both shared third place with a score of 170 points each. Fifth placed went to AGN with a score of 140 points.     My sincere thanks to all the girls who participated and to each Science department for helping with the creation of the questions for each round. A special thank you also to Dr Rachel Pilkington for helping with the planning and coordination of the event, and to Mrs Maspero and Mr Rivers for helping with the scoring on the night. Mrs Christina Pugsley, Head of Science

Downe House Magazine

HOUSE LIFE

House Art

Downe House is proud to have achieved the Eco-Schools Green Flag Award, which recognises the commitment of schools to empower children and teens to improve the environment. As part of our continuing community commitment, and in support of Earth Day, the theme for this year’s House Art competition was ‘Protecting and Celebrating the Earth.’ Every house provided their own explanation of how their piece was conceived and created, working as a team to provide stunning and thought-provoking creations. Congratulations to AGN, our House Art winners!

Holcombe: ‘Eight million metric tons: That’s how much plastic we dump into the oceans each year.’ The piece is based on the environmental issues concerning the ocean, and our aim was to highlight the importance of marine life through incorporating recycled plastic into the painting. The bright colours and abstract technique used for the turtle symbolise how, even though pollution levels in the ocean are concerningly high, life and growth still prevail.

Aisholt created what we believe to be an incredible image of a heart intertwined with nature. The heart and healthy nature represent what we as humans should strive for and what used to be, whilst the dark sea and sky pollution (presented as smoke) show the ominous future. We hope this piece acts as a warning of the dangers to our planet and pushes one to attempt to make a change. We hope the piece results in a personal connection with everyone who sees it and the image of the heart particularly highlights the earth, but on a very personal level as it is our hearts that keep us alive. We used acrylic paint in several different ways to create each aspect of our piece, respectively.

Tedworth: We used a selection of colours to show the dream of saving the environment is far off in the distance, and there are many factors that show all the problems that the environment faces. We wanted to show all the animals that are at risk of becoming extinct and painted the tiger blue to represent the lives that are fading away (also representing Tedworth). Plastic pollution is a huge issue, and we tried our best to show this.

Our Year 2020-21

HOUSE LIFE AGN wanted to take a creative and metaphorical perspective rather than a direct approach. In the decision-making process, we wanted to find a way to showcase all six of our artistic strengths, which are very different. However, we needed to find a way to create a balanced space where we could all feel involved. In this we came up with our idea to create a piece depicting Mother Nature cradling the earth as though to save it from the destruction which is waste. From the start we knew we wanted to use mixed media to add dimension and interest to the piece. Still keeping on the theme of celebration, we created an area dedicated to the beauty of nature, including different animal species and plants. Each one of us was able to contribute our individual skills, whether it be portrait work or painting flowers, we all found a way to work equally towards the piece. We chose Mother Nature as our focal point as she is known as a character who both celebrates and protects the earth, she is also believed to be very beautiful, which ties into the idea of a beautiful Earth. Using acrylic paint, we produced an image of the beauty of Mother Nature and the Earth disintegrating into waste, to represent the idea of a once magnificent world slowly slipping into an area of destruction. In the upper section we used various vibrant colours, in particular various shades of green to represent the diversity within the natural world. As our focus animal we chose a dove to represent peace, and a rose as our main flower due to its connotations to joy and love. The flowers were created by cutting recycled paper, to represent the possibility that beauty can come from recycling. To be able to accumulate the waste we asked our House to assist us in collecting recyclable pieces over a period of time to make sure the whole House played at least a small role in this project.   Overall, we are quite proud of this piece; we believe it relates to the theme of ‘protecting and celebrating the earth’ in a way we are personally happy with and we are all proud of the way that we managed to work together as a team to produce such a fantastic piece.

AGS: Imagine, if you will, wildlife clinging on, latching to its last post; dutifully fending for our planet as it carries the weight of the world, fighting to keep it afloat; whilst the world as we know it, slowly yet consistently, crumbles to shambles as we dive deeper into our pool polluted with inhumane indulgence amongst political and social greed except, one doesn’t have to imagine in this day and age.   The essence AGS has tried to capture is the juxtaposition between the utopian and dystopian, bringing them right next to each other to highlight how easily one could slip into each other’s realm if we are not careful, bringing to light the ostensible collapse of the environment if our race does not take action. The left side showcases a mix of different media, from the partly spray-painted background to the tarnished wires of ruins compiled with cardboard. This represents disorder and waste in such undesirable circumstances. This is further reinforced by the swirl of fury the hellish flaming background brings; hinting at a destroyed environment’s power to hurtle everything into an unimaginable swirl. This is depicted with disjunct brush strokes, aggressively impaling the canvas to symbolise unpredictable weather in such dystopian circumstances and reducing what could be a healthy bush of vitality to ashes.   The right side is held up with a bird, which Michelle, an online learner drew, demonstrating wildlife’s instrumental role in holding up the environment, hence allowing life to thrive, grass to grow, and the river to ebb and flow. The contrast is not only suggested through how life is able to thrive, but also through the same swirl, except this time; composed in a conjunct manner, following smooth strokes denoting peace, harmony and restoration of just how sacrosanct the environment should be, and the importance of keeping it as such.   Fundamentally, both dystopian and utopian occurrences are stemmed from the same roots and trunk, symbolising that we are at a crossroads, which would breed both equally likely outcomes, one with sinister consequences and repercussions that one could only dare to dream. This piece hopes to give great pleasure to the viewer but also portray how instrumental the environment is to the lives of everyone who graces this Earth.

Downe House Magazine

Academic Life

‘We enjoyed so many activities this year, whether it was online or in class; the enthusiasm of our staff and students never waned.’

ACADEMIC LIFE

English I am delighted to have enjoyed so many activities this year, whether it was online or in class; the enthusiasm of our staff and students never waned. Furthermore, I would like to take this opportunity to say farewell to Mrs Masters who has returned to teach overseas, and thank her for the wonderful contribution she made to our department. We would also like to welcome Miss Gates, who joins us this year to cover Mrs Boswell’s forthcoming maternity leave. We wish both all the very best and look forward to the year ahead! Mrs Joanne West, Head of English

NATIONAL POETRY DAY COMPETITION

What I have lost

We celebrated some wonderful creative work throughout the academic year. In October 2021, we launched our National Poetry Day Competition; the theme was ‘Vision’ and pupils from the Lower School were invited to contribute a poem. Overall, the winners from Remove were Sophia Bones, Phillippa Drysdale and Isabella Gharagozlou, from Lower Fourth: Georgia Ainscough, Esmee Haefner and Sophie Lambourne, from Upper Fourth: Yuchen (Rebecca) Gao, Iona Neville and Sophia Smeaton. In addition, Mary Hazlitt was published in the Young Writers ‘Hunted’ short story competition, and we had eleven of the Remove published in the ‘Unsolved’ short story competition. All our winners enjoyed a chocolate prize! We are proud to share Phillippa Drysdale’s poem, ‘What I have lost’.

WORLD BOOK DAY World Book Day was enjoyed and celebrated, online. Teachers and pupils were encouraged to dress up and take part in competitions - Mrs West, once again, donned her bonnet and Miss McLachlan made tea for the Mad Hatter! Pupils were asked to guess their teachers’ bookshelves for a ‘shelfie’ competition and quizzes ran throughout the day. Despite being at home, pupils and staff entered into the spirit of the day by discussing and sharing their favourite books. More recently, pupils in the Upper Fourth wrote and performed their own slam poems based on a contemporary issue. All classes chose a winner and the finalists were each recorded. After much deliberation, the winner was chosen to be Isabelle Fernie. Well done Isabelle! Downe House Magazine

ACADEMIC LIFE

Mathematics As with so many other things, Covid impacted the Maths department. Fortunately, we had already been using OneNote with our classes, so the move to teaching lessons remotely via MS Teams was relatively seamless. However, we were all pleased to be back in the classroom. Although the annual Lower Sixth Maths Inspiration trip in the Michaelmas term did not go ahead and we were unable to put on our annual Puzzle Day for Remove girls, we subscribed to ‘The Maths Inspiration USA Show’ which was live online in the early evening for the girls to join. Mr Robert Barnes, Head of Mathematics

Girls entered various UK Maths Challenges (Senior, Intermediate and Junior) and many performed well and were invited to take part in follow-up rounds. The problems on the various Maths Challenges are designed to encourage mathematical reasoning, precision of thought, and fluency in using mathematical techniques to solve interesting problem. Would you like to try to solve the problem?

SENIOR MATHS CHALLENGE

ANSWERS

Our Year 2020-21

ACADEMIC LIFE

Geography As part of the A Level Geography specification, students are expected to work independently on their own N.E.A. investigation. The idea for this piece of work is that the students choose an issue of interest to investigate, research, plan and collect data for, over the summer vacation. Miss Kathryn Rawlinson, Head of Geography

The Geography department were determined to give the Lower Sixth Geographers a chance to test out potential methodologies and data collection techniques in the field. An opportunity that the previous year group had been denied. Unfortunately, the trip to a Field Studies Centre in Devon had to be cancelled due to Covid restrictions but, thankfully, we came up with an alternative plan! Working together with the company Geofieldwork Ltd and the Field Studies Council (FSC), we pulled together a bespoke fieldwork experience for the girls in May 2021. We were very impressed with the resilience of our Lower Sixth Geographers, who endured very early starts to take part in three separate day trips. On Monday 10 May, we travelled to the Dorset coast. The girls visited three sites around Highcliffe on Sea where they gained experience in coastal data collection skills. In addition to fieldwork methodologies, Barry Cullimore gave the girls advice on sampling strategies, statistical techniques and secondary data sources along with important risk assessment advice. As a result of this day many of the girls were inspired to plan their own coastal investigations which happened over the summer holidays in various UK locations. On Tuesday 11 May and Wednesday 12 May, we travelled to the FSC Centre in Amersham, where each morning the girls were introduced to the day plan. From here, the girls travelled out to look at two very different human geography fieldwork locations. We spent one day investigating the concept of ‘place’ in a village called Great Missenden and another day investigating the success of urban redevelopment in High Wycombe. On Thursday 13 May, the girls spent the day putting together plans for their own research project. It was particularly important that they plan their data collection methodology meticulously. The girls choose to study anything they liked, as long as it was linked to the curriculum, so it was really interesting to see what they decided!

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Science It was another busy and eventful year in Science! At the start of the Michaelmas term, we were all incredibly pleased to be back on site and teaching the majority of girls in person. For girls who were not back, the IT skills we all honed during the first lockdown were put to good use to enable all of them to access our lessons. Despite the Covid-related challenges, our fantastic team of Technicians ensured we were able to carry out a wide range of practical activities, and even during the Lent term lockdown their support meant we were able to demonstrate practical techniques live via remote teaching. Mrs Christina Pugsley, Head of Science

In October, for the first time in many years, the Upper Sixth Biologists braved the atrocious weather to learn about, and perfect, their Ecological Sampling techniques. Despite the lashing rain and high winds(!) they completed two core practical tests, using quadrats to estimate the abundance of plant species around the Science block and Willis House. They carried out a line transect to look at the effect of light intensity or soil depth on the distribution of plantain. They also took a woodland walk to observe succession and dug some pitfall traps to sample the invertebrates around the AGS tennis courts. The Upper Sixth worked extremely hard all weekend and with good humour, their Biology teachers were most impressed with their resilience and enthusiasm. They even managed to have fun learning about the statistical tests used in Biology (though maybe the supply of smarties helped)! At the end of the Lent term, the Day of Discovery was a wonderful opportunity for girls to explore areas away from the curriculum. For the Biology department The Day of Discovery brought the return of the ever popular ‘Rat Attack!’ – the opportunity to dissect a preserved rat. The rats needed to be pinned out and carefully cut open to allow the dissection to begin. The girls who signed up carried out their dissections extremely well and were able to get a good look at rat anatomy – including dissecting the brain! Those taking part in the Chemistry sessions had to discover the identity of unknown chemical compounds using analytical chemistry techniques, and also carried out a series of short experiments including making a silver mirror, an iodine ‘clock’, and turning a copper coin into ‘gold’. The third Annual House Science competition took place in the Summer term, a fun evening for all, which saw AGS crowned the winners! The end of the Summer term saw the end of the era with the retirement of Miss Sue Foote who had been a stalwart member of the Chemistry department for over 35 years; she will be a sadly missed teacher, colleague and friend from the department. This year again saw a number of girls take part in Challenges and Olympiads, and huge congratulations go to the Physicists who achieved two gold awards, including one in the top 4% of all entries, and two silver awards in the Physics Olympiad, and two gold and one silver award in the Intermediate Physics Olympiad. Congratulations also go to our wonderful Upper Sixth scientists who worked so hard to achieve their Teacher Assessed Grades for their A Levels. We wish them all the best for their future studies. We were particularly thrilled that STEM subjects, including Medicine, Biochemistry, Forensic Science and Biomedical Sciences, remain the top choice of this year’s leavers at 26.4%. At the start of the year, we had high hopes that a number of our outreach and extra-curricular Science activities and opportunities could take place. However, Covid restrictions hampered the majority of our plans, but being ever resourceful we managed to carry on with some! We ran a Science poster competition for prep schools, which was well supported, and launched the first edition of Origins, the STEM magazine. Our contributions to Murray Centre Live allowed us to share our passion for Science to the wider School community, and we hope that everyone enjoyed our articles and recommendations of books, podcasts, programmes and more. 18

Our Year 2020-21

ACADEMIC LIFE Downe House Magazine

ACADEMIC LIFE

History & Politics The History and Politics department had another very successful year, despite having our wings clipped by the pandemic – out went trips to Ypres, Russia and the USA, and in their place, we welcomed a number of online guests. If we couldn’t go out into the world, the world would come to us! Mr Will Lane, Head of History and Politics

The highlights included the BBC’s North America correspondent, Jon Sopel, in conversation with Mathilda Singer and Rosie Montague. He reflected on an astonishing few years reporting from the White House, culminating in the storming of the Capitol in January and he considered the implications of Trump’s presidency for the US and the world. We also welcomed historian David Olusoga to speak about the Black Lives Matter movement and the wider legacy of slavery in Britain. The Model United Nations team met regularly and discussed issues of international importance, although sadly they were unable to participate in the conference itself. We also spent the year planning some exciting developments in our curriculum. From 2022, all Remove pupils will complement their study of medieval England with a course on the Mali empire, and the Lower Fourth will compare the Tudors in England with the Qing dynasty in China. When added to our well-established courses on modern Russia at GCSE and China at A Level we are truly helping to make our girls world-ready!

Economics and Business As both subjects are taught using real-life examples, we were able to consider how the pandemic caused severe disruptions in the world of economics and for businesses. We took the opportunity to use it to inform our teaching and consider the way that different countries and government handled the situation from a macroeconomic as well as microeconomic point of view.

Students at the end of the first year of teaching were asked to undertake some research about the impact of the pandemic on different economies from around the world and to discuss the policies that governments introduced to combat these problems. It gave the students an insight into how government can try to stimulate economies in the wake of demand-side and supply-side ‘shocks’ - something that is unprecedented in our time. The idea of ‘scarcity’ in economics hit home when there were queues for such basics as toilet paper, but it also made us all think about the living conditions faced in many parts of the world on an on-going basis and poverty and inequality issues in general. More ethical issues were pondered such as the issue of inoculation and the burning question of the rights of individuals compared to the need to consider all in society. As the world economy slowed and the environmental impact of international trade reduced, we turned our attention to the work of Kate Raworth and ‘Donut Economics’ - being in the sweet spot! Business students were able to use examples of supply chain disruptions to consider how international businesses deal with these external shocks and question whether shorter supply chains were more preferable. The impact on business finance was something else that could be studied with students being able to consider the impact on balance sheets, cash flow forecasts and profit. We were also able to interact with other schools and were privileged to run some joint sessions with Campus Manilla school about the environment. As a joint initiative we introduced the students to the work of Bill Gates, ‘How to avoid a climate disaster’, as well as the work of Kate Raworth and others at Oxford University. Online sessions were held where students were able to discuss the issue of climate change from a world perspective but also to consider how each country, and indeed school, was able to help to combat this issue. As a department, we believe that students need to ‘live economics’ not just ‘learn it’, and the pandemic gave us an opportunity to put this into practice. We were not to be perturbed by the disruptions as a department and neither were the students. All girls from the Upper Sixth made excellent progress earning some of the best A Level results that we have seen, proving their ability to be resilient and show great initiative. Mr Ian Chapman, Head of Economics and Business Studies 20

Our Year 2020-21

ACADEMIC LIFE

Modern Foreign Languages This year has been another exciting one for our Modern Linguists. Covid was no match for our passion for languages and, as ever, an exciting array of evenings, competitions and events made up the rich tapestry that is the Modern Language year. Mrs Jane Basnett, Head of Modern Languages

As has become tradition, the year started with our search for a great team of Language Ambassadors. This year, the team were exceptional and keen to get involved and lead on events. Not least, their desire to provide extra support for girls in other year groups was much appreciated by all and I have no doubt that the Language Ambassadors themselves found the process to be very useful for their own learning. As the year progressed the Language Ambassadors initiated and were involved in many other events. Indeed, their desire to spread the language love was second only to the staff team! Another great language tradition is EDL (European Day of Languages) which gave the School the chance to celebrate all languages from around the world. A Kahoot! quiz was created, set up to be played in houses and for the first time we invited our parent community to take part. The quiz was a great success and certainly got our

audience thinking with questions based on grammar, idioms, architecture, and geography amongst others. The day was made even more special by the delicious meal prepared for us by the catering team; dishes from all around the world tickled our tastebuds. We ran only one Lower Fourth Language Taster Day, but what a special day it was. The day is a very important one in the life of a Downe House linguist because it is on this day that our Lower Fourth start considering what languages might play a part in their futures and how. After the language tasters, the girls enjoyed a talk, given online, by alumna Livia Russell. Livia left Downe House with top grades in French and Italian and had just recently graduated from Cambridge with a starred First for her language degree, where she was also the top scholar in the whole of the language department at Cambridge. Livia left us in no doubt of the importance, beauty and sheer joy of learning a language.

“LANGUAGE LESSONS ARE SUCH A FUN EXPERIENCE, AS WE GET TO LEARN THE BASICS [OF CHINESE, GERMAN, ITALIAN AND SPANISH] AND SOME OF THE LANGUAGES FELT LIKE POLAR OPPOSITES.” Pearl (Ivie) Avwenagha

Downe House Magazine

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CHINESE

GERMAN

To celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival the Lower Fourth girls got an opportunity to attend a Chinese workshop, learning about the festival, making origami and tasting some Chinese food, in particular Moon Cake. The girls really had a good time and enjoyed it.

Our Sixth Form students, Mathilda Singer and Louisa Graves, organised a German quiz night and mask painting for Nikolaus in December and, together with Antonia McClintock, helped the Lower Fourth create some beautiful Easter decorations to the sweet sound of German pop music!

For the Chinese New Year celebration girls and staff took part in a Kahoot! Quiz and girls also got the chance to learn how to make Chinese dumplings. The activities were online and both girls and staff enjoyed them a lot.

Towards the end of the year, we were privileged to watch the award-winning short film Mazel Tov Cocktail and attend a live Q&A session with its writer and co-director, Arkadij Khaet. The film deals with a Russian-German teenager’s experience of anti-Semitism in today’s Germany. Our talk with Arkadij was hugely insightful and entertaining at the same time, just like the film.

FRENCH Every year, the girls in the Remove are invited to attend a Christmas party and the Language Ambassadors once again did a fantastic job by introducing the different ways of celebrating Christmas in countries such as France, Spain, Germany and Italy. The girls had fun singing and taking part in quizzes and enjoyed a few ‘bonbons’ along the way. It was a great way to end a busy first term. In February, two of our Lower Sixth students, Sophie Loftus and Matilda Bridgeman, represented Downe House in the Joutes Oratoires Lycéennes, a prestigious French debating competition. They won all their debates against stiff and intense competition to reach the regional final. Their preparation was truly impressive and resulted in a highly accurate and thought-provoking delivery. ‘Bravo’ to them! In March, several educational activities were on offer to celebrate the Journée Internationale de la Francophonie.

Our Year 2020-21

ACADEMIC LIFE

The Language Ambassadors prepared a School Assembly and created a Kahoot! quiz. Some groups took part in the Grand Quiz de la Francophonie offered by the High Commission of Canada in the UK whilst other sixth formers attended a webinar on the importance of languages for the future of the UK. To celebrate the end of their first year at Downe House, the Remove girls took part in a Fête Française. They undertook a variety of different fun group activities. After being taught the rules of ‘boules’, they competed in a mini tournament. There was a treasure hunt around the School grounds with clues linked to what they had learnt during their French lessons and, finally, in small groups, the girls designed and produced some beautiful posters to celebrate French culture. To close the event, they were treated to some delicious ice creams which they had to order ‘en Francais’. A special ‘merci’ to Madame Astbury for organising the event and to all our fantastic Language Ambassadors, Georgia Biggs, Madeleine Hales and Rosie Montague for their support. Finally, to say ‘au revoir’ to our sixth formers, the girls were invited to attend a cheese and wine tasting which was thoroughly enjoyed by all. Le Brie de Meaux and l’Époisses were the girls’ favourites. Our Language Assistant, Amandine Ferrier, prepared a range of fun games which enabled the girls to test their cultural knowledge. It was quite an emotional event that enabled us to thank the girls for their dedication and levels of resilience throughout the year.

SHORT STORY COMPETITION For the first time our linguists from Lower Fifth upwards were invited to take part in the Independent School’s Modern Language Association Original Writing Competition. The task was to write a response to a given title in no more than 350 words in the target language. We ran an internal competition first from which the MFL teaching team selected entries for the national competition. There were entries in Italian, Spanish, Chinese and French from across the different age ranges. The stories varied in their plots but one outstanding, notable similarity that must be commended was the girls’ original thought and excellent use of language. Shuk (Sophia) Li must be praised for entering two pieces, one in French and one in Spanish, and huge congratulations to Morgan Wallace whose heart-wrenching story impressed the judges and resulted in her winning the Runners-Up prize in the national competition. Well done to all participants.

J’ai mal, j’ai mal partout . Qu’est-ce q où est ma m ui s’est passé ère? où est ? mon père? J’ tout ce sang ai mal, pourq ? La tempêt uoi e, je m Les vagues, e souviens m les grosses aintenant. vagues, les et ma mère gens qui cria qui me serrai ient t si fort dan dû partir très s ses bras. O tôt le matin na , quitter la cô et laisser to te de la Liby ut derrière no e us. C’est vrai bien prévenu on nous avai que ce ne se t rait pas un vo froid, je ne p yage facile. eux pas bou J’ai ger. Quelqu’ couteau. Je un arrive, il ne savais pas a un na g er donc mam donné son g ilet de sauv an m’avait etage, et pou pas nager no rtant elle ne n plus. Je n’ savait ai pas pu re a insisté. On fuser parce était 40 dan q u’ elle s un petit b la liberté. M ateau, destin oi je ne voul at io n ai s pas partir. amis ici mai J’avais tous s papa sava m es it q u’on n’avait a donné tout pas le choix. es nos écon On omies pour Une personn passer... j’ai e arrive, il fa p eu r. ut q ue je me sa pas rester ic uve je ne peu i. De là où je x vi en s merci. Sans les passeurs argent, pas sont sans d’espoir. J’ai pleuraient, j’a vu les femm i vu les enfa es qui nts battus. Il sauve, lève-t faut que je m oi Morgan, lè e ve-toi! Et to Un homme ut à coup je si grand, co le vois. m me une mon noirs qui me tagne, des ye regardent et ux si il met la chos oreille. Il me e brillante à tend la main so n en me disant: « ne t’inquiète Buongiorno, pas. Viens av ec moi, les se cours arriven Sh Shor ortt St Stor t ». oryybby y MSh oruk gan(SW alhi op lace a) Li (Fre (Snc pan h)ish)

LINGUISTICS OLYMPIAD A yearly event for our Lower Sixth linguists is the Linguistics Olympiad where students must solve linguistic data problems. It is a tough test, requiring competitors to decipher language patterns taken from one of the world’s 7,000 languages, and our girls do very well even to complete it. This year two of our participants, Xinyue (Audrey) Xu and Jiayi Zheng, achieved the bronze award, which means they cracked the code and worked out how specific aspects of particular languages worked. Well done to both girls.

Downe House Magazine

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Computer Science There is no escaping the fact that we are living in a digital age and that Computer Science impacts every aspect of our lives. More than ever, we have relied on computer technology to keep us connected. Learning Computer Science in school has never been more important! Alongside our varied scheme of work, students celebrated and participated in some key events. Mrs Siobhan McClure, Head of Computing and ICT

BEBRAS CHALLENGE In November 2020 pupils in Remove and Upper Fourth were entered into the Bebras Challenge; a global computational and logical thinking competition, designed to get students all over the world excited about computing. The following girls received a Gold Award, which puts them into the top 10% of achievers nationally: Remove: Imogen Brass, Amelia Karoly, Abigail Bowden, Gracie Nash, Phillipa Drysdale, Alice Bevan, Isabella Gharagozlou Upper Fourth: Cathy Wang, Alice Barber, Chantelle Eveleigh, Hermione Caithie, Jiayi (Catherine) Wang, Olivia Cole, Alice Gillham These girls also progressed to the 2021 Oxford University Computing Challenge, in February 2021.

CYBERFIRST GIRLS COMPETITION An annual event, hosted by The National Cyber Security Centre providing girls with an opportunity to learn something new about cyber security. This year the School entered for the first time, fielding four teams of Lower Fourth girls. The girls collaborated (remotely) to solve problems from four categories: Logic and Coding, Cyber Security, Networking and Cryptography.

Our Year 2020-21 2019-20

Congratulations to our teams: ‘Mischief Managed’: Sophie Lambourne, Pearl (Ivie) Avwenagha, Alishba Mahmood, Dominica Prentice ‘Daemon Explores’: Ada Kurumlu, Joline Lam, Georgia Ainscough, Cecilia Hon ‘The Avengers’: Anna Stopford, Annabel Jackaman, Alexa Nash, Rosamund Harris ‘MK Double J’: Maria Taraban, Jemima McDougall, Kathy Chan, Tsz Wan (Julia) Chuk

PAUL LONG WORKSHOP

On Tuesday 9 February, we joined schools and youth organisations across the UK in celebrating Safer Internet Day a global campaign to promote the safe and responsible use of technology. In lessons we focussed on the theme of creating an internet we trust, opening up conversations with our pupils about how to safely explore online information. Pupils were encouraged to make a pledge of just one thing they could do to help create and maintain a reliable and trustworthy internet.

On Sunday 16 May we welcomed Paul Long, (author, trainer and former Principal Examiner and Head of Computing) to Downe House. He shared his tips for programming success, helping our Lower Fifth girls to prepare for their GCSE in Computer Science. They all worked really hard!

ACADEMIC LIFE

SAFER INTERNET DAY 2021

MOVING FORWARD

HOUR OF CODE Initially planned as part of National Computer Science week in December 2020, and after several date changes, we were delighted that the annual Hour of Code event for Remove girls was eventually able to take place in ‘bubbles’ on 5 May 2021. The girls were thrilled to be able to work collaboratively. They completed a hands-on activity using BBC micro:bits, programming them to send messages, make games and even play music!

As a department, Mrs Carter and I are looking forward to building on the successes of last year, encouraging our students to experiment and explore all things digital, allowing creativity to flourish. As part of the Wakefield Award and with the help of the department’s new humanoid robot, we are excited to be offering a Code Club for the first time.

Downe House Magazine

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Results Without exception, the girls at Downe House, along with pupils across the country, faced an extraordinary end to the conclusion of their GCSE and A Level studies; in many ways mirroring that of their counterparts in 2020 and yet presenting many new and very different challenges. This outstanding group of girls are to be congratulated for the way in which they adapted to prolonged periods of online and blended learning. They made the most of the resources and support they had around them, wherever they were across the world throughout the disruption caused by Covid. They remained unwaveringly focused on their studies and yet still found the time to support their friends and fellow pupils and enjoy a broad range of enriching pursuits. Their enthusiasm for school life remained undimmed. This incredible adaptability and commitment, along with the support of their teachers and their families, has enabled the girls to achieve a set of public examination results of which they can be rightly proud, and which reflects a history of consistently impressive results for Downe House pupils, year after year. Whilst there are many personal triumphs, we must mark the achievements of those girls whose exceptional dedication has seen them achieve grade 9 in nine or more GCSE subjects: Sophia (11), Cléo (10), Katie (10), Emily (11), Vivi (10), Yoyo (11), Louisa (9), Catherine (9), Yiming (9), Mirabel (10) and Lydia (11). Our pupils worked incredibly hard to achieve their potential across all subject areas, but we are particularly delighted to see continued success in the STEM subjects and notably, we have seen a three-fold increase in the number of girls studying Computer Science of whom 85% achieved grades 9-7. We are also celebrating our exceptional record in the Creative and Performing Arts subjects in which pupils faced particular disruption and where all grades achieved were at grade 9-7.

Our Year 2020-21

All our Sixth Form girls should be incredibly proud of their hard work and effort, and of the support of their teachers and their families. We offer particular congratulations to the 22 girls who leave Downe House having achieved 3 or more A* grades, which is an outstanding achievement. These girls will go on to read Biochemistry (Oxford), French and Italian (Oxford), Materials Science (Oxford), English Language and Literature (Oxford), Philosophy, Politics and Economics (UCL), Economics (LSE and Durham), Medicine (Imperial), Biomedical Science (UCL), Biological Sciences (Durham), Mathematics (UCL), Politics and International Relations (Bath), Design (Loughborough), Physics (Imperial), Geography (Leeds), History of Art (Edinburgh), Law (Bristol and Warwick), Anthropology (Durham) and History of Art (The Courtauld Institute of Art). Along with those girls heading to some of the top universities in the UK, others are set to study at prestigious overseas universities including Yale, UCLA, Boston, Toronto, Glion and HKU. All have a bright future ahead of them. Mrs Emma McKendrick, Headmistress, commented: “This has been an exceptional period of time for GCSE and A Level candidates across the country; they all deserve the greatest credit for the resilience and tenacity that they have shown and I could not be more proud of our candidates whose enthusiasm, commitment and dedication have been second to none. They have embraced opportunities inside and outside the classroom, created many of their own and, as a result, not only achieved excellent grades this summer, but also found time to perform on the stage, in the Music School and on the sports fields to name but a few areas. They are outstanding young women. I know that the Leavers of 2021 will continue to be committed and give their very best, wherever they go in the future. I know too that they will always go the extra mile, stand up for what is right and just, and combine aspiration with humility and compassion for those around them. That they will make a special contribution is not in doubt.”

ACADEMIC LIFE

RESULTS AND DESTINATIONS HIGHLIGHTS HIGHLIGHTS

RESULTS AND DESTINATIONS RESULTS AND DESTINATIONS HIGHLIGHTS A Level/Pre-U A Level/Pre-U

I/GCSE I/GCSE

84% A* - A overall 84% - Amore overall 68%A* 3 or A*-A

(A*) ov 9-8 e A % ( 8 *) ove ral 7%1 9ra l 71

9- 9 9 % 6/A * L9a- 99% 6g/A -B n ua *-gBe La s n

100% A* - A 100% A* - A

age

atiArts ve A rts

9-7 (A*-A) (A*-A)

9 - 10 0 % 7/9A 100 Cr -7*/-A % eaC A*-A triev e

89% 89% 9-7

% 100 -A% * 100 -Arts 9-7/A * A s rt 9-m7i/nAg gA P e r fo r min P e r fo r

Drama Drama Creative Arts Creative Arts Geography Geography Physical Education Physical Education Further Maths Further Maths Music Music

68% 3 or more A*-A

97% *-B 6/A 97-% 9 -B A* sh / 9-6 Engli h lis Eng

WHERE DO OUR GIRLS GO? WHERE DO

OUR GIRLS GO? WHERE DO OUR GIRLS GO?

94% 94%

92% 92%

First-choice universities First-choice universities

22% 22%

32% 32%

Russell Group

Top 4 London universities Top 4 London universities

QS World Top 50 QS World Top 50

Russell Group

5% 5%

Oxford University Oxford University

10% 10%

Overseas universities Overseas universities

UNIVERSITY DESTINATIONS 2021

UK University Destinations 2021

WHAT DO THEY GO ON TO STUDY? WHAT DO THEY GO ON TO STUDY? Top 4 London (KCL, Imperial, UCL & LSE) Durham Exeter

14%

Edinburgh

22%

Oxford

1% 1% 1%

Warwick

26% STEM 26%

14% Politics and 14% International

3% 3%

STEM

Politics and Relations International Relations

14%

Bristol

Leeds 15% 15%

Economics and Bath Management Economics and of Arts Leeds College Management Manchester

14% Creative or 14% Performing Arts

Creative or Performing Arts

Newcastle

University of the Arts

Downe House, Cold Ash, Thatcham, 9% Berkshire RG18 9JJ | UEA T: 01635 200286 | www.downehouse.net 4%

Downe House, Cold Ash, Thatcham, Berkshire RG18 9JJ | T:Birmingham 01635 200286 | www.downehouse.net 5% Conservatoire 5%

Central St Martins Courtauld Institute of Arts Others, including St Andrews, Cardiff, Liverpool, York

A Level and Pre-U Results COMBINED

Downe House Magazine

ACADEMIC LIFE

Higher Education 7 November 2020 – Gap Year Fair Virtually, 17 companies presented a variety of opportunities from study abroad to cookery and language courses, to give everyone a sense of what activities they could do during a gap year to enhance our career paths. The idea of earning money whilst gaining new experiences is one which really stood out to us.

27 November 2020 - LVI Enrichment Lecture with Morgan Stanley

NOV 2020

I was particularly interested in the Young Entrepreneur program which offers a chance to meet with successful entrepreneurs to learn about the business and soft skills required to succeed. I found the prospect of Oxford Summer Courses exciting and think these courses offer a valuable opportunity to try your subject in a university setting without committing to a full year.

Duncan Perry and Katrina Shannon from Morgan Stanley spoke about working in Finance and what it entails. We gained an insight into the day-today life of a woman in Finance, as well as personal experiences with gender equality in the workplace. Morgan Stanley is an international business, so we heard about the exciting travel opportunities and friendly atmosphere. They explained their “Step In, Step Up” programme, encouraging young women to pursue a career in Finance. As part of this introduction, we learnt about the required qualifications and work experience – it was certainly a relief to learn a Maths degree is not necessary!

Lara Harries and Antonia McClintock (LVI)

Charlotte Pearson (LVI) 28 November 2020 - LVI Higher Education Afternoon Our online talk was hosted by Ms Akhtar, Mrs Llewellyn and our guest speaker, Mr Martin Birchall from Highfliers. We learnt about what a higher education entails and the different pathways including, apprenticeships, Oxbridge, overseas and creative applications. Mrs Llewellyn taught us new skills such as, how to create a university short list on UNIFROG. Mr Martin Birchall, founder and Managing Director of Highfliers Research, spoke about the transition from academia to the job market and the top graduate employers such as PwC and the Civil Service. He provided a lot of beneficial research taken from university graduates to help put things into perspective.

13 January 2021 - UIV Career Pathways Event

JAN 2021

It was interesting to learn that some subjects, such as Chemistry, were associated with careers like becoming a detective. Choosing subjects can be tough and the advice given was to choose the subjects we enjoy, which most definitely helped, as neither of us know which career we want to pursue – we are only 14 after all!

Isabella Pemberton and Hannah Perkins (LVI)

Yasmin Aird and Yuchen (Rebecca) Gao (UIV)

20 January 2021 - LVI Oxbridge Programme Launch The Oxbridge Programme began with an introduction by Dr Atherton. He explained the application process and suggested steps we should be taking to improve, including maintaining a research notebook and blocking out time each week for independent further research. Dr Pilkington and Mr Hall, heads of the STEM and Social Sciences faculties, explained how they would guide us through the coming months. Dr Atherton explained the Oxbridge OneNote and how it would assist us in maintaining a strong super-curricular profile. The evening concluded with Oxford offer holders Antonia Holloway and Christina Elliot speaking about their experiences with the programme; it was incredibly helpful to learn about the process from a student’s perspective. Overall, it was a greatly informative and successful evening which left us excited for the journey ahead. Alice Pernthaller (LVI) 28

Our Year 2020-21

Heads of departments presented (online) I/GCSE choices and potential career opportunities. Each presentation included a detailed outline of the course and topics, an indication of the skills and the approach to learning required, a guide to the potential field work and trips involved and gave us an idea about the different career opportunities.

27 February 2021 - LVI Medical Applications Talk

FEB 2021

Dr Atherton and Dr Pilkington gave an informative talk on studying Medicine at university and the application process. Being such a competitive course, it is imperative students considering Medicine understand what is required for a successful application, and this talk provided invaluable information. Aspiring medics were invited to contribute to academic meetings, encouraged to continually expand their scientific knowledge and attend the multitude of lectures and societies that facilitate scientific learning and discussion; the students are offered immense support in pursuing their future endeavours and were reminded it is a passion for science and a true drive to help others that are the most important requirements for a prospective medic. Phoebe Whiting (LVI)

27 April 2021 - Higher Education Forum The evening commenced with an inspiring Keynote Address delivered by Baroness Nicky Morgan, a member of the House of Lords, who previously served as Secretary of State for Education, Digital Culture, Media and Sport. Baroness Morgan shed light upon the significant positive impact universities have on personal academic development, and their importance in the local and global community. She shared invaluable life advice, encouraging all of us to simply do what we enjoy. She highlighted how we, the ‘Post-Covid generation’, are better equipped for life ahead, having learnt early on to be resilient and adaptable. We thank Baroness Morgan for the renewed enthusiasm and encouragement for our future which really set the tone for the evening. Lucy Barrie (LVI)

Allison Bissell, Head of Oxbridge Applications, gave us a personal insight into her experiences. She suggested students find their ‘why’, stressing how important it is to love the subject, whilst also being skilled and having a genuine academic interest. We learnt the different selection processes between Oxford and Cambridge - how Oxford reduce the number of applicants considerably prior to interviews, however, Cambridge interviews most candidates and then reduce numbers. Allison referred to ‘the iceberg method’ in which the personal statement is the tip of the iceberg, allowing the interview experience to reveal the wealth and depth of knowledge underneath. The interview is a mock tutorial/supervision which allows interviewers to pick out candidates who are teachable, have clear motivation, passion for their chosen subjects and most importantly possess the potential to grow over the course.

APR 2021

Professor Shearer West CBE, the Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Nottingham, explained her journey, insights for the future and commitment to Higher Education. Detailing her journey through academia, from a small town in the US, she made clear the power education has to challenge, inspire and transform. Reflecting on the challenges currently facing our generation, Professor West expressed a refreshingly hopeful, yet pragmatic, sentiment. Mentioning entrepreneurial skills, a concern for social justice, and technological adaptability as skills abundant within our generation, she expressed an almost unshakeable optimism for the future, reliant on quality university education. Encapsulating a spirit of resilience, change and drive, the phrase ‘normal never changed the world’ is one I am sure we will all carry with us for quite some time. Louisa Graves (LVI)

The Russell Group talk was delivered by Frankie Wilkinson from Durham University, who discussed the wide range of opportunities that Russell Group universities offer, including their world Class research, flexible courses and expert led teaching. She focused on how to write a personal statement, stressing the importance of them and how you can write an effective one, tailored to the course. Lara Harries (LVI)

Tilly Gibbens (LVI)

Dr Helen Coutts, a Consultant Paediatrician, explained the medicine application process and life as a doctor in the NHS. Dr Coutts has worked on the curriculum development and clinical teaching, within both the British and US medical school systems, allowing her to reflect on both. Dr Coutts advised which medical courses and universities would best suit our individual preferences, comparing traditional and more non-traditional courses. We were given advice on the entrance tests required, as well as useful tips on how to approach interviews and present a captivating personal statement. Through her knowledge of the different medical systems, Dr Coutts also guided us through different examinations across the USA, the UK and Europe work.

David Hawkins from the University Guys focused on the application process to US universities. He discussed the differences between American and British universities, along with schools in other parts of the world such as Europe and Asia. We learnt that the education system in the US is extremely broad and versatile, allowing students to have more time to decide what they want to focus on in college, which is very different to the more straightforward path for UK universities. Due to the recent announcement of many American universities going test-optional, David Hawkins further elaborated on advantages and disadvantages of sitting the SAT, and other requirements needed. Philippa Lim and Emma Woodworth (LVI)

Poppy Wessely (LVI) Downe House Magazine

ACADEMIC LIFE

...a timeline

ACADEMIC LIFE

a Timeline continued... Olivia O’Hare, student recruiter on behalf of University of Arts London (UAL), reflected on the six different colleges that UAL offers and which area of creative arts they specialise in. We also learnt a lot about Foundation Courses, specifically which ones to investigate depending on your course and when they are not needed. She gave us an insight into college life and spoke about the different areas of London where they are located. It seems like a great opportunity, for people with a love of Art and Design to develop their skills.

APR 2021

Isabella Pemberton (LVI)

23 May 2021 - LVI Interview Event We wrote a cover letter and CV tailored to a job, chosen from 15 options, ranging from a primary school teacher to a graduate analyst. After we submitted these, we were invited to take part in an interview. It gave us a chance to practise vital interview skills. I applied for the role of a Graduate Analyst at an investment banking company. It was a beneficial exercise, as it allowed me to see what I needed to know and work on for future interviews. The main feedback I received was the importance of knowing where you are applying and detailed answers about the company and industry. My interviewer also highlighted the benefits of reading and researching things that were unique and less discussed as this would be more interesting. Overall, it was a great experience, with lovely interviewers and I have gained a lot from it. Lauren Raeburn-Ward (LVI)

22 June 2021 - LVI Academic Conference Students from Wellington College joined our annual Academic Conference. Separated into various faculty specific panels, we shared our reading and research from beyond the syllabus. This exchange and subsequent challenging of ideas were academically informative and resulted in some thought-provoking interdisciplinary discussions. Within the Humanities and Arts panel, for example, presentations ranged from American transcendentalism to the gendering of painting methods to Lacanian psychoanalysis, I am sure you can imagine the breadth of discussion that ensued! Across all the faculties, this event was intellectually captivating, and left everyone with further reflections and trains of thought. Louisa Graves (LVI)

Our Year 2020-21

Britney Cleary joined us online to discuss the world of Apprenticeships and what they have to offer. She explained the many different types, some lasting 12 months, whilst others up to three years, and we were fascinated to learn about the range of apprenticeship companies, from ITV to the RSPCA. We were introduced to the website ‘Amazing Apprenticeships’, which contains lots of information, such as the level and the outcome for each type. We learnt about the benefits of Degree Apprenticeships which are becoming increasingly popular. However, they are very competitive as students like the idea of being able to earn a salary, gain valuable work experience and achieve a degree qualification at the same time. Marina Pownall (LVI)

MAY 2021

19 June 2021 - Higher Education Applications Day

JUN 2021

Exam week was rounded off by the Higher Education Applications Day. Suddenly, the prospect of applying to university became a step closer to reality and although admittedly nervewracking, the comprehensive and in-depth talk provided invaluable insight that answered many of our questions. Mrs Llewellyn explained the fundamentals of an effective personal statement, ‘dos and don’ts’ and explained the process stepby-step. We found the interactive elements of her talk particularly useful, as breaking down the personal statement into parts made it much more approachable and certainly boosted our confidence in tackling the piece. After her session, we broke out into our tutor groups and began the UCAS registration. A huge thank you to Mrs Llewellyn and the Higher Education team for organising such a beneficial and informative day. Pattrawaran (Teal) Uahwatanasakul (LVI)

Creative

‘Our girls have accomplished amazing things while working online and in school, and we have been so impressed by their determination and imagination.’

CREATIVE

ARTIST OF THE MONTH Now in its fourth year, the Artist of the Month Award recognises dedication, effort, progress and achievement in Art and Photography. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, Downe House girls have accomplished amazing things while working online and in school, and we have been so impressed by their determination and imagination when it comes to creating work under these circumstances.

February Charlotte MacKinnon (LV)

January Ophelia Fisher (UIV)

Our Creative Arts Seniors announced the winners during our monthly slot in the online assemblies and their work was featured on Downe House social media platforms as well as being displayed in a central part of the School. We would like to congratulate all the 2020 - 2021 prize winners whose work has provided inspiration to the members of our community – we are certain these girls will go on to achieve great things! Kirsten Mortimer, Head of Art Faculty

October Imogen Brass (Remove)

September Yasmin Aird (UIV)

Our Year 2020-21

CREATIVE March Eliza Manson (Remove)

April Sophia Smeaton (UIV)

May Cathy Wang (UIV)

November Imogen Brass (Remove)

December Xinrui (Sherry) Chen (LV)

Downe House Magazine

CREATIVE

ART & SCIENCE: ‘ART UNDER THE MICROSCOPE’ Science and Art may not seem like the most obvious combination, but the closer you look the more similarities you will find. In January, we invited the girls to take inspiration from micrographs and create a piece of art inspired by cells. Thanks to everyone who submitted a piece, they were all brilliant and went on display in the Murray Centre in the Summer term.

We decided to create a painting based on some onion cells, something many of the girls will have seen when learning about cells in Biology. This image can be achieved using a light microscope. This beautiful purple colour is achieved thanks to stain used on the slide, the sample itself is colourless. Petchnapa (Nampetch) Bennett (UVI) and Ploypailin (Pailin) Bennett (LV)

This is a painting of a coccolithophore under an electron microscope. Electron microscopes are much more powerful than the light microscopes we use at School. A coccolithophore is a singlecelled plant-like organism that is classified as a species of phytoplankton. They are spherical cells of around 5-100 micrometres across, enclosed by plates of calcium carbonate called coccoliths. They are the leading producers of the ocean’s calcium carbonate, playing a primary role in the global carbon cycle. Jantaluck (Kelly) Bhanarai (UVI)

Our Year 2020-21

CREATIVE This bright and beautiful drawing is a cross section of a piece of grass and was chosen thanks to the uncanny resemblance to smiley faces; the ‘eyes’ are actually the xylem vessels. Xylem vessels are responsible for transporting water and minerals from the roots of the plant, up to the stem and leaves. Madhulika Kaushik (LVI)

In this drawing, I combined different components of microscopic images of cells, including DNA and RNA strands, plant cells, and the epidermis. Some artistic elements were also added to it, based on what I think the inner cells should look like. The beauty of nature – they are complex but very coordinative to perform certain functions. Zi Xin (Sunnie) Wei (LVI)

Downe House Magazine

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GCSE Art ADEBOMI (TAIZYA) ADEDEJI

TALLULAH BASON

YI MAN (SABRINA) CHAN

ZIQI (JADE) FANG

NEHA GILL

SIENNA JONES

Our Year 2020-21

CREATIVE

LINLIN CHI

ISABEL DAVENPORT

THEA DAVIES

HYOJIN (ANGELA) JOO

YAN LAM (EMILY) LAU

CHEUK WAH (SARA) LEE

Downe House Magazine

CREATIVE

GCSE Art YOUYOU (YOYO) LI

ELIZA MCCULLOUGH

ANGELINA MORTON-CUTT LING XUAN YIHAN (WENDY) (VICTORIA) TIANG WANG

GABRIELLE TAN

Our Year 2020-21

CREATIVE

YOU RIM (GRACE) NAM

JAMIE OJO

WILLOW WILKINSON LAN (LYDIA) ZHANG

YIMING SONG

ZI XIN (KARLYIA) ZHOU

Downe House Magazine

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A Level Art IMOGEN DALE

TABITHA KENDALL

Our Year 2020-21

CREATIVE

GEORGIA DUCKWORTH

LI HUI (LILY) LIN

Downe House Magazine

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A Level Art LU (LULU) TIAN

JINGHAN (TRACY) ZHANG

Our Year 2020-21

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Remembrance Day Each year our Upper Fourth students produce a body of work for the Remembrance period in November. COVID restrictions meant that our usual exhibition at Newbury Racecourse could not take place, but never wanting to miss an opportunity to show off our students’ incredible work, we put on a display in the Murray Centre. Each teacher developed a unique scheme of work for their class, where the students were asked to study an artist to inspire their practice, and work from war related imagery. UIV B created four collaborative Peace montages which were displayed in frames at the entrance of the Murray Centre. Girls experimented with tonal drawing, watercolour, collage, pen and wash, Pro Marker and metallic marker as well as digital drawing to create the individual letters. Online girls emailed their work, which were printed and added to the collection. These pieces have been donated to the chapel so they can continue to be enjoyed in an alternative and fitting setting. UIV C and F developed their Remembrance Day project on the theme of War Animals. Animals have played a role in armed conflict throughout history and contributed to the war effort in a variety of ways. Over 16 million animals were used in the First World War - they were used for transport, communication, and companionship. Horses, donkeys, camels, and mules carried food, water, ammunition and medical supplies to men at the front, and dogs and pigeons carried messages. Dogs were used to sniff out bombs and rescue wounded or missing soldiers. The students developed a range of excellent drawings, and many created clay sculptures of their chosen war animal, taking inspiration from the work of British artist, Nicola Theakston. These sculptures were fired in the kiln and subsequently painted using acrylic paint to be displayed alongside the preparatory sketches. Finally, UIV G and D produced memorials to Britain’s forgotten war heroes from African Commonwealth nations. The classes watched clips from David Lammy’s Channel 4 documentary, ‘The Unremembered’, which documented the hundreds of thousands of black African men, women and children who were caught up in the First World War on Britain’s behalf but were not awarded the same recognition in death. David Lammy visited East Africa, where he saw the mass grave sites where they were buried without so much as a plaque of recognition. In a similar vein, during WWII, more than half a million black African soldiers who fought in the British Army were paid up to three times less than their white counterparts. A newly unearthed document revealed this, prompting calls for an investigation and the government to compensate surviving veterans. The document, buried in Britain’s national archives, reveals how the government systematically discriminated against African soldiers, paying white personnel – even those living in African colonies and serving alongside African soldiers in British colonial units – far more than their black counterparts. The girl’s work aims to raise awareness of these veterans who helped make Britain the country it is today. As I am sure you can imagine, finding good quality images of these soldiers was an impossible task; therefore, Mrs Lamont discovered the current affairs photographer Jack Losh, who photographed WWII survivors who suffered a similar fate as their WWI counterparts. After some communication with Losh, he agreed to have his photos used for the project. He was so amazed by the end product that he posted our students work on his Instagram account. What is even more exciting, is that relatives of some of the featured veterans got in touch to express their gratitude and delight that our girls were featuring their loved ones in their schoolwork. Well done to all Upper Fourth 2020 for producing such incredibly thoughtprovoking work! Mrs Heather Lamont, Teacher of Art

Downe House Magazine

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A Level Photography 1

6 4

7 8

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Georgia Biggs Annabella Horsfield Annabella Horsfield Annabella Horsfield Annabella Horsfield

Our Year 2020-21

6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Elsa Karoly Elsa Karoly Hope Thistlethwayte Hope Thistlethwayte Hope Thistlethwayte

11. 12. 13. 14.

Alexandra Witter Alexandra Witter Jingham (Tracy) Zhang Jingham (Tracy) Zhang

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Downe House Magazine

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Textiles LOWER SCHOOL TEXTILES A select number of practical items created by the Remove, Lower Fourth and Upper Fourth year groups. The Remove made Lavender Hearts using batik and block printed patchwork, they were adorned with hand embroidery, offering much needed mindful activities away from the screen during online learning. The Lower Fourth created hand painted and embellished canvases informed by the artist Kurt Jackson. Finally, the Upper Fourth pupils created free motion stitching and hand embroidered portraits informed by the work of the illustrator, Natasa Kekanovik.

Gabriella Bailey (Remove)

Scarlett Hayes (Lower Fourth)

Our Year 2020-21

Georgia Pockney (Remove)

Nathalie Sakurai-Ross (Remove)

Davida (Seyi) Opaleye (Upper Fourth)

CREATIVE

GCSE TEXTILES Ka Yuet (Sophia) Chan looked to an aquatic theme. The base fabric of her garment is made from a solar dyeing technique using blueberries. Natural dyeing was a new skill the girls were able to explore whilst at home and many took this forward when manufacturing their outcomes. The dyed cotton base fabric is adorned with delicate and intricate free motion stitch marks informed by a pen and ink crab drawing. This detail is further embellished with couched yarns and hand embroidery. The shoulders are adorned with crochet vessels to replicate sea urchins and circular weaves and gathered fabric simulate the jellyfish.

Clara Dutertre-Delaunay combined techniques to create an outcome that is incredibly striking. On closer inspection, on the left-hand bodice you can see intricate hand embroidered detailing layered with handmade felt. She also made green felt; this was worked into with stitch and by manipulating the fabric to create gathered dense folds. The left sleeve is informed by an artist called Vanessa Barragao, bringing together weaving, latch hooking and crochet to create an exceptional piece of work.

Cléo Dutertre-Delaunay combined a wide range of techniques with a vibrant energy. Looking to orange segments and lichen as a focus, she incorporated a highly textural and interesting weave, hand couched yarn detailing, heat setting, knitting, handmade felt, reverse applique, digital printing and more.

Downe House Magazine

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Alice Hack looked to the theme of Natural Forms and focused on leaf structure. She incorporated pleated painted lace, cutwork with free motion embroidery, natural dyeing using avocado skin and stones, plaited couched yarns, knitting and more. These are combined with skill to create a highly creative and authentic outcome of the highest quality.

Hermione Heseltine created a striking outcome informed by Under the Sea. Lino prints create the base pattern and colour, these are worked into with intricate hand embroidery, crochet and wrapped sculptural wire. The sleeves are dyed and gathered, and the beautiful back is hand knitted using a range of colourful yarns.

Cordelia Reeve created a nautical piece that incorporates flounces informed by the marks and patterns seen in oyster shells. Lino printing and Shibori represent the sea and the bold couched yarns used on the sleeves are informed by coral.

Georgina Williams-Bulkeley created a sophisticated outcome using dyed fabric, handmade felt, couching, embroidery, beading, shirring, weaving and crochet.

Our Year 2020-21

CREATIVE

A LEVEL TEXTILES Emily Glover looked to ‘Tribes of the World’ to inspire her oversized jumper. She tirelessly created this outcome entirely by hand, creating complex, textured weaves, and vibrant knits. She made the flat pattern pieces herself and intuitively patched sections together to realise her intention just as she imagined it.

Florence Hack created a large-scale canvas. She looked to Graffiti and distressed urban wall surfaces and peeling posters to inform her canvas. The canvas displays the most thorough and comprehensive set of developed processes and techniques. The canvas includes hand embroidery, knitting, weaving, gathered handmade felt, stencilling, shirring, soldering, beading, applique, cutwork, free motion embroidery, foiling and more.

Downe House Magazine

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Jemima Landale looked to ‘Fashion through the ages’ to inform her outcome. This tailored jacket includes a Pop Art 60s inspired design on the back manufactured from highly technical layered applique fabrics that match perfectly at the seams. The pleated and 3D expanding peplum shapes are informed by Victorian Undergarments and the crinoline. Intricate oak leaf embroidery adorns the back, plant informed wire structures and exquisite gold work is driven by looking at the work of Hand and Lock.

Francesca Rhodes looked to Swedish culture to inform her creation. She studied Elsa Beskow’s illustrations seen in children’s books where nature is prominent in all her artwork. The characters Beskow depicts wore fruits and vegetables as their clothing. This fed into the concept of her final idea where she looked to broccoli as her source. Francesca has incorporated a multitude of techniques with the utmost care and thought. The bodice is made using free motion stitching, marbled fabric, pleated fabrics, soldered organza, painted neoprene applique, reverse applique, and beadwork. The skirt is more sculptural in shape, representing an upside-down broccoli. Looking to the colour of the decaying florets and created bulbous knits to add to her Shibori dyed fabric.

Our Year 2020-21

Music

‘It was a year like no other, where extraordinary things happened in extraordinary times.’

MUSIC

Art Soundscapes Artist: Hoi Yiu (Danna) Cheung (LVI) Composers: Lydia (Isadora) Dyer, Chantelle Eveleigh and Alexandra ter Haar

Artist: Georgia Duckworth (UVI) Composer: Alice Barber

Artist: Anna Neville (UVI) Composers: Xin Yan (Annabel) Yang, Xin (Emily) Pu, Hao Yin (Helena) Yuan and Amarachi (Amara) Odogwu

Our Year 2020-21

MUSIC During the Summer term, Upper Fourth Music pupils created a breath-taking interactive exhibition displayed in the Murray Centre for this year’s Founder’s Weekend. In collaboration with the Art department, pupils in Upper Fourth Music composed soundscapes to accompany artworks created by Downe House pupils and alumnae. Pupils used a compositional technique called Musique Concrète, where raw everyday sounds were recorded, and the musical potential of those sounds were enhanced by a variety of audio manipulations using the music software Soundtrap. Following its success, we are excited to explore how we can develop the exhibition for next year with a brandnew collection of art and compositions. A huge congratulations to all artists and composers who made this exhibition possible.

Artist: Victoria Scobie (UVI) Composer: Ammara Khurram and Zhi Ling (Lauren) Chu

Artist: Xiaoyi (Vanessa) Mu (UVI) Composer: Adesola Odeyemi, Serena Browne and Mwansa Banda

Please use your phone to scan the accompanying QR code to listen to the music and enjoy the complete soundscape experience. Mr George Picker, Head of Upper School Music

Artist: Xiaoyi (Vanessa) Mu (UVI) Composer: Jadesola (Desola) Omonijo and Henrietta Hack

Downe House Magazine

MUSIC

Artist: Charlotte (Lottie) Zeal (UVI) Musicians: Georgina Dawson and Ju-Eun Park

Artist: Jane Tung (UVI) Musicians: Michelle Lee and Cathy Wang

Artist: Storm Halestrap (UVI) Composers: Leilani Mataia-Ramsden, Yasmin Aird and Yuchen (Rebecca) Gao

Our Year 2020-21

MUSIC

Extraordinary Times It was a year like no other, where extraordinary things happened in extraordinary times. Despite the challenges for Music, we achieved our highest number of Grade 8 and Diploma examinations on record together with a series of exceptional music events. Highlights include our Virtual Carol Service, Young Musician of the Year Competition, and our virtual BIG Sing brought together our whole School community. Of course, it was fantastic to welcome the amazing Bob Chilcott as our Musician in Residence. I wish to thank Alexandra Hamilton (Head of Music 2020-21), Antonia Holloway (Head of Instrumental Music 2020-21), Rosalind Wippell (Head of Choral 2020-21) and Poppy Furse (Deputy Head of Choral 2020-21), together with all our talented Music Award Holders for their exceptional contribution to the Music department, inspiring others around them and living the music! With over 3500 followers, our Twitter site continues to capture all our exciting news, live updates and inspiring moments from the Music department. Please do follow us @DowneHouseMusic. This year the power of music has never been so palpable; Downe House Music has continued to transform lives with music. What an adventure it has been! Dr Charlotte Exon, Director of Music

INSIDE STORY The Music Department was delighted in the first week of February to welcome back three illustrious musical alumnae for Inside Story. All three are studying music at tertiary level: Man (Melissa) Chang at Oxford University, Lauren Dunn at Newcastle University, and Katherine (Katie) Hackman at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. They were joined online by the Music Department staff and our GCSE and A Level Music students. Melissa, Lauren, and Katie spoke in depth about their positive experiences at university and conservatoire, and then chatted informally with our music students. As well as feeling very grateful to our alumna for taking time out of their schedules in order to join us, the whole Music Department was so proud of everything they are achieving – it was lovely to see them again. Dr Christian Alexander, Teacher of Music, Head of Composition

Another term of virtual schooling was uninvited, but thanks to the magic of MS Teams, the music department were able to welcome Melissa, Katie and Lauren who made exciting choices for music in tertiary education. Us GCSE and A Level musicians were introduced to just how much higher education in music had to offer, from Melissa sharing her experience as an organ scholar in Oxford, juggling her varied modules which ranged from Music and Communism to Theologies of Sacred Music, to Lauren, who brought her palate musical activities at Newcastle to the forefront, and how a good thing, (singing in this case) could cause her to halt the performing side of her course, which only just opened new doors for music at university, exploring the binding impact music has on the societal and political landscape. We joined Katie as she presented the brilliant opportunities music making in a conservatoire can bring, one being the chance to get fully immersed into music making and performing in a denser capacity, with less people in a year group than typically at a university. As an Upper Fifth, who is still undecided in terms of my career path, this event was immensely useful, and has strengthened my knowledge for tertiary education in music. Cheuk Wah (Sara) Lee (UV)

Downe House Magazine

MUSIC

Spotlight on our musical achievements I joined Downe House in Remove, playing the piano and the cello. In Upper Fourth I took up the organ, and I love choral singing, having been a part of every choir throughout my time at Downe. I particularly enjoy playing impressionist music on the piano, and I also love listening to early choral music. Antonia McClintock, Head of Music (LVI) I joined Downe in Lower Fourth, playing the piano. I then took up the clarinet in Upper Fourth, and really enjoy singing in choirs. As well as playing Romantic music, such as Chopin, on the piano, I also love playing Jazz on the clarinet. We are excited to be taking on the roles of Head and Deputy Head of Music this year. It was incredible to be able to finally perform together again at the end of the Summer term, after the many Zoom rehearsals during lockdown, and we cannot wait to see what opportunities this year brings. Sophie Loftus, Deputy Head of Music (LVI)

MUSIC AWARD HOLDERS SPOTLIGHT RECITALS We were treated to a wonderful concert by our Music Award Holders. A great variety of music and instruments were on display, all played to a very high standard. To facilitate as many performers being able to take part as possible, there were three elements to the concert: prerecorded performances from our wonderful Upper Fifth Music Award Holders, interspersed with recordings from our international Music Award Holders across the world, finishing with live performances from our brilliant Upper Sixth Music Award Holders in the Concert Room. Cheuk Wah (Sara) Lee set the standard with a highly expressive performance of ‘Élégie’ (Elegy) by Fauré for cello.

Our Year 2020-21

It was great to have Natalie Hui’s debut performance at Downe House all the way from Hong Kong! Natalie made the first movement of Bruch’s violin concerto look incredibly easy whilst being accompanied by a backing track provided by Miss Holmes. Chun Yi (Kylie) Chan treated us to a very calming ‘Lullaby’ on the piano by William Mason, offering us a moment of tranquility after the drama of the Bruch. Taking us on another trip around the world, Hei Ching (Renee) Wong performed ‘Malaguena’ (Spanish Dance) by Sarasate for the violin with lots of vitality and energy. Dayeon Go was our first ambassador for the woodwind family,

MUSIC

NATIONAL YOUTH CHOIR I was fortunate enough to be a part of the National Youth Training Choir. Unfortunately, we were not able to meet in person due to Covid restrictions, however the course took on a different form and was held over Zoom. Although this meant we could not sing together as normal, it did allow for some fantastic international guests, which we would not have been able to meet otherwise. We had talks from choral directors in South Africa and the USA, and I particularly enjoyed the session on Scandinavian choral music. We also had the opportunity to take part in a composition workshop with the director of National Youth Choirs of Great Britain, Mr Ben Parry. It was fascinating to watch his composition process and I learnt a lot from the sessions. Other sessions included a

performing Doppler’s notoriously challenging ‘Fantaisie Pastorale Hongroise’ for the flute. Navigating through the many and varied sections of the piece, Dayeon performed with great finesse and control. To wrap up the pre-recorded element, Hang Ki (Katie) Lam performed the first movement from Sonata for viola and piano by Rebecca Clarke. Although often overlooked as a filler orchestral instrument, Hang Ki (Katie) proved to us all that the viola is a powerful and commanding instrument. The evening culminated in two live performances from our Upper Sixth Music Award Holders in the Concert Room. Antonia Holloway treated us to a lively

workshop with beatboxer SK Shlomo, who taught us the basics of beatboxing, before sampling some of us live over Zoom to create a piece of music, as well as a family sing along with Sir Gary Barlow. My favourite aspect of the week was ‘Sing the Score’ sessions, in which we were introduced to a new genre of choral music every day and attempted to sight sing scores along with a backing track. While this was quite challenging, it was great fun and my sight reading definitely improved! Finally, at the end of every day there was a social activity where we could play games over Zoom and get to know the other people on the course. Antonia McClintock, Head of Music (LVI)

performance of the first and third movements from the famous oboe concerto in D minor by Albinoni, followed by Alexandra Hamilton proving that the tuba is a very nimble instrument in a performance of the Tuba Concerto by Martin Ellerby. Antonia and Alexandra have brought so much to the Music department during their time at Downe House, and we wish them all the best for their future endeavours. Despite the challenging logistics of being across the world, our Music Award Holders put on a fantastic concert, and we are very proud of them all! Mrs Susan Norman, Principal Accompanist

Downe House Magazine

MUSIC Music online was a new experience for all of us. If I had to pick out one word to describe this change for me, it would be ‘different’, because although many of us have not even met our music teachers or mentors, being able to present, sing or play through a screen, is a great skill and can be useful in the future. Recording my pieces on the flute, piano, and singing was a challenge, and I cannot count the number of times I recorded each piece – this experience also meant that I was practicing even more than usual, and that I have become stronger in my instruments. The live event was amazingly planned and made me feel like I was on a TV show! We all watched our entries for the category, and had individual, useful feedback from the adjudicators – Mr Chilcott and Mr Jones, who were amazing. Then came the prize giving, which I can imagine was extremely hard for our adjudicators, as everyone had worked so hard. When I heard my name for Dr Exon’s prize, I was amazed, and earning this prize means so much to me. Isabella de Arcangelis, Young Musician of the Year - Dr Exon’s Prize (LIV) Taking part in the Downe House Young Musician of the Year Competition 2021 was a wonderful experience. The entry process was very enjoyable and everyone who showed an interest in the competition chose a piece that they would play on their chosen musical instrument and practiced it until their performance was polished and ready to be filmed. Miss Holmes kindly provided piano accompaniments to anyone who needed them. This meant that when it would be time to film, the accompaniment could be played on a different device to the one that was filming and give a backing track to the piece, which was lovely as it brought a sense of normality to performing online in the given circumstances. The competition was split into three categories depending on the musician’s Grade: Music Makers (Grades 1-3), Maestro (Grades 4-6) and Virtuoso (Grades 7+). The performances were then recorded with a lot of care and effort and uploaded to an entry form which was subject to each musician’s category. In total, there were over 80 fantastic entries submitted! The entries were watched and reviewed by a panel of six members of the Music Department Staff Team.

Our Year 2020-21

MUSIC The Music Staff were really impressed by the high quality of all the entries submitted and very tough decisions had to be made to select the finalists of the competition from each category. Three Music Maker finalists, five Maestro finalists and eight Virtuoso finalists were selected overall, however as many entries as possible were showcased in the Music Alive Concert Series throughout the Lent and Summer terms.    The Finals of the Downe House Young Musician of the Year took place in the Murray Centre auditorium and were live streamed for anyone in the Downe House community to watch. Each category’s final took place at different times over the two days. Each finalist’s recording of their performance was shown on screen in the auditorium and played on the live stream. It was an interesting experience for the finalists to watch themselves perform, unlike any other competition before! In the finals, the competitors also received live feedback and adjudication from Mr Chilcott, an international world-renowned composer and Mr Jones, the former Head of Chetham’s School of Music. The finalists were called to the front of the auditorium one by one where they received very inspiring and valuable feedback that gave helpful tips for improvement and encouraging words of praise. At the end of the event, after a tough decision from the adjudicators, the winners of the category were announced and awarded trophies and each finalist who took part was given a huge round of applause and awarded an elaborate certificate. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole course of Downe House Young Musician of the Year 2021 and it was a spectacular process to be a part of!   Maria Taraban, Young Musician of the Year (LIV) Winners of the competition were as follows: Music Maker: Kayla Vela (LIV) Maestro: Maria Taraban (LIV) Director of Music Prize: Isabella de Arcangelis (LIV) Virtuoso: Sophie Loftus (LVI)

Berkshire Maestros Young Musician of the Year

Berkshire Maestros Young Musician of the Year always invites strong competition and musicianship, and this year was no exception. It was the year for String players to apply and the Downe House string department was well-represented. Despite the limitations of a lockdown, technology was once again put to good use! For the first round, performers had to submit a video recording of a piece to then be shortlisted for the semifinal. We were all very proud of Tatiana Montanari (Remove Music Award Holder) for making it through to the semi-final. Although it could not take place in person, Tatiana coped extremely well when performing live on Zoom to a prestigious panel of adjudicators. Performers were asked to prepare two contrasting pieces and so Tatiana chose to perform two movements from a Handel sonata, and John Williams’ Remembrances from his soundtrack to Schindler’s List, showcasing her versatility as a performer and musician. Well done to all performers who entered the competition, and especially to Tatiana for being short-listed all the way to the semi-final! Mrs Susan Norman, Principal Accompanist Downe House Magazine

MUSIC

Prima Voce The Royal School of Church Music celebrated Christmas with their Big Christmas Carol Service in December, which of course like everyone’s efforts at this time took place online. After the service there was a reception for donors and supporters of the RSCM. The Downe House choir, Prima Voce, and Dr Exon were part of a select group of people invited to perform for them. They sang ‘The Marvellous Birth’ beautifully and it was a tribute to all involved that they were able to be so ‘concert ready’ at that time. Thanks to all involved, at what has been such a difficult time for singing. Their voices moved everyone to tears, including Hugh Morris, the Director of the RSCM. Mr Bob Chilcott, Musician in Residence

Our Year 2020-21

MUSIC This year, Downe House’s choir Prima Voce, were lucky enough to be involved in Barnardo’s Kidsmas Live Concert.  Other than an enjoyable evening of singing, Barnardo’s aim was to help raise vital funds to reach and support vulnerable children and young people in the festive season.   Even though it was wonderful to sing all together in a choir again, it came with its challenges. Singing socially distanced was difficult as you had to be tuned into everyone, however I believe it made us a stronger choir as we truly connected and became more confident singing apart.

As a choir we had some recording experience before from taking part in the Barnardo’s Senior Choir of the Year competition, therefore it was not too unfamiliar. Yet this time, it was both sound and visual recording. We were singing ‘Hark the Herald’ and therefore did not need much learning but perfecting the recording took time, especially making sure it was completely in time with the backing track. Then we filmed the visual recording, making sure we were all socially distanced and dressed in our black choir dresses. Thanks to Mr Boswell our sound and visual recordings were collated and looked fabulous when watching the concert live! Thank you to all the music department who put so much of their time into preparation for this, it ended up being a splendid evening! Eleanor Gibbs (LVI)

Downe House Magazine

MUSIC

Carol Service

At the end of the Michaelmas term, Prima Voce, Once Removed and the brass band all came together to record the virtual Carol Service. It was a lovely way of bringing the School community together before the Christmas holidays. Although our virtual choir rehearsals were a highlight during lockdown, we were all excited to start rehearsing together again when we returned to School. At first it felt very different singing socially distanced from each other, but we soon adjusted to it. Preparing the Virtual Carol Service was a new experience, and we were eager to begin the filming and recording process. It was exciting to put on our cassocks ready for the filming in different locations around the school. Some of the most memorable moments included filming the ‘O Come all Ye Faithful’ descant outside the Murray Centre and processing through the cloisters singing, ‘Once in Royal David’s City.’ We really enjoyed the experience of filming, and it was worth all the hard work that we put into the rehearsals and recordings.   Whilst the Carol Service was different to previous years, we all felt just as united, and the result with everything put together provided a fitting end to the term. Thanks must go to the Music department for making this possible and the brilliant AV team for putting all the videos together.   Sophie Loftus (LVI)

Our Year 2020-21

MUSIC

BAROQUE MASTERCLASS

FOUNDER’S JAZZ BAND

On 18 and 19 November 2020, Mr Robert Howarth, one of our visiting piano teachers and Principal Keyboard Player for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, came to deliver some Baroque Masterclasses. Baroqu e Maste rclasses These live and interactive led by Ro bert Ho workshops were held for warth GCSE and A Level musicians, giving them the opportunity to explore the Baroque period and its instruments in more depth. The workshops were also streamed to other schools across the UK, giving everyone the chance to be involved with a live question and answer session at the end. An unm

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After four weeks of dedicated rehearsals, Jazz Band gave a stunning performance on Founder’s Girls’ Day, on Sunday. Despite the weather, they managed to give a phenomenal concert of two sets which featured funk, Latin, rock and jazz standards! Jazz Band have certainly raised the bar and preparations are already underway for next year where they will come back bigger and better. Mr George Picker, Head of Upper School Music

kidalsa@

downeho use.net

Music | #DHBar oqueNR oll

In the masterclasses, Mr Howarth explained the context of the Harpsichord within the Baroque setting. He taught us the mathematics behind tuning, as well as focusing on some GCSE and A Level set works that the girls were studying. It was a really special experience for the girls to be taught by an expert in the field – thank you Mr Howarth! Miss Annabel Kidals, Music and Events Co-ordinator

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Over 130 girls were involved in our music events throughout Founder’s Weekend – not even a pandemic can stop us!

DOWNE HOUSE MUSIC LIVE Antonia and I were thrilled to interview Jonathan Manners about his work as producer of the BBC Singers. Jonathan was lovely and provided a fascinating insight into his life and work pre and postCovid. We hugely enjoyed the experience of hosting an interview and were excited to speak live on the show afterwards, particularly to discuss our favourite chocolate bars, after learning that Jonathan favours a Fry’s Turkish Delight! Alice Pernthaller (LVI) It was a great honour for me to produce ‘One minute wonder’ for DH Music Live! together with Sophie Loftus and Jiayi Zheng. The jet lag did not stop us, and we successfully completed the recording from the United Kingdom, the United States and China simultaneously. We enjoyed sharing our favourite parts of the Virtual Music School with the girls. DH Music Live is a creative, informative and exciting show that unites girls and schools during online learning. Xinyue (Audrey) Xu (LVI)

Downe House Magazine

MUSIC

Downe House Big Sing During the Lent term lockdown, the Music department came up with the idea for everyone to record themselves singing the school’s favourite hymn, ‘Shine Jesus Shine’ and for it to be stitched together into a massive video in order to reconnect everyone from Downe House. When Dr Exon approached me, Alice, Susie, Sophie and Antonia virtually to help promote this throughout the School when our world was online, we put our heads together and finally came up with a plan of how we were going to roll out this movement. We sent out a form to all staff and students so they could attach their video of them singing (and dancing) along to the track as well as creating a video that was shown in assembly to help encourage girls to do something outside their comfort zone during the lockdown. I also played the trumpet that was heard in the backing track, so I was lucky enough to be an even bigger part of the Downe House Big Sing! Thank you so much to the whole Music department especially Dr Exon, Mr Lambert and Miss Kidals, it wouldn’t have been possible to do without them! Marina Pownall (LVI)

Our Year 2020-21

Drama & Dance

‘I had not performed in front of an audience in a long time, so it was really special to send out such a powerful message.’

DRAMA & DANCE

Introduction During another challenging year the Drama and Dance faculty continued to be creatively innovative in the face of adversity. Despite the obvious restrictions we have seen a number of fantastic events including workshops, competitions, lessons, lectures and productions. Most importantly, it has been inspiring to see how the pupils have adapted to every twist and turn in the road and have continued to achieve excellent results in both Drama and Dance. We have seen many new initiatives this year that have really encouraged our pupils to be more outward looking, whether that be considering a career in the theatrical industry or taking part in a workshop with external practitioners. Once again, I have been struck by the passion and enthusiasm the girls have for Drama and Dance at Downe House. Although we were somewhat limited when putting on live productions, we were still able to enjoy some excellent performances from our pupils. In the Michaelmas term we were treated to a devised piece from our A Level Drama pupils, who created a moving and thought provoking show that explored the events surrounding the Chernobyl disaster. In the Lent term we saw House Drama and Dance take a more virtual turn than normal, but it was fantastic to see a huge range of strong performances from individuals in each House. The Speech and Drama department has continued to go from strength to strength this year and although lockdown prevented us from teaching face to face the girls were still able to achieve excellent results. We saw a move to virtual exams for both RADA and the Trinity syllabus where girls continued to achieve outstanding results despite a change in format. A huge thank you to Mrs Watson and the Speech and Drama team for facilitating this. It was such a joy to finally achieve something that resembled normality with this years Founder’s Day. Over the course of the day, we were able to experience both recorded and live productions, which was a real showcase of the girls talents. The filmed production of ‘Let’s Go to the Movies’ was a tremendous success and was enjoyed by all who were able to watch it in the glorious sunshine. The Dance production of Mulan was a complete masterpiece and the first outing for our new Lower School Dance Company who were impressive to watch. The Lower Five production of Blue Stockings was inspiring and expertly performed by the girls in this year group, who worked tremendously well to bring such a polished performance together during such a challenging time. I am tremendously proud of how the pupils and staff have creatively adapted to our programme of events this year and have expertly navigated such a challenging landscape. I would like to congratulate everyone involved in all of these fantastic events and to thank the AV team for their unwavering support throughout the academic year! Mrs Kirsty Richardson, Director of Drama and Dance.

Our Year 2020-21

DRAMA & DANCE

Examinations and Practicals GCSE DRAMA The Lower Fifth GCSE Drama cohort entertained a live and virtual audience with their examined, devised performances. Over the course of 10 weeks, the girls worked hard in groups and created, developed and refined a dramatic piece inspired by a choice of stimuli. The first piece, titled #Silence, explored remarks made surrounding anti-protesting laws in the new policing bill. Leila, Araminta and Honor used multi-role to portray a variety of characters including politicians, individuals on social media and victims. With some exceptionally raw and real moments, the girls knowingly made the audience feel uncomfortable with their privilege as they imagined a world without protest. The piece came to a powerful conclusion with each girl applying masking tape over their mouths to signify being forced to be ‘silent’. Up next was Emily, Eliza and Isabel with their performance of It’s Not Therapy, a bold and alarming piece of theatre that took the audience through a journey of Gay Conversion Therapy. The girls did not hold back in portraying the dark reality behind this controversial subject, from the religious justifications to the inhumane treatments such as lobotomy. The performance explored both the personal and political issues, as the girls highlighted the mental health repercussions and societal fallout. ‘Innocent…or guilty?’ was the third examined performance, with Aimee, Isabel, Clementine and Millie captivating the audience in a court case with many twists and turns. The girls used Brechtian techniques such as breaking the fourth wall to treat the audience as judge, jury and executioner. We heard the story of Simon Porter, who was convicted of murder. The girls presented different characters involved in his story and the crime, only to discover that the whole case was based on Mr Porter being caught in a web of his own lies. An engaging piece, leaving the audience on the edge of their seats in anticipation for the final verdict.

Hannah, Occi and Olivia stunned audiences with their performance, Hope for Change, a Berkovian style piece exploring the prejudices that women and girls face at different stages of their lives. Before the piece had even begun, the audience was startled by the bright white face paint the girls had applied. This is typical of a Berkovian performance, allowing the performers to treat their own faces as blank canvases, contorting the muscles to create truly gruesome characters. The girls clearly enjoyed this heightened style of performance, switching from tottering around on their toes, to portray the stereotypical ‘yummy mummies’, to jutting their hips forward with their arms swinging to embody the stereotypical ‘male chauvinist’. The audience was forced to confront the ugly characteristics that drive these discriminatory behaviours. Our final performance was Transition, devised and performed by Zen, Annie and Claudia, an honest and well-researched portrayal about the confusion of growing up and struggling with gender identity. The girls, inspired by the well-known theatre company Frantic Assembly, used physical theatre to communicate to the audience their character’s inner conflict, exploring the use of different pronouns and navigating friendships that evolve into relationships. Their piece aimed to educate the audience on Trans Rights and highlighted the stigma that Trans people face in their day-to-day life. Considering the sensitive topics these pieces explored, all the girls approached the devising process with both maturity and enthusiasm. They welcomed the examination with aplomb and Miss Treacy, and I were incredibly proud of what the girls achieved; we cannot wait to see what they have in store for us in the Upper Fifth. Mrs Sophie Leigh-Barclay, Teacher of Drama and Dance

Downe House Magazine

DRAMA & DANCE

GCSE DRAMA DEVISING

A LEVEL DRAMA

The Downe House GCSE Drama devising experience is one I will never forget. We started the process online in breakout rooms on Microsoft Teams, then moved to performing on stage to our peers and teachers. It was quite the journey!

Performing my A Level devised piece was an incredible experience. As a group we decided we wanted to work together as a six and I am happy to say that Marina Pownall, Alice Pernthaller, Yasmine McLennan, Alethea (Thea) Ings-Chambers, Lyla Elichaoff and myself were very pleased with how well we all managed to work together to create this devised piece of theatre about the 77 bombings. The stimulus of our piece was a picture of a little girl holding up a poster that read, ‘There is no honour in killing.’

Sat at home looking at a computer screen, trying to figure out what stimuli you want to use, what backstory you want, and who’s going to be doing what, was quite a challenge. However, I was lucky enough to have only two or three lessons online before I was back at School. Although, from our group of four, only two of us were at School, whilst our other performers were online as well as our teacher. Despite this we worked it out, and were all together figuring out our piece. We found a backstory of a manipulative friendship, based on lies and connected it to a murder, which resulted in the key character being wrongfully imprisoned. This led back to our chosen stimulus about lying. Our chosen practitioner was Frantic Assembly, so we took time to study what this company focuses on and what we could use in our piece. Over our time in lessons, we progressed our piece and towards the final two weeks it was time to start adding evening and lunchtime rehearsals. We had to work very hard, not only was this piece contributing to our final GCSE result, but we lost crucial time due to online learning and needed to catch up. We had time with our teacher and often worked during our lunch breaks and before we knew it, it was the day of the performance. We spent a day focusing on parts of our piece that needed the most work. We got one tech rehearsal so the incredible AV team could stage all our lighting. After that, it was back to the Drama classrooms and continuing to rehearse. After lunch we had our dress rehearsal, where we ran our piece from start to finish as if it was the real performance and were given feedback from our teacher. For the rest of the day, we rehearsed. In the evening we went to the auditorium to perform our piece. My group and I were third, but the first from our class to perform. After introducing ourselves to the audience it was go time and we were off! Nothing beats the feeling of being back in the performing space and due to their reaction once we finished our piece, I think the audience thoroughly enjoyed it too. Overall, the experience was incredible, and I can only encourage others to join the GCSE Drama experience in the future. Isabel Toogood (LV)

Our Year 2020-21

As a group we thought this was a very striking and powerful image which led us to think about terrorism. This idea made us research multiple terrorist attacks over the world that affected a lot of people and we ended up wanting to do in depth research about the 77 bombings as they affected the people of Great Britain, which made us connect even more with our piece. The plot of our devised piece was quite an interesting one as we were influenced by the techniques of the practitioner Paper Birds, which involves naturalism and verbatim. We incorporated naturalistic classroom scenes to show the audience how we put our piece together and then went straight into our character which was based on real people who were at the events of the 77 bombings. I also thought it was very useful having a workshop with Paper Birds as they really gave our group an insight into how they want and tend to send a message across to the audience. This workshop was very useful as it made us rethink how we could show the audience what our aim and message was to them. It made us improve our piece for the better. Overall, the thing I enjoyed the most about the performance was how well all our ideas and skills came together in the end to create a powerful message. Performing was something I had not done in front of an audience in a long time, so it was even more special to send out such a powerful message, which did not only involve the sadness of the day’s tragic events, but also the message of hope and how life goes on. Morgan Wallace (LVI) For part of our Drama A Level coursework, we devised a performance based around the Chernobyl disaster that occurred in Ukraine in 1986 and how four people were affected by the explosion. I played a hunter, a liquidator sent into the radiation zone to kill contaminated animals to prevent radiation poisoning being passed on. We used Bertolt Brecht as our practitioner, famous for his revolutionary ideas that changed the way we view theatre today and creation of Epic theatre. Brecht’s objective was to alienate the audience from emotional involvement using, ‘verfremdungseffekt’ – or the ‘v’ effect for those who cannot even begin to pronounce that word, myself included, forcing them to focus on the political message of the play.

DRAMA & DANCE

Recently, Chernobyl has experienced an increased wave of tourism with influencers using it as a backdrop for Instagram posts, glamorising the tragedy that occurred there. We wanted to remind the audience of those who suffered and make them question a government that put the Soviet Union’s reputation over the health of their citizens. It was exciting to explore how we could distance the audience from the characters. For example, we directly addressed the audience and even used audience interaction, handing a microphone and facts about Chernobyl to an audience member to read, reminding them that they were watching a play.

Although we were originally going to perform this last Summer term, Covid placed a spanner in the works, and we found that rehearsing a piece so ensemble-heavy over teams was not the easiest. Thankfully, we returned to school for Michaelmas and were able to perform. To act in front of our year and teachers (socially distanced, of course) as well as our families over livestream, after so long was strange to say the least. Having the freedom to create this piece has been a highlight of my two years in Sixth Form and I was so grateful to our drama teacher, Mrs Richardson, and everyone who made it possible. As my last drama performance at Downe, it is definitely one I will never forget. Rosalind Wippell (UVI)

RADA EXAMS My first RADA exam, with examiner Mr Kevin Trainor, was an interesting experience. The exam process was far more relaxed than I initially thought - it felt more like a lesson. As a result of Covid, the exam was held over Zoom, allowing me to take it with my partner Yoyo, who was in China. Since Yoyo and I were in different time zones, we had solo lessons until the week before the exam, in which we managed to find time to have a quick lesson together. During the lesson we focused on getting our duologue together since we had never done it as a duo before, but luckily it was relatively simple as both of us had learnt our lines well; it was mainly familiarising ourselves with expressing our lines so that it appeared we were having a conversation in person and not over the Internet. We also performed our sonnets to each other and shared feedback, such as the speaking rate and the diction of some words. The whole exam consisted of three main parts and lasted for about 30 minutes. Firstly, we performed our Shakespeare sonnets respectively, with Yoyo performing Sonnet 21 and I performed Sonnet 43. The process was fairly smooth, and Mr Trainor did not comment much on them except for the occasional correction on diction. Next, we performed our duologue between two characters called Julia and Lucetta, who have a servant-mistress relationship, taken from the play Two Gentlemen of Verona. I performed as Lucetta while Yoyo performed as Julia and overall, I think our performance was a success. The most difficult part was to ensure we appeared to be talking to each other without the use of staging since that was impossible over Zoom. Afterwards, Mr Trainor told us to perform our duologue again but modified according to his instructions: I had to make the bed during our duologue, so I did not have my full attention on Yoyo, whereas Yoyo was trying her

best to capture my attention while scrolling through her phone at the same time. Our first attempt at the modification turned out to be hilarious: I was so focused on making the bed that I missed some of my cues and Yoyo forgot some of her lines! Nevertheless, the examiner reassured us that it was completely fine and that he was in fact glad we had such troubles because it meant we were trying hard to change our piece according to his instructions. In the end we attempted the modification two more times, changing our tone slightly each time to see what effect it would cause. Our exam ended shortly afterwards and both Yoyo and I were extremely pleased with our performances and relieved it was over. Yan Lam (Emily) Lau (UV) This was my third and final time taking the RADA Shakespeare exam - quite a momentous occasion! The Gold Award, which I took, involved two monologues to be redirected, a sight-read sonnet and a discussion based on my pieces. I chose a fun monologue from Love’s Labour’s Lost delivered by the character Berowne as well as Hermione’s distressed court-room monologue from The Winter’s Tale. My examiner was so lovely and instantly made me feel comfortable before I set off on my monologues. Thankfully, they went well! The redirections she gave me were exactly the sort of comments every actor likes to hear - suggestions that make you rethink the nature of your piece or see the intentions of your character in a different light. For the sonnet redirection, I was told to use the Zoom format and deliver it as though I was addressing a sick friend who needed cheering up - very interesting! All in all, it was a very positive experience despite it being virtual, and a great way to end my RADA Shakespeare journey. Poppy Scales (UVI)

Downe House Magazine

DRAMA & DANCE

Theatre DIVERSITY IN THEATRE EVENT I was so pleased to be asked to host the Diversity in Theatre Event alongside Ellen (Nellie) Gawne. One of our year aims as a school was to promote diversity and open discussions are so important in helping us achieve this. We were so lucky to be joined by four panellists with such different experiences and therefore different outlooks on diversity in theatre. Nellie and I asked questions that came from the Downe House community as well as other prep schools watching the event. It was clear by the number of questions we had, and the range of topics covered such as affirmative action within theatre, the use of the term ‘BAME’ and how accessible theatre actually is for actors with disabilities, that our audience was very eager to participate and learn about diversity in theatre. Our panellists certainly managed to match this energy and answered the questions passionately and with their own experiences.

Theatre has always been an important part of my life, even more so when I came to Downe. It has helped me gain confidence as well as give me so many great opportunities to express myself. As a black person it was very inspiring to hear that diversity is improving in theatre, yet it should also be noted that the panellists were unified in their belief that more needs to be done. Furthermore, I think what was even more important is the differences of opinion shown. It is important to acknowledge that different members of minority groups will have different opinions even if from the same background. It was so motivating to see how these different individuals managed to deal with discrimination and persevere. Their resilience is something that I hope all of us can learn from. Thank you so much to the guest panellists for their time, to the Drama and Dance department for organising this amazing event and to the AV department for their technical support for what was a very interesting and inspiring evening. Chisengo (Elizabeth) Lukama (UVI)

THEATRE MAKERS OF THE FUTURE In November 2020, the Lower Sixth Geraldine James Scholars hosted the ‘Theatre Makers of the Future’ panel. The event was a live Q&A which was streamed across the School and to members of the wider community, We were thrilled to welcome Katy Lipson, producer and founder of Aria Entertainment, Matthew Dewsbury, assisting casting director at the RSC, Phyllida Crowley Smith, head choreographer at the Guildford school of acting and our very own Mr Ben Sell of the West End. After an introduction from the Headmistress and a biography for each of the panellists, we launched into an exciting two-hour discussion of all things theatrical. Katy spoke all about her typical day as a producer and described the process of putting on a play or musical professionally - it was incredible to hear about the work that goes on behind the scenes to make our favourite shows happen. Phyllida talked about her teaching at Guildford and her previous experiences in theatre including directing, choreographing and performing. Matthew told us about his path into theatre and how professional casting works. He and Phyllida also told us all about what they look for in potential auditionees which was very helpful and informative for budding Drama School applicants. Mr Sell then shared his favourite parts about performing in musicals and how to keep going as an actor in an uncertain industry. Overall, the evening was a huge success, and many people, including myself, appreciated the range of experience held by the panellists, giving the audience an insight into multiple sides of Theatre. It was wonderful to meet such accomplished professionals of the theatre world, and I hope everyone who watched the event took something away from the experience. Alice Pernthaller (LVI)

Our Year 2020-21

DRAMA & DANCE

FAMILY THEATRE EVENINGS My family and I often tuned in to the fantastical family theatre night. Previous shows include Cats, Red Shoes, Twelfth Night, and Into the Woods. My favourite was Shakespeare’s As you like it. It was a great entity to join in with and I always looked forward to an evening curled up on the sofa with my family, watching a musical (while my parents embarrassingly sing along). The diversity of shows was really good, and it allowed me to see shows that I would not have seen live in the theatre. Musicals, Shakespeare and Ballet have been a rich mixture to watch. My ultimate favourite theatre night was Billy Elliot as I loved the storyline because it was so powerful and emotional as it tackled politically complex issues such as the miners’ strikes, pit closures, the effects of closures on multigenerational communities and social class divides. It was not just passionately heart-wrenching, but it was also educating, and I absorbed lots of information on a topic I knew nothing of previously. My favourite character was Billy’s best friend Stuart, who I thought was so brave and not scared to stand apart from others or be ‘different’. I also really liked Billy’s grandmother who was rather funny but slightly bonkers! Although it may not be the same as seeing the flashing lights and experiencing the excitement of a show in person, the family theatre nights were a great alternative. I would definitely recommend watching a show or two with your family! Sophia Smeaton (UIV)

FAMILY QUIZ In February, I was lucky enough to be invited to host and write questions for the Musical Theatre Family Quiz! My round consisted of lyrics from a Musical Theatre song and the participants guessed which Musical it was from, and which character sung it. We also had a Musical Theatre Emoji round written and hosted by Lyla Elichaoff and a fun fact round by Alice Pernthaller. The quiz explored a range of different musicals from Les Misérables to School of Rock and we all had great fun competing with other families and the high levels of energy via MS Teams really made our Downe House Drama family feel united despite lockdown. Although everyone did extremely well, there is only one winner, and that winner was Miss Bickerdike, so huge congratulations to her as the quiz was not tame! Also, a huge thank you to Mr Barclay for hosting the event in his fabulous manner with his bow tie and all, to Miss O’Sullivan for organising such an amazing event which got all our spirits up during the lockdown and to our Musical Theatre expert, Mr Sell, for verifying all the answers so we could run a truly professional quiz. We all had such a great time and I especially enjoyed being a Quiz Master for the evening with Mr Barclay, Lyla and Alice. Marina Pownall (LVI)

GCSE PHYSICAL THEATRE WORKSHOP In March, all girls in Upper Fourth considering GCSE Drama got an exciting opportunity to take part in a Physical Theatre Workshop with Scarlett Wilderink. Scarlett is an incredible actor and puppeteer from The Watermill Theatre, and we were all so fortunate for her to be able to do the online workshop with us. In the beginning of the workshop, Scarlett talked us through the different aspects of GCSE Drama, explaining how important physical skills are, regarding the GCSE syllabus and acting skills in general. Scarlett then demonstrated lots of different ways of embodying the elements with physical skills, and opened discussion within our year group, enabling us to contribute our ideas on how we might interpret elements of physicality. We were able to explore these ideas and eventually attach these physical skills to human qualities and emotions. This workshop was extremely interesting and beneficial because I learnt so much and going into the future, I will be able to relate lots of different physical skills to different characteristics and emotions, which I may not have been able to connect prior to this workshop. Hope Black (UIV)

Downe House Magazine

DRAMA & DANCE

Scholars’ Workshop WATERMILL SCHOLARS’ WORKSHOP In March, we had the pleasure of virtually welcoming Laura Keefe, a freelance director, to do an online workshop with us. To begin we shared our ideas as to what makes a Director. Following this, we looked at a script titled, Remote. However, we were not given any context to the piece regarding the characters, relationships or the setting. Throughout the workshop, we each individually started to form our own characters for the script and our own settings. Towards the end of the workshop Miss Keefe chose one of our group’s ideas and asked them to cast a pair to read the script. Marina and I were chosen to portray a grandmother and granddaughter. We performed the script with the chosen group’s advice and ideas. After having performed we received feedback and concluded with a recap of what we had covered. Overall, it was a great workshop and an incredible way to open our eyes to the exciting world of directing! Lauren Akinluyi (UV)

PAPER BIRDS SCHOLARS’ WORKSHOP In February, the Downe House Drama department organised for The Paper Birds company to do a workshop with all the Drama scholars. The Paper Birds are a devising theatre company that have a social and political agenda and are recognised as UK leaders in verbatim theatre. Their primary vision is to provoke change, as through acting they can help people think about themselves in new ways and help them connect to other people’s lives and empathise with their experience.   It was a wonderful evening where all the scholars from different years worked together to devise a short piece of work in only two hours. One would have thought that acting through a screen would have been challenging and isolating but it was quite the opposite. We created short pieces about our experiences in lockdown combining our own text with movement.   I had an amazing time learning with everyone and creating content that we were all proud of. It was a fantastic way to relax during these stressful times and understand the techniques that The Paper Birds company use in the making of their original devised theatre. Everybody brought such great energy to the workshop and left feeling truly inspired.   Clementine McNair Scott (UVI)

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Musical Theatre Director in Residence: Mr Ben Sell This year we were joined by our new Musical Theatre Director in Residence Mr Ben Sell, who brought with him an amazing insight into the professional industry as well as being able to teach the girls how to dance in high heels! Over the course of the Michaelmas term, Mr Sell spearheaded our Downe House: Inspired programme of events which included a variety of West End workshops for each year group. In these session pupils were able to work with West End professionals and learnt both song and choreography from West End productions like Kinky Boots, Hairspray and Chicago. As well as these fantastic workshops Mr Sell also organised and orchestrated two fantastic, panelled events: Diversity in Theatre and Theatre Makers of the Future. During both events pupils were given the fantastic opportunity to hear from theatrical experts, as well as being able to ask questions and join discussions. These were highly interesting events that gave us all a lot of food for thought.

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DRAMA & DANCE

West End Workshops

Throughout October 2020 the girls were given the opportunity to take part in a range of workshops, hosted by industry professionals and based around some of the biggest shows to hit the stage!

KINKY BOOTS We got our high heels ready to strut our stuff in the Kinky Boots workshop, led by Mr Sell who was actually part of the West End cast in 2016. As an ensemble, we recreated the iconic routine to the finale song Raise You Up/Just Be, letting our inner drag queens out. As someone with absolutely zero dance or high heel experience, I was pretty sure I would make a fool of myself and end up flat on my face! Surprisingly, that didn’t happen thanks to Mr Sell’s excellent coaching and encouragement. Ellen (Nellie) Gawne (UVI)

CHICAGO We were lucky enough to be joined by Josh Donovan for a Chicago Workshop. Josh has worked around the world in various productions such as Peter Pan, We Will Rock You, Flash Dance and Grease. This workshop was really needed to brighten our spirits after our school production of Chicago was cancelled due to Covid. We learnt the iconic original routine to All That Jazz by the legendary Bob Fosse. There were parts of the number that called on us to create our own dance moves utilising the skills and moves that Josh taught us. My personal favourite was a ‘Pippin’! Ellen (Nellie) Gawne (UVI)

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MADE IN DAGENHAM The Lower Fifth GCSE drama students and I were fortunate enough to take part in a workshop on the musical, Made in Dagenham. The musical takes place in Essex in 1968, following the true story of women working in the stitching room at Ford’s Dagenham car plant, having to fight to prevent their pay grade from being dropped unfairly. The British musical is beloved and highlights an inspiring, important story which is why the Lower Fifth were extremely excited to get involved. Miss Emily Squibb, a graduate from Laine Theatre Arts and one of Made in Dagenham’s very own cast members, used her first-hand knowledge on the show to lead the workshop and enabled us to be taught by someone with professional and sizeable experience. Miss Squibb began by guiding us in a tough, fast paced but energizing warm up which we were not anticipating but it enlivened us and prepared us for the evening ahead. After we made it through the warm up, we were given a scene from the musical between two contrasting characters, Rita and Lisa. Rita being more of an extrovert and Lisa an introvert. In pairs, we practiced the short scene before performing in front of the rest of the group. Miss Squibb gave us feedback each time on what was successful and what she thought could be improved. It was interesting to see how each pair interpreted scene. Also, it was incredibly useful and rare to receive comments from an actor who worked on the official musical, hearing her take on how we portrayed the characters in this short scene.

After receiving the improvements, we rehearsed the scene several times in order to take on board Miss Squibb’s feedback. Then, we had the opportunity to ask Miss Squibb questions, covering anything about the industry. So many questions were asked as each girl was fascinated with Miss Squibb’s unique career. The questions ranged from auditioning for productions to who was the most famous person Miss Squibb had worked with or seen! Overall, everyone left with a greater understanding for the performing arts industry. To finish off the workshop, Miss Squibb taught us a dance number from Made in Dagenham. It was enjoyable to learn a routine performed in such a credible musical like this one and although not everyone was a dancer, this opportunity will not be forgotten as the upbeat routine was so exciting to learn. Being taught by a professional granted the Lower Fifth a unique experience to get a glimpse of what it is like working on a Musical. My favourite part was learning the dance routine, as not only was the process very fun and informative, but just performing the choreography to ourselves in the performing arts centre gave me an uplifting and proud feeling that I am sure everyone else felt too. The musical, which surrounded female empowerment, allowed us to become even more intrigued by the dialogue and choreography we were taught due to the story’s true and motivating message. We feel so lucky to have partaken in this workshop and especially lucky to have met and spent time with such an achieved actor as Miss Squibb. Claudia Pope (LV)

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DRAMA & DANCE

MATILDA I was fortunate to take part in the amazing virtual Musical theatre workshop of Matilda the Musical! It was run by Miss Emily Squibb who was in the international tour of Matilda the Musical in 2020 and many other incredible West End productions such as Young Frankenstein and The Wizard of Oz. The workshop consisted of learning the original choreography from the number Revolting Children which is a very lively routine in Matilda, and a Q&A with Miss Squibb about what it’s like being a West End Performer. I loved how energetic the routine was and it was packed with really fun moves that I had never done before. My favourite part was singing along to the song in the number when we ran the routine through with the music. It was lovely to get an insight into what choreography can be like in musicals and it was cool being able to learn the routine I had seen on the West End stage.   After learning the routine, we asked Miss Squibb any questions we had about performing. It was very inspiring hearing about her performing journey, and I learnt lots of new things about the industry. We found out about how often she trains, how to deal with setbacks, why she has such a love for performing, what has been her favourite role and more! No one left the workshop without a big smile. I would really recommend anyone to go to a musical theatre workshop in the future as it was an amazing evening and one of my biggest highlights of lockdown. Maria Taraban (LIV)

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SIX I was lucky enough to be a part of the Six workshop run by Miss Grace Mouat who was an original understudy for every Queen in Six the Musical. I had not seen the play when I attended the workshop but was familiar with the iconic songs (partly from Tik Tok notoriety!) and was incredibly excited! We first learnt the dance to the titular song Six, it was catchy, energetic and empowering, which was showcased on the School Twitter in which I think we looked like real professionals! We still had time afterwards and Miss Mouat taught us part of No Way which was a ‘Beyoncé esque’ ballad and made us all feel incredibly sassy and powerful! The environment was so fun and friendly, and we were all able to let loose and go for it with our friends. We had a Q&A with Miss Mouat afterwards in which we got inside details about her life on tour, crazy last-minute performances and how she got into acting and musical theatre which was really helpful and interesting. I had the most amazing time and for around two weeks afterwards my friends and I were sporadically doing the dances and could not get the songs out of our heads! Tilly Gibbens (LVI)

DRAMA & DANCE Downe House Magazine

DRAMA & DANCE

Speech and Drama It was an unexpected and colourful year, much like the speech and drama lessons on offer. I was welcomed quickly into a new environment of Speech and Drama and the lessons were a wonderful opportunity for me to increase my dramatic confidence while making heaps of friends. Online lessons in Lent were a mix of giggles and Drama games which gave my group the freedom to practice our physical and vocal skills. Upon returning in Summer term, we narrowed our focus and began blocking and discussing our pieces. As a result of Covid, the year’s exams were turned on their head, which meant switching groups and solo exams. Performing in front of the camera was a little nerveracking but the exam quickly sped by, and I had a lovely member of the Drama department to help me with any queries! Although Speech and Drama has been unusual, I am eager to do more, hopefully not in Covid circumstances! Iris Owen (UIV)

The resilience and hard work of everyone involved in Speech and Drama lessons has certainly been proved. With most of the school community back on site for Michaelmas, we all welcomed a return to in-person lessons, as a contrast to most of the previous school year. Personally, face-to-face lessons provided an opportunity to work more with physical presence and movement; the combination of this with developing vocal skills allowed me to expand my love for Speech and Drama. Although there were some interruptions here and there, and online lessons unfortunately became necessary again in Lent, I found that the creativity of the department meant that teaching could move somewhat seamlessly online. Having said this, I certainly do not miss the impaired acoustics of my bedroom in comparison with the Performing Arts Centre! All exams took place online. Although this certainly was unprecedented, and daunting at first, it provided new challenges and ways of conveying the meaning of a piece. Moreover, the virtual nature of these exams did not deter any students; with RADA Shakespeare Awards and Trinity College London exams both taking place in Lent, we were certainly not deprived of opportunities to show our hard work. Thinking back on the past year, I am struck not only by the persistence of the Speech and Drama department throughout every challenge, but also the joy and delight imparted on every pupil involved. Louisa Graves (LVI)

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I had a busy year preparing for my Speech and Drama exam, but it was definitely worth it in the end as I was very pleased with my results. Unfortunately, the Lent term lockdown meant I had to do my Speech and Drama lessons online, but that did not change anything about the structure of the lessons, as I still got the chance to carryout lots of performances to the class. I got a lot of freedom while choosing my exam piece, which meant I could find a piece which would showcase my acting abilities. Eventually, I settled on a monologue, along with an improvisation and an original piece which I wrote. I received lots of direct feedback from my teacher and piers which helped me polish my pieces and make improvements which I may not have spotted on my own. As a result of the Covid regulations, I was not allowed to do my Speech and Drama exam live in front of the examiner, so it was recorded instead. I went over my lines until I was certain I had everything memorised. When the exam came, I went in feeling prepared. I got lots of time pre-exam to rehearse all my pieces and reflection questions. Then it was time to hit record and get into character. It did not feel any different recording it on camera and I managed to get through the exam with a big smile on my face. I had a positive experience with my Speech and Drama exam, and I am looking forward for next year’s lessons. Rosamund Harris (LIV)

I had Speech and Drama for the whole Upper Fourth term. It was lovely and very inspiring. My group had several teachers and finally joined another group due to the lack of people. Michaelmas term was fun. It was mainly about drama games and getting to know everyone in the group. It is designed to be an environment where you are free to present yourself as well as relax. We developed various acting skills and improvisation skills through activities and games in class. We started the online lessons after Christmas because of lockdown. Preparing for the Trinity grade four acting online was hard. We memorized pieces and rehearsed them. Learning pieces was not a tricky thing for me. However, I had no clue about acting out the works.

DRAMA & DANCE I admit I was slightly frustrated, for I was online thus had no one to physically demonstrate and instruct. Still, the teacher and even my group encouraged me and helped me to achieve my best during and after the Teams lessons. I would not have done well in the exam without their help. Trinity exam sounds scary, but it is simply going through everything you prepared in front of a camera. We were back to school, but due to Covid, no examiners were present. This made me feel better during the recording. It was similar to rehearsing my piece but in a much bigger space. It was not as impossible as I thought it would be. Everything was fine as long as you learnt your pieces. For the two weeks waiting for our results, we did more improvisation activities and went through the further choices of Speech and Drama in Lower Fifth. The lessons of Speech and Drama in Upper Fourth even helped me in various fields other than drama. I feel more confident on stage, conducting a debate, performing a piece and I even feel less nervous when talking to strangers. It is an exciting option if you are keen to discover your potentials. Keren Feng (UIV)

It was quite an odd year. Part of my Speech and Drama lessons were online, and some were in person. From the end of the first term, I had been working towards my Drama exam. I had chosen my pieces and practised them a bit, but then we went into lockdown. Online lessons were tough. They were hard because we could not really do much to help one another. The experience being online was not the same as what it felt like being face to face. As we surged through another term my drama exam was coming right round the corner. I practised lots in the half term and in the holidays. Because we were now having face to face lessons it made it a lot easier to work on my pieces with my teacher.

the words tumbling out of my mouth, and I was no longer nervous! I felt energetic, like a firework. I was exhilarated throughout my pieces. When I finished my exam, it felt amazing. After a tough strange year, I had done it. Eimear Planner (Remove)

Taking the Trinity Speech and Drama exam was certainly different, in preparation for the exam, similarly to most, rehearsal was crucial. However, due to the situation we moved to online learning and rehearsals were virtual. Although, virtual online rehearsal lessons do not sound as exciting or interactive as in person lessons, I found there were quite a few benefits to digital learning. A few of my favourites were how online learning forced me to further develop my eye contact and become more aware of how I position my body within the camera frame, as the teacher or examiner are not in the room with you. So, what they see directly through the screen is only what you allow them to see. Meaning, if your focus point is too high above the camera your teacher or examiner sees more of your neck than your face, therefore, understanding the space around you and putting yourself in a better position to be seen and heard, to the best of your ability was a useful skill to perfect. Additionally, my Trinity exam had to be filmed from home, and what I found most difficult was probably the loss of the newfound community you get with the other girls waiting for their upcoming exam. At home it was just me and my laptop! However, I enjoyed the different format of the exams. I was able to do multiple takes, watch myself back, perfect what I thought I could do better and improved my acting overall. Ultimately, although it was an experience that would have been unthinkable previously, the process was enlightening and beneficial to my learning as a whole. Celine Ibori (LVI)

My teacher really helped me to develop and progress my pieces. After weeks of learning and practising my pieces, I was ready. I stepped in front of the camera and started to introduce my first piece. I was very nervous. My heart was thumping like mad. I started my poem,

Downe House Magazine

DRAMA & DANCE

Drama and Dance

Outreach DH DRAMA AND DANCE PROGRAMME During the period of online learning in the Lent term, we were delighted to host a programme of Dance and Drama classes for primary and prep schools. This programme consisted of weekly live streamed Dance classes lead by our Head of Dance, Miss Olivia Ward, as well as a fabulous series of recorded Drama lessons which our Geraldine James Drama Scholars developed and taught. The live streamed Dance classes went down tremendously well, with over 100 pupils tuning in each week from over 20 different schools. The classes focused on having fun and were accessible for all abilities, a particular favourite of mine was the very energetic routine to You Can’t Stop the Beat from Hairspray! Our Lower Sixth Geraldine James Scholars, Lyla Elichaoff, Alice Pernthaller and Marina Pownall did an outstanding job of creating a highly creative and

Our Year 2020-21

engaging set of Drama classes. Lyla created a brilliant Drama lesson for infant students, where they learned lots of entertaining tongue twisters and had fun becoming different animals on the farm. Alice and Marina developed junior Drama lessons on the topic of Roald Dahl’s novel, Matilda. In Marina’s class she taught the pupils how to bring the characters from the story to life vocally, and in Alice’s lesson they explored the characters physically. Both lessons were imaginative and effectively taught the students a range of performance skills whilst also keeping them fun and engaging at all times. We were delighted that all other Drama Scholars were able to get involved in this project too by playing the role of the students in the classes and expertly demonstrated the different activities. My personal favourite moment was Hope Black’s (UIV) rendition of the Hokey Cokey!

DRAMA & DANCE

“I WAS SO DELIGHTED TO SEE HOW PASSIONATE EVERYONE INVOLVED WAS ABOUT THIS PROJECT. THEY ALL WORKED SO HARD TO MAKE SURE THE CLASSES WERE CREATED QUICKLY SO THEY COULD BE OF USE FOR PUPILS DURING THE PERIOD OF HOME LEARNING.” Miss Alice O’Sullivan, Assistant Director of Dance and Drama

I was so delighted to see how passionate everyone involved was about this project. They all worked so hard to make sure the classes were created quickly so they could be of use for pupils during the period of home learning. The quality of the work produced was outstanding and reflected their passion for the project as well as their undeniable talents as both performers and teachers! I would like to offer my congratulations to all the scholars for producing such inspiring Drama classes and to Miss Ward for getting so many pupils up and dancing during a time when movement and creativity were needed more than ever! Miss Alice O’Sullivan, Assistant Director of Dance and Drama

Throughout February and March 2020, I had the absolute pleasure of delivering live online Dance workshops to prep and primary school children across the country. Initially, the workshops were aimed at local primary schools and partnership prep schools but once word started to spread, we even had primary school children from as far as Wales tuning in! The workshops were created to get children of all ages dancing to fun, upbeat music from the comfort of their own homes. Parents, guardians and siblings were also encouraged to join in, so they acted as a fun family activity which everyone could participate in. Across the four weeks, we shimmied to the sounds of Hairspray, bopped to the beats of Bruno Mars and twisted to the rhythms of the Trolls soundtrack. I am thrilled to have been able to offer such an exciting opportunity during a difficult period of time and I am very much looking forward to inviting the children who took part to School to dance in person in the very near future!   Miss Olivia Ward, Head of Extra-Curricular Dance

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DRAMA & DANCE

At the start of the Lent term, the Drama Scholars collaborated on a series of four pre-recorded Drama lessons for children in primary and prep schools. Miss O’Sullivan and Lyla Elichaoff created lessons aimed at 4 to 7-year-olds, and Marina Pownall and I created lessons for 8 to 11-year-olds. For the Junior lessons, Marina and I drew on Roald Dahl’s Matilda to teach the children how to use their physical and vocal performance skills to create a character. After a fun warm-up, I described characters from the book, including Matilda, Miss Trunchbull and Bruce Bogtrotter, and explained how the students could use their facial expressions, posture, gestures and other skills to create the characters. As a final activity, I created a number of scenarios for the children to reimagine their characters in, including the floor being lava and having to eat a huge cake. Marina focused on the vocal side of acting and similarly used different character examples to teach the children how to use their vocal performance skills. Throughout these lessons, the Lower and Upper School Drama scholars recorded examples of each of the activities so the children could see the tasks in action. This was very helpful because it gave the children an idea of how to approach the exercise and created a sense of community among the scholars. Teaching Drama to pupils was a new experience for me, and I really enjoyed it. The project boosted my confidence and improved my communication skills as I had to convey information simply and effectively. I was very impressed with the end result of the four lessons, and I hope the children had as much fun doing them as we did creating them! Alice Pernthaller (LVI)

JACK FARNELL WORKSHOP We were given the incredible opportunity to take part in an online dance workshop by Jack Farnell in March 2021. I was not sure what to expect, thinking it would be more of a lecture on choreography, but I was so wrong! We started off with a warm up: jumping jacks and deep pliés, before getting into the actual dancing. It was so great seeing how someone else’s mind worked and learning a different dance style from that which perhaps we are used to. The dance itself had elements of both softer, slower movements, as well as powerful and fast ones, to make an enjoyable and varied dance. Even now I find myself wanting to do it over and over again, and wanted to learn the rest of it, to finish the song. We danced to Turning Tables by Adele, and the slower pace of the song really allowed us to use expression and make all our movements explosive and big to fill the time. At the end of the segment there were a few beats where we were encouraged to finish the piece as we saw fit. This not only gave us the opportunity to explore our own musicality and choreography, but also see how the other dancers interpreted the music and the dance. As a more balletic contemporary dancer, I am always amazed at how hip-hop dancers move, and seeing some people incorporate a hip-hop style into an otherwise contemporary piece showed the versatility of dance, and how it really is so unique and individual to each person’s dance style. I look forward to more opportunities like this one, to learn someone else’s choreography and to really broaden our experience of dance to incorporate other people’s ideas of how the music can be made into dance.   Amelia Rosling (LVI)

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“I WAS VERY EXCITED TO BE INVOLVED IN THE PROJECT AS GIVING BACK TO THE COMMUNITY IN A MEANINGFUL WAY IS TREMENDOUSLY IMPORTANT TO ME.” Alice Pernthaller (LVI)

Sport

‘This period of reflection allowed us to highlight those areas of sport we love friendship, competitiveness, hard work and fun!’

SPORT

The Sporting Year CRICKET

Cricket at Downe House has continued to go from strength to strength since the introduction of both hard and soft ball game formats in 2018. Throughout the year we saw lots of development across all year groups as well as huge investment into a new Flixc Cricket wicket. This afforded us the ability to play both home and away games every week and gave the girls a chance to put into practice the skills they have been working on. This season the Remove through to Lower Sixth enjoyed several competitive soft ball T20 games, including some very exciting and close matches against Bradfield, St Helen and St Katharine and Wycombe Abbey. Several year groups also faced the daunting prospect of hard balls games against Bradfield and St Edwards. The most notable performance of the season came from the U15 Cricket Team that narrowly missed out on the place in the knockout stages of the Schools Cup Cricket Tournament. They faced some extremely challenging opposition in a tiring day of three T20 hard ball games. These included Oxford High, St Edwards, St Helen and St Katharine (SHSK). The girls played incredibly well, ending the long day with a well-deserved win against SHSK. Ella Snow was the player of the day, taking a hattrick in her final over of the day. Cecelia Stone and Emelie Booth also put in some impressive batting performances on the green, even when facing some bowlers who open for their club teams and can reach speeds of 60mph! This, alongside other impressive wins over the course of the season really did round off another great sporting summer for Cricket. Fingers crossed for even more success next year! Miss Tash Bott, Head of Cricket

VOLLEYBALL Interest in Volleyball continues to rise and has been ably led by our captain, Hoi Yiu (Danna) Cheung, who ran most of the coaching sessions throughout the year, bringing her expertise as a British U19 squad player to Downe – just brilliant! We were not able to play any external fixtures but the dedicated cohort who continued from Michaelmas into the Summer term improved their individual skills and were able to play social matches between year groups. Covid did not dampen our enthusiasm! In the summer, we played outdoors on the grass, countering the effects of the sun and wind, and enjoyed the social interaction and camaraderie of this sport. A vibrant and internationally diverse group, we look forward to welcoming new members to our club when we reconvene and hopefully, we will convince some schools to join us for fixtures. Mrs Nicola Riddle, Teacher of PE

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SWIMMING With no external matches happening, we had to adapt in swimming. The beginning of term saw two internal matches for the Remove and Lower Fourth pupils. Girls from A, B, C and D teams took part with 11 personal best times in the Remove Gala and 17 personal best times in the Lower Fourth event. In November we began a round of virtual galas with Wycombe Abbey, Benenden and Pipers Corner. Each school ran their own gala internally and the times were entered on a central results programme. This proved very successful with a large number of girls taking part, including one swimming in her home pool in China! Well done to all girls who managed to keep their fitness level up during a difficult year. Many thanks to the outgoing captains Emilia Shippey and Morgan Kandrac for their fantastic support during their time at Downe House. Mrs Paula Machin, Head of Swimming

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SPORT

ATHLETICS Sports Day was a huge success this year with spirits high and everybody trying their hardest to win points for their houses. Throughout the prior weeks, we were all able to practice our events during our sports lessons, and it was great to see this high standard, along with competitiveness and encouragement being reflected on the day. It gave the opportunity for everyone in all the houses to get involved, and parents were able to come and support too. In the end, Holcombe was the winning house, and many Sports Day records were broken, which made it a hugely successful day. Honor Neville (LVI)

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TENNIS The Tennis programme had a successful summer of friendly fixtures versus surrounding schools. We finished the term above our target, winning 68% of our matches across the year groups! Unfortunately, due to Covid, our official LTA fixtures were cancelled. However, next term we aim to progress through to the finals of the Winter Nationals held in Bolton, after our Senior First Team won their first fixture against St Mary’s Ascot. On a School level, the tennis programme continues to thrive with more and more girls taking private lessons throughout the week. Mr Joshua Goodall, Head of Racquet Sports

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NETBALL Courts filled with Netball, music blasting and year groups enjoying time together in the sunshine. The interruption to the usual Saturday and Wednesday fixtures against other schools allowed a unique opportunity for everyone to enjoy being on court and focus on playing sport for the love of it. The Lower School were organised into mixed ability teams and played in a weekly league; it was fantastic to see the girls supporting each other on court. The seniors were split into year groups enabling them to play Netball within their bubble and have some more normal moments in their week. Netball Captains, Rose Whitbread and Rosalind Wippell, kept the motivation high and our ever positive Upper Sixth remained as dedicated as ever through to the final weekend. As we headed back into online learning, Netball sessions were focused on fast feet and control, we bounced our way over any available objects, such as pencils and cereal boxes in our homes. As restrictions eased it was a relief to be back on court so we could finish our Netball season with full match play. Miss Laura Vickery, Head of Netball

HOCKEY Yes, it was a tricky year for fixtures but Hockey went on with online skills in lockdown over MS Teams and when able, we managed some summer hockey on the astro. However, if you could bottle up the season’s matches into one defining game, it was played at the end of June. The 1st XI who continued to meet and play in summer had one match against the Newbury Thatcham Hockey Club U16s. Because we had not played a match for some time, everyone was in for this one; even those who went home for study leave came back to play! The Newbury Club managed a few more games in the build-up and were proud of only losing one game up until then, so they were fired up for victory. The game was simply electric. The skill, energy and commitment were outstanding from both teams. It was fast paced and end to end hockey. You would not have believed either team had most of the season off. Most importantly, it was played in a competitive but super friendly manner, with both teams coming away on an absolute high. Six months on, the club players still talk about ‘that game’ at Downe House and no one cared it was a 3-2 win to Downe. It was a fitting farewell to much respected coach, Mr Elliot, who was moving on to pastures new, as he has given many an extra hour to train the girls. May the 2021-22 season be as equally good throughout as this game. Mr Tony Riddle, Teacher of PE Downe House Magazine

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Sport Scholars

The past year was disrupted with multiple lockdowns and being unable to train as a collective group, even when we returned to site. The girls continued to work hard at home but after months of online workouts, video sessions and solo practice the Scholars had to dig deep, set new goals and plan for the future to really keep motivated. This period of reflection allowed us to highlight those areas of sport we love - friendship, competitiveness, hard work and fun! Whilst at home, the Scholars engaged with podcasts, films, documentaries, lectures and books to expand their sporting knowledge and learn about many different facets that make up sport. Some highlights included having professional lacrosse players join our lessons, listening to talks from industry experts, professional players, and hearing stories of setbacks, come backs, and success. The girls had the chance to host online talks, ask questions and pick the brains of some incredible individuals who gave up their time to join our online community - a big thank you to them! I felt so lucky when we returned to School and when life started to feel a little more normal. In the past year, the girls have shown such mental strength and I have been inspired by the way in which they have adapted and continued to make the most of the opportunities that were offered to them. At times, they really kept me going too and our virtual Friday morning fitness put me in a great mood for the rest of the day - it quickly become one of my favourite parts of the week and I know we had many parents, siblings and pets joining off camera too! But I was happy to see them in person, be able to have proper conversations and train together once again. The Scholars also had the chance to resume training off site with their clubs, counties and countries and I know this will provide further motivation for those who have missed the competitive element of sport!

Annabel

Cecilia

Ella

Emily

Georgina

Iona

Isabelle

Natalie

Olivia

Poppy

Sports Day was a wonderful celebration of the hard work over lockdown and at School. This prolonged period of training taught them a lot about resilience and motivation, and I know this will make us better athletes going forward. As we close another academic year, I want to say a massive well done to our Scholars and a fond farewell to those who are leaving us; Susanna Brooke, Francesca Rhodes, Emelia Shippey, Jemima Landale, Alessandra Tydeman and Alexandra Witter. Thank you for your many years of dedication and commitment to School sport. We wish you the best of luck for the future and hope that you keep in touch. Hopefully, we can welcome you back in the future for lectures, workshops and alumnae matches! Miss Katherine Quarterman, Assistant Director of Sport (Performance)

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Susanna

SPORT A number of our Sport Scholars tackled important issues and discussions within Sport through the ‘Sideline View’. The short video series included discussions regarding the Russian doping scandal and gender stereotypes in Sport, to the importance of nutrition and hydration on performance and the mental health benefits of Sport. Each pupil selected the topic that they believed was important to explore and share with their team members and the wider community, and researched and presented these important subject matters. Although we were unable to be together due to Covid restrictions, these videos enabled everyone to come together to share ideas and broach these important topics.

Concussion in Sport

Gender stereotypes in Sport

Mental health benefits of Sport

Importance of nutrition and hydration on performance

Russian doping scandal in Sport

“EACH PUPIL SELECTED THE TOPIC THAT THEY BELIEVED WAS IMPORTANT TO EXPLORE” Downe House Magazine

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Sports Day This year Founder’s Day commenced with a Sports Day, a morning of track and field events in which every girl in the School had the opportunity to take part and compete for their House. House spirit was strong (and loud!) and every event was robustly contested with the overall winner being Holcombe House.

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Winter Sports Week

It was not just the girls on campus who got involved in Winter Sports Week, but our digital learners were also submitting House fitness challenges, the staff were upping their step counts and recording their 3km times, and families were running their own 3km races too.

Each House had plenty to celebrate – Aisholt placed first in cheerleading, Holcombe won Lower Fourth lacrosse, AGN won Upper Fourth hockey, Tedworth won the Intermediate Cup for cycling and AGS won Lower Sixth Just Dance. In the families and staff events, Aisholt won the Housestaff step count competition, Mrs Ford won the Leadership Team step count challenge and AGN won the Families 3km Run. Winter Sports Week became something bigger and better than previous years, bringing the whole community together across more events than ever! “Winter Sports Week was a key highlight of everyone’s term, as it was not only our first inter-House event but it was also a lot of fun. It was so great to see all the House colours and teamwork going on as well as trying new positions when we didn’t necessarily have enough people. It was also fantastic to see the on-line learners getting involved with their House fitness tasks, which all added to their House’s points to decide a winner. One of my favourite parts was seeing how everyone was supporting each other (especially in cross country!) and everyone showed such great sportsmanship whilst even pushing people in other Houses to do their best. The sports pitches were completely flooded with everyone in their House-coloured clothes as well as the netball courts being covered with pom-poms from the Remove cheerleading!

This was definitely my favourite part of the term and I think we all especially enjoyed the donut races in the pool! The captains all did an incredible job of leading their teams, especially getting all of the positions ready in time, and everyone did so well and played their hardest!

“The Saturday of Winter Sports Week was such a fun event for everyone. Each House was involved in some competitive netball and lacrosse matches. It was great to see everyone try their best to win each match for their House. We played against every House and there were some really tight games. It was really fun dressing up for my House and seeing everyone wear wigs and skirts in their House colours. It was really sad that we couldn’t finish it as I was really looking forward to it. But I’m excited for next term and all the new sporting activities.”

Louisa Burges Watson (Remove)

India Evans (LIV)

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Emilia Finney and Cecilia Stone (LV) wrote a poem to document their Winter Sports Week 2020!

As December came rushing in It was time for W inter Sports Day to begin With endless even ts planned out All the Houses be gan to shout The lacrosse was the first to take pla ce With all five Hous es competing in th e chase With much team spirit and lots of fun In the end, Tedwor th won After, players ran to the squash cour ts To commence the second of the spor ts From seed one to seed six, everyone put up a fight Tedworth won ag ain, to their delight Following this the cycling crew Quickly, headed do wn to the Concer t Room Six minutes straig ht pedaling hard to win AGN won, leaving with a grin Swimming was th e last of the day The one with the most enthusiasm, we would say Congratulations to AGS, who came ou t on top But the Winter Sp orts fun was yet to stop Cross country wa s the last event be fore we had to go Staggered starts because breaking bu bbles was a no A great effort comp leted by everyone But, AGN came ou t and won the run! There are still virtu al challenges takin g place So, the title of the champions is still a race Thank you to ever yone involved with ma king it great We are all excited for the results so we can’t wait!

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Return of Lacrosse Championship To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Downe House’s first National Schools’ Lacrosse Championship title win, Miss Charlotte Williams (Assistant Director of Sport – Competitive Sport & Fixtures) organised an Alumnae vs Downe House lacrosse match – a brilliant game in which the DH Alumnae stole the victory by one goal after a closely fought match! It was a wonderful opportunity to bring together alumnae spanning across the decades – five to be precise – united by one common passion – lacrosse! Four players from the historic 2001 winning team played – Tamara Gall (DH 2001), Charlotte Williams (DH 2001), Anna Glasswell (Brooksbank DH 2003), Annabel Simpson (Norris DH 2003), and no less than nine Downe House School Lacrosse Captains were present, some still playing internationals and others who needed to borrow sticks. The game was incredibly close and oozed the grit, determination, athleticism and competitiveness that Downe House is renowned for.

“Thank you so much for organising Sunday’s match! I had the most incredible time and loved getting to know the older alumnae.” Anna Neville (DH 2020)

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“As I stood waiting to greet everyone at the main gate, I wondered if I would recognise everyone and if they would recognise me. I didn’t have to wait long to realise that everyone looked exactly the same as they did when they left School! It was wonderful to have so many socially distanced spectators line the sides of the pitches; current girls and staff but also the alumnae families – including husbands, children, parents and grandparents. Many had never seen a lacrosse match before, others were reliving standing on the side in the horizontal rain in years gone by. I can’t remember the last time I played in front of a crowd! To my delight Mr and Mrs Gall brought an amazing picnic just like the good old days! After the match there was a lot of time spent reminiscing and hearing about all the exciting adventures everyone has been up to since they left.” Miss Charlotte Williams, Assistant Director of Sport – Competitive Sport & Fixtures

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Founder’s Weekend

‘Bringing the Downe House community together.’

FOUNDER’S WEEKEND Always a special moment in the Downe House calendar, this year’s Founder’s Weekend was of particular importance as a time to come together and celebrate all that has been achieved in this extraordinary year, as well as showcasing exceptional talent in Drama, Dance, Music and Creative Arts. Most of the events were live streamed to share with parents and alumnae around the world and an art gallery was created on the Downe House website to share the most outstanding art, product design, photography and textiles creations from all the year groups. The weekend started with an uplifting and joyful Founder’s Service of music and prayer live-streamed from the campus with an address by the Reverend Liz Jackson, the new Associate Archdeacon of Berkshire in the Oxford diocese on this term’s Chapel theme of ‘Love and Service’.

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Founder’s Family Day

MUSIC WAS ALIVE! AT FOUNDER’S WEEKEND Music is always a huge part of our Founder’s Weekend celebrations, and this year was no exception. Over 130 girls were involved in music events through the weekend – not even a pandemic can stop us! Our musicians excelled in a spectacular variety of performances during the afternoon of Founder’s Family Day. The Cloisters was the perfect venue for the Samba Band and Once Removed to perform live outdoors in the sunshine, whilst organ music from the Chapel (Pulling Out The Stops) and a Music ALIVE! Concert, featuring a selection of small ensembles and soloists, was brought to the audience from the Farr Centre via the Founder’s Festival screen. The musical day concluded with wonderful performances outside the Murray Centre from our bubble ensembles. On the Sunday, after four weeks of dedicated rehearsals, Jazz Band gave a stunning performance as part of Founder’s Girls’ Day. Despite the changeable weather, they gave a phenomenal concert of two sets which featured funk, Latin, rock and jazz standards! Jazz Band have certainly raised the bar and preparations are already underway for next year where will be back bigger and better! Bravo! to all our ensembles, soloists, choirs, band members and the Chapel organists. Mr George Picker, Head of Upper School Music

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PREMIERE OF PULLING OUT THE STOPS On the Saturday afternoon of Founder’s Weekend, as families sat enjoying the sun in the cloisters, the Music department premiered Pulling Out All The Stops. This concert consisted of three of our very talented organists – Jiayi (Lower Sixth), Antonia (Lower Sixth) and Alexandra (Upper Sixth). The organ music poured out from the Chapel, and the audience could view the girls on the fantastic big screen. We were treated to a varied programme of Sigfrid Kart-Elert, Gordon Young and Elgar. It was wonderful to hear some organ music, and we hope this showcase event will return in future years!

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MULAN - DANCE PERFORMANCE To celebrate Founder’s Day, the Dance Company and Academy performed Mulan, put together by Miss Ward and Mr Brown, with choreography by Mr Stakim. As the story goes, Mulan runs away from home and joins the army to protect her father, so he would not be drafted, since he already fought and was injured in a previous war. Mulan must disguise herself as a man when she reaches the training camp due to women being forbidden to join the army. Mulan trains before she faces the Hun Army and their leader, Shan Yu. Along the way, her identity is discovered, she is injured, and finally manages to defeat Shan Yu. Her bravery and courage is recognised by the Emperor, along with the whole of China. The show had its fair share of Covid complications, however it was nothing we were unable to work around, with some creative problem-solving skills. When it came to communicating the storyline of the performance, since we could not share the dance studio, let alone

the stage, with other year groups, we filmed parts of the show outdoors in the woods. We filmed the beginning, Mulan’s transformation, and the ‘preparing for battle’ scenes between Mulan and the imperial army, played by myself and the Lower Sixth Dance Company, and Shan Yu and his army of Huns, played by Louisa Healey and the Lower Fifth Dance Company. The rest of the dancers from the Dance Academy played the villagers and soldiers training as part of the Imperial Army. The rehearsals were always fun, as dance always is, and although some were tough, they were very much worth it. The tech and dress rehearsals were the only full run throughs where everyone came together. The dancers learnt choreography online and worked hard to remember it all throughout lockdown. I am really proud of how the show turned out and everyone who was part of it. As it was the last Founder’s Weekend show for the Lower Sixth, it really was one to remember and I am so grateful to have been able to play the part of Mulan. A massive thank you goes to Miss Ward, for making this all possible and for what seemed effortless, adapting the show in these complicated times and making sure we still had a show to put on. Gwyneth Choi (LVI)

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BLUE STOCKINGS - LOWER FIFTH PRODUCTION Set in 1896, Girton College, Cambridge, is the first college in Britain to admit women into the educational institution. The Girton girls study ferociously and match their male peers grade for grade. However, after all their hard work, upon graduation the male students are awarded with a diploma, whilst the female students are denied their qualifications and are tarnished with being a ‘blue stocking’. The stigma of being an unnatural creation – an educated woman! They are forced to return home unqualified and unmarriageable. Tess Moffat and her fellow first years are determined to stare down the injustice and win their right to graduate. They must face many hurdles along the way, from distractions of love to the cruelty of the class divide. As well as the strength of the opposition, who will do anything to stop them. The play follows the characters as they embark on a tumultuous academic year and their fight to change the future of education for themselves and all women...forever. When I first read Blue Stockings, I was instantly captivated by the wonderfully vibrant and charismatic female characters. I was shocked by how little I knew of the tragic struggle women faced to gain the right to graduate from university. It is an important story and I knew that the Downe House stage was the perfect setting to bring it to life. The notion of women supporting other women is nurtured and celebrated here at Downe House, and it is demonstrated in such a beautiful and powerful way in Blue Stockings through the compelling relationships between the female characters. I was thrilled by the Lower Fifth’s engagement with the text. They expressed such a keen interest in the subject matter throughout the rehearsal process and worked incredibly hard to embrace the characters. It was a joy to direct a performance which showcased so many complex and inspiring women: women who are passionate about learning, to make their voice heard and put their own dreams before anything else. I could not think of a better play to inspire our students. Miss Alice O’Sullivan, Assistant Director of Dance and Drama

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CREATIVE ARTS EXHIBITION In recent times, the importance of creativity has really come into the spotlight. Creativity connects us. It provides sanctuary, a positive way to spend time, an opportunity to reflect, and a means of expression. We were very proud to present a selection of artwork by girls from every year group in the first Founder’s exhibition in the Murray Centre. There was an assortment of work that included drawing, painting, printmaking, and mixed media, as well as three-dimensional outcomes, all of which showed the amazing talents of the girls at Downe House. Mrs Kirsten Mortimer, Head of Art The Design & Technology work that was on display looked different because of the lack of GCSE and A Level practical work. As seen in the students’ design work, some innovative ways were used to communicate their design intentions. Working remotely students gained skills in using drawing apps such as Sketchbook, SketchUp and TinkerCAD. We also made use of our 3D printer. We were pleased to show the practical work of the recent Lower School groups from the Summer term. Mr Iain Kent, I/C Product Design Whilst it was extremely challenging to navigate online learning with a practical subject, it was clear to see within this exhibit of outstanding work that the GCSE and A Level outcomes are unparalleled. The talent and creativity were clear to see despite the challenges faced within remote learning. Miss Amy Majerski, Head of Textiles

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The past eighteen months were a challenging time for pupils of any age, and particularly in the Creative Arts. Certain aspects to overcome for the Photography students included shooting new work when we were restricted to our homes. Some students found themselves in remote parts of the countryside, with others living in (then) quiet cities that would otherwise be full of life, movement and possibility. Needless to say, it is incredibly difficult, nigh on impossible, to make new work when there is little to photograph and it is important to stay indoors without the usual access to the Photographic Studio, the Darkroom, School equipment, and state-of-the-art Microsoft Studio Surface Pros, which we are fortunate to have on campus. This exhibition was a great indicator not only of the talent we have in School but a reminder of just how creative, imaginative and resilient our students can be when faced with adversity and challenge. Photography in the Sixth Form often transcends the still image and we have always embraced other aspects within the subject such as painting, drawing, installation, mixed-media techniques and video; this is more than apparent with the work on display provided by both the Lower Sixth and Upper Sixth cohort. The pieces on show were just some of the final edits from independent, personal portfolios chosen by each individual. Mrs Natalie Fox-Bloor, Teacher of Fine Art Photography, I/C Photography

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LET’S GO TO THE MOVIES In June 2021 the Cloisters were alive with the sound of music-al theatre as parents, pupils and staff all gathered to watch our Founder’s Weekend film, Let’s Go to The Movies. With the festival screen ready to go, we sat with picnics in the sunshine and eagerly awaited our first taste of theatre in almost a year! Pupils from Remove to Upper Sixth had spent weeks working alongside Mr Sell to create short scenes and songs from movies and musicals. Some of our performers had the opportunity to act, sing and dance alongside theatre professionals who recorded special clips which were then wonderfully edited together by our amazing AV team to create one movie masterpiece. The film began with an introduction by Downe House alumna Geraldine James as the ominous Lady Thistledowne who set the scene and we were then transported to the Downe Picture House where trailers ran for Mamma Mia!, Harry Potter, Mean Girls, Beetlejuice and Waitress to name a few! It was wonderful to see all the pupil’s hard work on the big screen and even a cameo appearance from Mrs McKendrick! During the interval, there was a poignant message from our professional singers and actors where money was raised for ‘Acting for Others’ – a charity that supports all who work in theatre, in time of hardship. This was followed by a musical theatre quiz and some time to top up our sun cream and sneak in another sausage roll before Act 2 began! With more musical and movie joy we were relieved of all our pandemic stresses for a while. The atmosphere in the Cloisters was joyous and the cheers after each number could be heard across campus. Huge congratulations to all involved, it was a fabulous way to kick off the Drama and Dance Department’s Founder’s Weekend contribution. Miss Alice Bickerdike, Graduate Drama Assistant

The journey of Let’s Go to The Movies has been so fun! It took place over a term and a half and the whole experience has been one to remember! For me, learning new songs and harmonies was so exciting, after we had all learnt our parts we recorded them, by singing into a microphone. Once we had recorded the music, it was time to record the dances and the separate songs and numbers. The group numbers were my favourite with everyone because it felt like a big community! Thank you Mr Sell for all the hard work you put in and the fun we all had! Alice Barber (UIV)

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Founder’s Girls Day On Sunday morning, to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Downe House’s first National Schools’ Lacrosse Championships title win, Assistant Director of Sport, Miss Williams organised an Alumnae vs Downe House lacrosse match – a brilliant game in which the Downe House Alumnae stole the victory by one goal after a closely fought match! Sunday afternoon brought a much-awaited Founder’s Tea for the girls thanks to the Catering Department and more outstanding music from Buskers’ Corner and the Jazz band which entertained everyone later during the BBQ which was the perfect end to an absolutely brilliant celebration of the year at Downe House.

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Day of Discovery

‘Giving girls the opportunity to learn new skills, explore and challenge themselves.’

DAY OF DISCOVERY

Day of Discovery From playing the international trade game, creating paper sculptures and dissecting rats, to learning about the physics of tennis, entrepreneurship and being an interior designer, the Day of Discovery gave girls the opportunity to learn new skills, to explore and to challenge themselves.

ART

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Learn New Skills and Every two years, girls in the Upper School and Sixth Form have a day off timetable to participate in an exciting array of workshops and activities designed to allow them to gain incredible insights into new and hot topics and have a lot of fun in the process! Organised by the DH Links team, the girls were given a huge choice of sessions which are run by staff, Downe House alumnae and guest presenters who share their specialist knowledge and expertise with the girls to help them to discover and develop their interests. At the end of the three sessions, all the girls came together in their year groups in the China Auditorium and outside in the Cloisters, to hear our keynote speaker, Trinny Woodall (current parent).

Bollywood Dance

Origami

Paper Sculptures

ly Cy Twomb

workshop

Stage mak e up

Archives Tour of School

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DAY OF DISCOVERY

Challenge Yourself Make up tutorials

Tower Building

Science experiments

Internationa

l Trade Gam

Meditation Toolkit

A DAY OF CHALLENGE AND EXPLORATION From making Postcards of Kindness to send to the residents of care homes in France and learning how to apply stage make-up to creating paper sculptures, the enormous range of sessions really did offer something for everyone. One of the most popular sessions was the International Trade Game run by the Head of Economics and Business Studies, Mr Chapman in which teams act as separate countries and are challenged to compete against each other to ‘manufacture’ paper shapes and sell then to an international commodity market trader at posted prices, which vary with supply and demand. The objective for each country is to make as much money as possible. It was a fast-moving and exciting session designed to develop students’ critical thinking.

Postcards of kindness

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Table tennis Musical Theatre workshop

Music Producer

Non Profit Entrepreneur

Art work Tie Dye

EXPLORE YOUR FUTURE AND DISCUSS HOT TOPICS Exploring future career paths is a major driver for Day of Discovery and our alumnae volunteered to share their experiences in a number of sectors including Fashion, PR, Interior Design, Art, Theatre, setting up a charity and an insight into University life. Guest presenters included Charlie Kerr, Chaplaincy Adviser to the ODBE who shared his Meditation Toolkit, Professor Andy Smith from Reading University who spoke about their new exhibition: Troy: Beauty and Heroism, and Dr Simon Goodwill, Head of Sports Engineering Research Group (SERG), in the Academy of Sport and Physical Activity at Sheffield Hallam University, who ran a session of the Physics of Tennis.

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Science experiment

DAY OF DISCOVERY

TRINNY WOODALL, OUR KEYNOTE SPEAKER In the final session of the Day of Discovery, Trinny Woodall, entrepreneur, TV presenter and founder of Trinny London gave the keynote speech to all the girls. Trinny shared her own journey of how she initially found success as a TV presenter and then she followed her dream of creating a premium make-up brand and became one of Britain’s top tech entrepreneurs. Trinny’s message to the girls focused on the importance of doing what you believe in and what will make you happy and hopefully successful at the same time. Lower Sixth girls, Yasmine and Amelia, led the Q&A in which Trinny answered a host of questions from ‘What do you want to achieve next?’ to how to handle social media, parental expectations and making the most of your network.

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Beyond the Curriculum

‘It was wonderful to see the girls’ faces full of delight and the squeals of excitement!’

BEYOND THE CURRICULUM

Duke of Edinburgh’s Award It was an exciting year to do DofE activities. Greater flexibility on how activities could be done ensured the pandemic was not going to hinder anyone from doing their Award. The girls embraced the wonderful new challenges and opportunities on offer. For example, clearing woodland for autistic children to camp, and volunteering for charities online and giving valuable support to the elderly who were isolating. The experiences DofE offered through each section ensured many gained essential skills and attributes for work and life. Many paused to reflect on this and on what DofE meant to them when his Royal Highness, The Duke of Edinburgh, the key founder of the DofE Award was laid to rest in April. As one way to salute all that the Duke of Edinburgh did, our Bronze expedition aim was to do a jumbled journey to Windsor (32 miles), his resting place. Each expedition team aimed to travel as far as they could from Downe House to Windsor Castle by doing a combination of walking, rowing, cycling and spinning while completing challenges on the way, all in and around School. The challenges included building a cool hammock camp, deciphering Enola Holmes inspired clues to treasure hunts, testing their navigation skills with orienteering or with the What3Words app, producing inspiring natural art, cooking and entertaining at their perfectly pitched camp. More expeditions were done than ever - twice as many in fact! The summer weather did not hold out for the Upper Fifth and those that hammocked in the woods in the soggy and damp conditions were inspiringly resilient. The adventurous spirit was also with the Lower Sixth who did their Gold expeditions both on water and land. A couple of teams took to sailing their expedition with a walking team exploring coastal pathways near Lyme Regis, while others went more remote. They delved into the depths of Devon’s bleak Dartmoor surroundings before hitting the slopes of the Welsh Brecon Beacons. They have given many new inspired Gold members food for thought for their own expedition and for that we are grateful. May the next crew doing DofE challenge themselves in equal measure. Well done to all. Mr Tony Riddle, Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Co-ordinator

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Library & Murray Centre LIBRARY REVIEW Sitting proudly at the top of the Murray Centre with views over the Chapel and woodlands, our library is, indeed, a little slice of paradise where pupils can enjoy a calm and peaceful atmosphere. Curling up with a good novel is just as much a possibility as studying for an exam or meeting an essay deadline. This year, despite restrictions, has been a busy one. Although we missed the regular English class reading lessons, books have still been borrowed in good numbers and we have continued to expand our collection to ensure that we have the very latest titles. The undoubted highlight of the year was our Celebration of Writing event at the end of the Lent term. Four noted alumnae and former staff (writer and broadcaster Clare Balding, prominent Guardian journalist Marina Hyde and authors Cesca Major and Virginia McGregor) gathered virtually to talk about the joys and pitfalls of writing for a living. The event gave us the ideal platform to announce the winners of this year’s DHSA Short Story Competition. As usual, the standard of entries was extremely high but thanks to the expertise of our DHSA judging panel, the winners were: Lower School - Felicity Harris (Runners-up Rosie Ilott and Liberty Spry) Upper School - Iona Neville (Runners-up Hermione Caithie and Amy Wright) Sixth Form - Poppy Scales (Runners-up Louisa Graves and Eleanor Gibbs) The overall winner and recipient of the Clare Balding Prize for Excellent Writing was Poppy Scales. What a treat to have Clare announce the winners and talk to Poppy about her story. Each winner was then able to pose a question to the panel about their own writing experiences. Their honest and humorous responses made for a highly entertaining hour with pupils huddled around House TVs and computers able to post their own questions as well. In addition to the Celebration of Writing, there have also been two other author events. The Lower School thoroughly enjoyed meeting the children’s author, Karen McCombie, at a virtual event. Karen has now written over 100 books for children and young teenagers and entertained us greatly with tales from her writing life. In the Summer term, it was a real privilege to welcome author and actress, Jo Cotterill, in person. Her highly energetic and interactive talk was great fun and her impressions had us all in stitches.

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This year’s Book Buzz Challenge proved to be a great hit with our Remove pupils. They all chose and were presented with a new book to read, then earned points by writing book reviews, redesigning their book’s front cover, and attending book groups to share their ideas. Well done to the Challenge winners Abigail Bowden, Imogen Brass, Phillipa Drysdale, Isabella Gharagozlou, Lahja Hart and Eimear Planner.

MURRAY CENTRE The Murray Centre has proved its versatility this year, with a number of spaces being turned into fully interactive classrooms and the Auditorium becoming a high-tech TV studio which hosted many virtual events, including the Young Musician of the Year, the musical Christmas celebrations, House Drama and Dance, open mornings, parents’ meetings and weekly assemblies to name but a few. Highlights of the year were our virtual Medley Lectures. We were delighted to welcome David Olusoga, historian, writer and broadcaster who spoke powerfully across a range of subjects related especially to issues raised by the Black Lives Matter movement and answered the many audience questions frankly, demonstrating his impressive depth of knowledge and experience in the area of black British history. Our second lecture was with the vascular surgeon, David Nott, who set up the David Nott Foundation to improve surgical outcomes and better equip surgeons and doctors working in conflict and natural disaster zones around the world. He began working in war zones himself in 1993 after seeing footage of the war in Sarajevo, then, on a mission in Libya, he realised that local medical professionals were not trained to deal with the kinds of injuries they encountered. His dedication and bravery shone through in this inspirational talk, and it was a real privilege to hear what can be achieved when you set your mind to it. Both talks were expertly hosted by members of our Sixth Form, who also fielded many questions coming in from the virtual audience. The year ended with another highlight when the Murray Centre hosted the most amazing exhibition of the pupils’ artistic work as part of the Founder’s Weekend celebrations, proving yet again what a truly versatile space it is! The Art, Photography, Design and Technology, and Textiles creations on show were testimony to the wonderful talent of our pupils. We cannot end this without a mention of Murray Centre Live, an online arts and culture magazine that we produced throughout the lockdowns. Its remit was to entertain, inform and bring our whole community together with fantastic content shared by many pupils and staff. Competitions and quizzes, book, film and theatre recommendations and links to museums and places to visit virtually around the globe all provided a welcome break from online learning. Mrs Philippa Toogood, Mrs Jenny Hill and Miss Beth Shilling, The Murray Centre Team Downe House Magazine

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Chapel Life

“ 25... SO THAT THERE SHOULD BE NO DIVISION IN THE BODY, BUT THAT ITS PARTS SHOULD HAVE EQUAL CONCERN FOR EACH OTHER. 26 IF ONE PART SUFFERS, EVERY PART SUFFERS WITH IT; IF ONE PART IS HONOURED, EVERY PART REJOICES WITH IT.” Chapter twelve of St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians The words we read at the beginning of the School Welcome Service feel particularly fitting as I reflect on this last year in the life of Chapel at Downe House. As we continue to live through the Covid pandemic we have surely learned the truth that we are all interdependent. As a school community we have grieved and rejoiced together through this most challenging year. As our nation went into lockdown in November, Downe carried on. Much creativity and resilience were shown throughout our school. As we all went ‘virtual’ that creativity and resilience continued, and Chapel continued, albeit in a different form! Chapel services carried on in both term times and the vacations. I am most grateful to everyone who contributed to these services; to those who recorded prayers and Bible readings, played music and

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spoke. It really was a fantastic team effort which could never have come to fruition without the skill and diligence of the AV Department. A huge thank you particularly to Mr Alex Boswell and Mr Matt Girling for putting together such super services. There have been many personal high points for me: listening to members of our school speak eloquently for our Chapel month celebrating Black History. I remember the beautiful Lower Sixth Remembrance services and all the inspiring instrumental recordings that were offered in our Chapel services. I recall with joy the first time of singing once more in Chapel again as a community (once restrictions had eased). I remember the privilege of presiding over the Eucharist again and holding an Easter dawn service for staff on site. I was moved by the huge generosity of all gifts given at our Harvest Festival for our local West

Berks Food Bank. Another blessed moment was baptising pupils and staff and then seeing our Confirmation candidates finally being Confirmed by Bishop Olivia. It has been a pleasure to have been able to welcome such a fascinating and hope-inspiring series of virtual guest preachers over this year. They have included the Bishop of Reading, the Bishop of Dover, the Archdeacon of Hackney, the Archdeacon of Oxford and the Reverend John Toogood. Just as we have rejoiced together, so sadly have we grieved both as individuals and as a community. We have mourned the death of Mr Brian Brader and Miss Anne Marie Gain. Our community remains richer because of their lives. I thank God for their lives and for all they did to build and serve our School community.

BEYOND THE CURRICULUM

Thank you to the Music department for all they have given to the life of Chapel in all its forms. Thank you to Dr Charlotte Exon for those beautiful Prima Voce pieces and for involving the whole community in that most joyful virtual recording of Shine Jesus Shine. Thank you to Mrs Susan Norman for her gentle grace and giftedness as she played and served the Chapel through week-day and Sunday services. And of course, a massive thank you to the Chapel Seniors Nellie Gawne and Louisa Graves. Thank you to Nellie for all those many virtual recordings made and for stepping into the role with such warmth and enthusiasm in the strangest of years! The Chapel baton has now been passed to our 2021 Chapel Senior, Louisa Graves whose wonderful brain wave it was to have the School community’s favourite religious poems on display in Chapel for our Founder’s Weekend. Thank you to Louisa too for her heart of service, for her wisdom and for reading the Bible so beautifully. In this biblical passage St Paul uses the metaphor of the body to describe community. The body is made up of many members. “Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. And there are indeed many parts”- I am acutely aware of all the parts - all the departments that contribute to the life of Chapel. Without them Chapel could not function fully. Administration, AV Bursary, Catering, Co-Curricular, Estates, Housekeeping, IT, Resources as well as the teaching staff and leadership team, and the parent prayer group a huge thank you to you all! As we eventually emerge from this most challenging of years may we be less a people who demand and more a people who serve. Our world needs much prayer, and our world needs our actions too. Downe House is a community of gifted young women, who with the help of God, have the capacity to change the world for the better. May each one of us in this community of Downe take all the creativity and resilience we have gathered and move forward with gratitude ready to serve our world in love. Reverend Anthea Platt, Chaplain

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Elective Programme As one of our flagship academic enrichment initiatives, this has been a busy year for the Elective Programme! Now totalling 27 six-week courses, or Electives, covering a vibrant range of topics from linguistics to the pharmaceutical industry to the history of the book, there is a massive range of exciting avenues for students to explore. With each Elective carefully curated by teachers based on their own academic interests beyond the curriculum, the Elective Programme continues to offer those involved, from Lower Fifth, Upper Fifth and Lower Sixth, a superb way to push themselves well beyond the confines of their GCSE and A Level syllabus. One particular highlight of this academic year was an entirely new Elective (we do like to keep the offering as fresh and cutting edge as possible!) offered by Dr Atherton, Director of Research and Academic Enrichment, to a group of seven Upper Fifth pupils, on the science of learning. We looked at the cognitive science underpinning memory, habit formation, motivation as well as learning technology and recent research surrounding self-efficacy. Not only did a lot of this content have great benefit to curricular studies (we explored, for instance, what cognitive science has to tell us about effective revision strategies) but also allowed us the opportunity to run lots of mini experiments, testing our ability to multi-task and store information in long term memory. It was a lot of fun! After the Elective, one participant even went so far as to say the Elective will change how she now revises for her upcoming GCSEs! This one example, and any of the other 26 Electives could have just as easily been chosen, goes to demonstrate what it is that makes us so proud of our Elective Programme. To us, it is all about pushing pupils outside of their intellectual comfort zone, exposing them to vibrant and fascinating new avenues of thought, and doing so in a fun and stimulating manner that enriches their curricular studies. Dr Andrew Atherton, Director of Research and Academic Enrichment, Teacher of English

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"The underlying ethos of the Elective Programme is the importance it places on each girl being able to pursue an entirely bespoke programme of study, where they are given the opportunity to select the topics and areas that most interest them from three disciplinary pathways, each named after a Downe House alumna who has been recognised for scholarly excellence."

BEYOND THE CURRICULUM

Global Schools’ Exchange Programme ISADORA AND AMELIA TELL US ABOUT THE LAUNCH EVENT Firstly, Mrs McKendrick showed us our timetable in terms of our GCSE choices and explained how the Global Exchange Programme would fit around that. We learnt about what future employers and universities look for in applicants, and how the Global Schools’ Exchange Programme can help us in the future. For example, universities and employers may look for people with initiative, a global mind-set, or those willing to take an entrepreneurial risk, all of which the exchange programme promotes. Mrs McKendrick explained which fifteen schools Downe House are partnered with around the globe and the qualities applicants should possess.   Ms Akhtar outlined the timeline for the programme, including how the application and selection process worked and explained the whole process. From completing the application to going on the exchange takes between 7-10 months. Ms Akhtar also addressed the parents about their role in the programme, before answering some frequently asked questions, which was very helpful.

Phoebe Whiting and Mathilda Singer, who previously visited Herschel Girls’ School in South Africa and Welham Girls’ School in India respectively, shared their experiences. Phoebe said how happy and comfortable she was during her time there, she never felt as though she was the odd one out. We then heard from Mathilda about her time in India, she talked about all the amazing places she was lucky enough to visit. Mathilda also told us about her host family, who were very kind and made her feel welcome in her new environment. It was interesting to hear about how different the Indian school was to Downe House, for instance, she talked about how the Indian school does not use any technology. We both agree that the Global Schools’ Exchange Programme gives you the opportunity to make special connections across the world and is an unmissable opportunity. Lydia (Isadora) Dyer and Amelia Clark (UIV)

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Global Initiatives

“Despite the pandemic, we remained fully committed to the Global Schools’ Exchange Programme and the valuable cultural and academic insights and understanding gained by those who take part. We appreciate that many of our girls were disappointed not have had the opportunity to visit our partner schools this academic year, so we wanted to offer them a chance to sample school life abroad and establish connections with students globally.” - Ms Marya Akhtar, Director of Higher Education and Global Initiatives

Clara and Isobel (UV) were sadly unable to visit India last Summer. In February, the girls reached out to their exchange buddies Karmanya and Advika at Mayo College Girls’ School, India and the girls started to get to know each other. Over a two-week period, the pupils engaged in Zoom calls, presented to each other about their schools, took part in bake-offs, and were given access to Mayo College Economics lesson recording. Advika and Karmanya also took part in an English lesson with Dr Andrew Atherton. Each girl also shared a writeup of their experiences of lockdown.

Hannah, Olivia and Elizabeth (UV) embarked on a twoweek virtual exchange with their buddies at one of our most popular Global Exchange schools, Durban Girls’ College, Durban, South Africa. The girls started to get to know their exchange buddies around Christmas time and had already formed good friendships before the official exchange began. The girls prepared presentations to reveal the different sides to each school and the Durban girls created a ‘Survival Guide’ to Durban Girls’ College (DGC).

During the bake off, Clara and Isobel were challenged with cooking ‘Paneer Tikka’ as recommended by their buddies, and in return Advika and Karmanya prepared ‘Rocky Road’ brownies and Ratatouille. After the bake off the girls exchanged photos of the end-result and how they found the dish. Each of the six girls were invited to attend online lessons, with DGC girls attending English and History and Downe House girls attended Zulu, Afrikaans and Maths. Due to DGC being back on campus, our girls appeared quite literally in the lessons via laptops. One of the highlights of the exchange was the video call, in which the girls chatted at length about school life, their lessons and shared insights into ‘a normal school day at Downe, vs a normal school day at Mayo College’. Karmanya introduced the girls to her music, in particular the Sitar.

“It was really interesting learning about Durban Girls’ College and how it compares to Downe. My favourite part of the exchange was taking part in the Afrikaans and Zulu lesson, where I learnt some South African greetings.” - Hannah Knight (UV)

“I feel so lucky to have been able to do a virtual exchange with the girls at Mayo College, and although we could not actually go to India, I learnt so much about their culture, school life and cuisine that I will remember forever.” - Isobel Peddie (UV)

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The exchange culminated in a ‘bake off’ session kindly hosted by Hannah’s mother, Mrs Helen Knight. All six girls came together online to spend a Sunday morning making a dish suggested by their exchange buddy. The Downe House girls were tasked with making Milk Tart, a popular South African dessert. Meanwhile, the DGC girls were challenged to make a traditional Victoria Sponge.

BEYOND THE CURRICULUM

CAMPUS MANILLA GYMNASIUM, STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN Downe House sixth formers, Thea and Amelia, took part in a virtual exchange with Campus Manilla Gymnasium, our Swedish Global Exchange Partner school. As a co-educational day school in the heart of Stockholm, Campus Manilla is very different from Downe House. The girls launched themselves into the exchange initially by sharing ‘About me and my school’ presentations. The girls all then met via Zoom and talked about their interests, school life, and compared the school day and curriculum.

The next part of the exchange involved the exchange of recipes, in which Alicia and Claire-Catherine tasked Thea and Amelia with making Swedish chocolate balls. While, Alicia and Claire-Catherine made chocolate cookies. One of the highlights of the exchange was ‘virtual sightseeing’ which took place, in which each of the girls gave a virtual live tour of their local area. This gave the Downe House girls a chance to get an insight into the local places of interest in Stockholm, while the Campus Manilla girls received a virtual tour of the Downe House campus. Lockdown and the different ways in which the UK and Sweden reacted to the Pandemic was also a point of discussion. The Swedish exchange students, Alicia and Claire-Catherine were invited to attend Biology, Religious Studies and Economics lessons at Downe, while Thea and Amelia joined in with PE, Marketing and Biology at Campus Manilla. “Alicia was a delight to have with us! It was interesting to hear about the Swedish Political system. The girls had some time in breakout sessions discussing the Police, Crime and Sentencing Bill and then we looked at the Human Rights Act and the role of the UK courts.” - Mrs Rachel Phillips-Morgan, Downe House Politics Teacher

“Despite not being able to visit Campus Manilla in real life it was great fun getting to know both the staff and students there and I have now been able to make contacts that I will be able to use, and I very much look forward to meeting them in person sometime in the future!” - Thea Davies (UV)

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CCA FILM & FOOD FESTIVAL A 5x3 metre giant screen and accompanying speaker system was set up directly in front of the Murray Centre. In front of the screen hundreds of deckchairs, each one carefully decked with a blanket and sweets. Just behind the deckchairs was a cluster of street food stalls offering enormous plates of American BBQ, Thai and Mexican dishes for supper. The Co-Curricular department’s muchanticipated Food and Film Festival had arrived. Every aspect of the night was meticulously considered – from staggered supper times for maintaining bubbling, to heaters placed by the deckchairs, to additional seating areas for Housestaff and their families. This was certainly a night to remember at Downe House. The Lower School and Upper Fourth watched their film first as the sky grew darker and the fairy lights and food truck lights took over. High School Musical was certainly a crowd favourite as some of the older girls, who had arrived for their dinner, decided to stick around for the end of the film, having picnics with friends on the grass

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at the back of the festival. At 8pm it was time to switch over, with all hands-on deck as staff, their families and the Headmistress set about rearranging the seating and providing fresh blankets for the older girls to settle in to watch Grease. Headmistress, Mrs McKendrick began her weekly correspondence with staff, “As I write this High School Musical is playing outside my window, a lot of popcorn is being consumed and there is great excitement amongst the girls. It is a very happy sight and with Long Exeat round the corner, spirits are high. It is lovely to see.” Head of Co-Curricular Activities, Mrs Hannah Pilgrim said, “It was just so wonderful to see the girls’ faces full of delight and the squeals of excitement! The festivalstyle food was a huge hit and the pictures of the girls in their bubbles in colour-coded blankets looked fantastic.”

BEYOND THE CURRICULUM

FAIR GROUND COMES TO CAMPUS The School site was transformed into a fairground wonder for all to enjoy. Everyone had fun with dodgems, helter-skelter, candy floss and slushies throughout the day.

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BONFIRE NIGHT Fire pits, sparklers, toffee apples and pizza ovens; it might not have been a traditional bonfire night with a large crowd and loud fireworks...but it was certainly a night to remember! It was a delightfully clear and crisp autumn night which meant that girls were able to gather (in their year bubbles) outside across the school. Each group was greeted with fire pits, sparklers, neon light wands and toffee apples. Girls enjoyed a supper of homemade pizza thanks to the hard work of our Catering team and our new outdoor pizza ovens as well as freshly cooked chips from food stalls. A particular highlight for most girls, and probably most staff too, was toasting marshmallows over the fire pits. Wrapped up in hats and scarves, this was a perfect, cosy November night. The bonfire night celebrations were a special chance for girls to spend some time safely outdoors with friends.

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BEYOND THE CURRICULUM

Finding Balance PAWS FOR WELLBEING What could have a more positive effect on our mental health in the middle of a school day than spending time with a litter of the most adorable poodle puppies? A space to play, laugh and share some fun - both girls and staff enjoyed the many benefits of puppy therapy as part of the Downe House Wellbeing Programme. Our thanks to the wonderful Paws in Work for providing such well-managed, calm and enjoyable puppy therapy sessions. We really hope they will be dropping in again soon!

MINI MBA Although there were no exams for the Upper Sixth during the Summer term, the girls spent their time wisely and, for many, very productively. An innovative programme of online short courses and workshops was developed, and a definite highlight was the Mini MBA business simulation, run in conjunction with Hult International Business School. The Business Simulation course is a 5-week competition designed to help students develop their inter-personal stills, emotional intelligence and business acumen. The initiative was developed by Ashridge Executive Education at Hult International Business School, one of the world’s leading providers of executive education programmes. In teams, pupils took over a virtual camera business which has been trading for three years.

Coming together as a new Board of Directors, the team was responsible for formulating and implementing a successful strategy for the company. In the simulated environment, time moves quickly with one year passing in a week, and teams must make important decisions to secure their futures. All the businesses have different starting points and different histories, but all have a fair chance of winning the competition. Anything can change between now and the end of the competition, in another virtual three years’ time. Girls went on to explore the impact of their own and others’ strategic decisions on the individual businesses and on the markets in which they operate.

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DH LINKS

2020 was an extraordinary year for us all and a particularly challenging time for many of our pupils, staff, parents and alumnae. The DH LINKS team have enjoyed remaining connected with a number of our alumnae and parents during the year, who have continued to offer their support to our current girls and recent leavers with offers of mentoring, virtual and inperson internships and hosting talks. We were delighted to host a small series of events during the Lent and Summer terms and I am pleased to report that all were a huge success. We were extremely fortunate to welcome a number of our alumnae from a

range of different year groups to these events and their guidance was invaluable. As ever, we invite you to keep in touch! You can email us at foundation@downehouse.net, you can keep up to date with the latest news and events by visiting the Foundation online portal www.foundation.downehouse.net and by following us on Instagram @dh_links We have exciting future plans for the DH LINKS programme and we hope you will join us on the journey! Mrs Alexandra Barlow, Director of External Relations

THE POWER OF OUR ALUMNAE: TIPS FOR ENTREPRENEURS & HOW TO BE A BETTER LEADER These were just some of the takeaways for our Upper Fifth girls who took part in the DH LINKS event as part of the Introduction to Sixth Form Week. The introduction to the Sixth Form programme was packed full of activities, talks, tours, taster sessions and social events - all designed to smooth the transition into the Sixth Form for the Upper Fifth girls and new girls joining in September. The week started with a welcome event for the new girls and their parents, with tours of the School and induction sessions. Wednesday brought a new challenge – creating a TED Talk! Housemistress, Miss Treacy led a workshop in which the girls watched a TED Talk by Dr Lucy King (DH 1995) given in December 2019, followed by a personal message from Dr King with her top tips and a presentation by Standing Tall on building confidence. In small groups, the girls worked on preparing a talk on the topic, ‘Is the journey or the destination more important?’ which they could interpret in any way they liked. 128

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The next day was devoted to wellbeing and life skills. In the morning, the girls learnt about nutrition and healthy eating from Nutritional Therapist, Sam Silvester, followed by the brilliant Eryca Freemantle, who talked about confidence building, self-care and achieving a healthy mental state. Girls also attended a breathing techniques workshop held by DH Alumna and Free Diver, Helena Bourdillon (DH 1992). To conclude the week, the girls were given a whirlwind tour of life as an entrepreneur with an introduction to the world of business by InvestIN and a workshop in which the girls explored how to develop and pitch business ideas. Following on from the skills learnt in the morning, the DH LINKS team hosted the final event of the week and provided the girls with a Dragon’s Denstyle business competition in which our alumnae judged their business pitches with the prize of ‘Best Group’ was the West Bubble.

BEYOND THE CURRICULUM

INSTAGRAM LIVE To celebrate International Women’s Day in March, the DH LINKS team introduced a series of ‘Friday Live’ Instagram streams with a wide range of different alumnae. We were thrilled to speak to alumnae from around the globe and open some interesting discussions about travel, career paths and memories of Downe House.

IN CONVERSATION WITH LUCINDA MILLER Continuing with our virtual live events, we were delighted to welcome Alumna Lucinda Miller, in February 2021 to talk to our current pupils, staff, alumnae and parents about her career as a Naturopath. Our Head Senior, Lucy Barrie (LVI) and her sister Laura Dean (DH 2009) led the interview and did a superb job at masterminding a really insightful conversation. Lucinda shared with us her journey since leaving Downe House and the steps she took to setting up a very busy naturopathic practice and a hugely successful online shop. She has a passion for paediatric nutrition from the functional medicine approach and has written a nutrition bible and cookbook The Good Stuff which was published by Short Books in 2018. “It was wonderful to connect with so many Downe House girls, who have made the link that the right food choices can help both short and long term physical and mental health” - Mrs Lucinda Miller (Tremlett DH 1988) “I just wanted to thank you for a great evening with Lucinda Miller. Laura and Lucy did a wonderful job hosting the evening - what a great advertisement for Downe House. Lovely to listen to and see them all so passionate about such an important topic. I have benefited from Lucinda’s advice in the past and it is always fascinating to hear more from her and so I was really grateful to be able to ‘tune in’ this evening and hear more about her career path as well as another quick lesson on the gut micro-biome as well! All so interesting. Thank you for putting on the event. It was great also seeing past and present DH girls learning from one another. What an important job you do in facilitating that - thank you.” - Mrs Annabel Karoly (current parent) Downe House Magazine

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Celebrating with the Class of 2021

Leavers’ Day is always very special, and this year especially so as we were able find a way to celebrate all that our Class of 2021 have achieved and say farewell to the girls. The Cloisters proved the perfect place to hold our Leavers’ Service and celebrations. We were delighted to welcome our Guest Speaker, Dr Uzoma Emenike, Nigeria’s first female Ambassador to the USA, to present the prizes and to give an inspirational and uplifting speech full of wise words for our Upper Sixth girls - thank you! After a delicious lunch (thanks to the DH Catering Department) wonderful speeches and a brilliant video, was enjoyed before the much-awaited confetti moment provided the finale to a wonderful day. Good luck to all the girls leaving Downe House - be kind, work hard and aim high!!

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UNIVERSITY DESTINATIONS Girls in our Class of 2021 were successful in securing university places in the UK and overseas for a wide range of courses, reflecting the diverse achievements and interests of this year group. We are hugely proud of their achievements and wish them every success in the next phase of their adventure in education. Where more than one girl is taking a course, the number is shown.

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University/Institution

Course

University of Bath

Anthropology (2); Biological Sciences; Chinese Studies; Classics (2);

Berklee College of Music, USA

Economics with Management with study abroad; Education Studies (Geography); International Relations; Modern Languages and Cultures; Theology and Religion

Birmingham Conservatoire

Combined Honours; English Literature; History of Art;

Boston, USA

History of Art and English Literature

University of Bristol

Art History and Visual Culture; Drama; Exercise and Sport Sciences;

Buckingham University

Flexible Combined Honors; International Relations and Modern Languages; Liberal Arts; Politics

Cardiff

Liberal Arts

Central St Martins, University of the Arts London

Hospitality

Courtauld Institute of Arts

Materials with Management; Medicine; Physics with a year abroad

Durham University

Forensic Science

The University of Edinburgh

Biomedical Science (2); International Relations (2)

Exeter University

Business Management

Georgetown, USA

Art Foundation (2)

Glion Institute, Switzerland

Economics; Politics and International Relations

Imperial

Design

Keele University

Chinese Studies; Environmental Science

Kings College London

Foundation course in Acting

Lancaster University

Chinese Studies; English

Leeds College of Arts

Biochemistry; English Language and Literature; French and Italian;

London School of Economics (LSE)

Materials Science

Loughborough University

Design

The University of Manchester

Applied Medical Sciences; Architecture; Biomedical Sciences; Economics; Economics and Business with East European Studies; European Social and Political Studies; Mathematics; Philosophy, Politics and Economics

Mountview Peckam College, London

Liberal Arts

Newcastle University

English Literature with Creative Writing (2)

Oxford University

Geography; International Development; Physics

Rhode Island School of Design, USA

Psychology

UCL

Liberal Arts

UCLA, USA

Liberal Arts

University of East Anglia

Art History

University of Leeds

Architecture; Cosmetic Science

University of Liverpool

Liberal Arts

University of North Carolina, USA

Law (2); Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE); Psychology

University of South California, USA

Architecture

University of St Andrews

Business of the Creative Industries

University of the Arts, London

Accounting and Finance

University of Toronto, Canada

Anthropology

University of Warwick

Fashion Management

University of Westminster

International Relations and Modern Languages

University of York

Philosophy, Politics and Economics

Our Year 2020-21

HEAD SENIOR

HEAD OF MUSIC

Tosin Adepoju

Alexandra Hamilton

DEPUTY HEAD SENIOR

HEAD OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC

Poppy Scales

Antonia Holloway

SENIORS

HEAD OF CHORAL

Faridah Are

Rosalind Wippell

Susanna Brooke

DEPUTY HEAD OF CHORAL

Victoria Cho

Amelie Furse

Romilly Cox

HEAD AMBASSADORS

Ellen (Nellie) Gawne

Tare Ebimami

Lavinia Geddes

Christina Elliot

Chloe Holbrook

AMBASSADORS

Ayobami Razak-Shittu

Suet Ching Lam

Alexandra Witter

Li Hui (Lily) Lin

AISHOLT

Lily Mathews

Saskia Mactaggart

Head

Sappho Novatin

Anjolaoluwa Omotola

Deputy Head

Imogen Ridley

Constance Pope

Deputy Head

Kate Rollo

Tun Yin (Angie) Wong

LS Ais Deputy Head

Torrung (Mook) Rungjerdfa

AGN

Kunyi (Shirley) Song

Chioma Emenike

Head

HEAD GLOBAL AMBASSADORS

Olivia Jackson

Deputy Head

Toluwase Agusto

Beatrice Weaver

Deputy Head

Poppy Penney

Emily Harrow

LS AGN Deputy

GLOBAL AMBBASSADORS Jantaluck (Kelly) Bhanarai

AGS Hope Thistlethwayte

Head

Yitong (Carrie) Chen

Florence Hack

Deputy Head

Tanisha Doshi

Jemima Harrison

Deputy Head

Trinity Golding

Saskia Dale

LS AGS Deputy Head

Nok Sze (Sisi) Li Nuo (Noure) Miao

HOLCOMBE Chisengo (Elizabeth) Lukama

Head

Po Lam (Natalie) Wong

Elsa Karoly

Deputy Head

Le (Joanne) Yu

Tabitha Kendall

Deputy Head

HEADS OF LOWER SCHOOL

Annabella Horsfield

LS Hol Deputy Head

Lara Coppen-Gardner

TEDWORTH

Emily Harrow (Head of Lower School AGN)

Jemima Landale

Head

LOWER SCHOOL SENIORS

Molly Dubens

Deputy Head

Rosanna Love

Emelia Shippey

Deputy Head

Florence McNair-Scott

Roseanna Whitbread

LS Ted Deputy Head

Lucy Skrine

HEAD OF YORK

Saskia Dale (Head of Lower School AGS)

Chloe Holbrook

Annabella Horsfield (Head of Lower School Holcombe) Rose Whitbread (Head of Lower School Tedworth)

GAMES CAPTAINS Susanna Brooke

Captain

Tun Yin (Angie) Wong (Head of Lower School Aisholt)

Francesca Rhodes

Captain

LITERARY SENIORS Araminta Plumstead

HEADS OF DRAMA Clementine McNair-Scott

Head of Drama

Alessandra Tydeman

Lisabel Thistlethwayte

Head of Speech and Drama

PRESIDENT OF PHOENIX SOCIETY

HEAD OF CREATIVE ARTS

Trinity Golding

Imogen Dale

ENVIRONMENTAL AMBASSADORS

DEPUTY HEAD OF CREATIVE ARTS

Ellen (Nellie) Gawne

Lu (Lulu) Tian

Tun Yin (Angie) Wong

CREATIVE ARTS PREFECT Jinghan (Tracy) Zhang (Photography)

SCHOOL OFFICERS

School Officers 2020/21

an adventure in education Downe House, Cold Ash, Thatcham, Berkshire RG18 9JJ T: 01635 200286 www.downehouse.net Downe House School

@DowneHouse

@downe_house