Out and About

Bonding Days Science

In their first week as Godolphin and Latymer students, our new Year 7s enjoyed a week of ice-breaker sessions, bonding days and team-building exercises that included a trip to Walton Firs Activity Centre and a treasure hunt around the school. Meanwhile our Sixth Formers also took part in bonding activities and there was a picnic in the ecology garden for our new IB students.

Biology Lecture Day

Lower Sixth biologists enjoyed a series of five lectures on the latest developments in scientific research from some of the country’s leading scientific minds at the Emmanuel Centre in Westminster

Science LIVE at the Savoy Theatre

Lower Sixth physicists listened to five excellent talks from the country’s leading scientific minds and learnt some useful examination tips from chief examiner, Michelle Oldfield, when they attended Science LIVE at the Savoy Theatre. Dr Jess Wade explained how OLED displays in TVs and phones are made and how they enhance the images we see, and Professor Jim Al-Khalili introduced the newest interdisciplinary branch of science: Quantum Biology. Professor Frank Close explained how we are all made from stardust whilst Astronomer Royal, Professor Lord Martin Rees, described human beings less romantically as ‘nuclear waste’. Finally Dr Michael Brooks talked about that well known and yet less well understood, force: gravity.

Classics

Year 9 Classicists Visit the Roman Baths

Year 9 students travelled to Bath with the Classics department to visit one of the best preserved bath complexes outside Italy. Students took in the steaming sacred spring where pilgrims threw in their offerings in the hope of a cure, gazed upon the temple pediment with the fierce gorgon centrepiece before finishing up at the lime green waters of the Great Bath. The trip wouldn’t have been complete without some time over lunch break visiting the city centre and renowned fudge shops!

Classics Trip to Greece

During October half-term, Classics students in Year 11 and the Lower Sixth enjoyed six glorious days exploring the ancient sites of Greece in the autumn sunshine. Students explored the sanctuaries of Brauron and Sounion in the south of Attica, took in the archaeological sights of Athens and Delphi, and imagined themselves as victors and spectators at Olympia, before travelling to the Bronze Age sites of Tiryns and Mycenae and taking in the impressive views at Epidauras and AcroCorinth.

Geography

Blencathra Field Studies Centre

Upper Sixth geographers spent five days at the Blencathra Field Studies Centre in the Lake District to collect data for their A Level and IB coursework. Physical geographers spent their time in and around the Borrowdale valley, measuring the orientation of moraines, roche moutonnées and corries, while human geographers collected data about tourism and perceptions of place in Keswick. Despite some challenging weather conditions, the sun came out for the last day in Blencathra and students enjoyed a hike up the mountain to watch the sun set over Derwentwater.

Year 8 Trip to Burnham Beeches

Year 8 students enjoyed a day trip to Burnham Beeches to study the workings of a deciduous woodland ecosystem. Students used clinometers, tape measures and their iPads to measure the height of trees and calculated their age by measuring the circumference of the trunk, drew field sketches of the upper pond (complete with moorhens and ducks) and each wrote a haiku about a coppiced area of woodland.

History of Art

In Real Life Exhibition

Lower Sixth Art Historians visited Olafur Eliasson’s In Real Life exhibition at Tate Modern. On a bright, clear, sunny winter’s day they not only enjoyed the interactive elements of the kaleidoscopes and 45m long tunnel of fog, but also experienced how the installations used reflections and shadows to play with the way we perceive and interact with the world.

Art History Trip to the British Museum

Sixth Form Art History students debated the question of aggressive imperial acquisition, restitution and the future of the Benin plaques on a tour of the British Museum with Alice Procter who encouraged students to explore the impact of location on meaning.

Islamic Art Study Day

For the second year running Leighton House hosted an Islamic Art Study Day for A Level Art History students from local west London schools. Trustee and Courtauld lecturer Melaine Gibson introduced Art Historians to the complexities of the historical and geographic span of Islamic art and students were shown examples of tile designs, calligraphy and figuration on a guided tour in the spectacular Arab Hall.

Ways of Seeing Conference

Sixth Form students pondered the theme of art and nature at the Association for Art History’s annual Ways of Seeing Conference. The opening talk by author of the Edexcel syllabus, Sarah Phillips, asked the question: Can art save our environment? After exploring a range of contemporary works, including Eliasson’s Ice Watch, and asking some of our students to read his words to the audience, she suggested that art can change the way communities act, and hence be an agent for change by emotionalising the data.

Modern Foreign Languages

Spanish Study Day at the BFI

Lower Sixth Spanish students took part in a study day at the British Film Institute on ‘Trauma and Memory: Filming the legacy of dictatorships in Spain and Chile’. The workshop explored the recent histories of Spain and Chile, focusing on the representation of political repression before a screening of El Silencio de Otros (The Silence of Others). This powerful documentary follows the struggles of a group of victims of Franco’s dictatorship and their families as they organise an international lawsuit in Argentina in an attempt to fight the government sanctioned ‘pact of forgetting’ the crimes that they had suffered. The girls were then lucky enough to take part in a question and answer session with the film’s codirector via video link.

Visit to the Cervantes Theatre

In February, Lower Sixth Spanish students visited the Cervantes Theatre – an intimate venue in London that specialises in Spanish and Latin American theatre – to see Lorca’s masterpiece, ‘La Casa de Bernarda Alba’.

Paris Trip

Over October half-term, a group of Year 11 French students visited Paris to enhance their knowledge of the language and culture. Throughout the trip, the girls visited famous landmarks including The Eiffel Tower and The Notre-Dame; as well as having free time to enjoy the stunning capital and, of course, to go shopping in Paris.

Music

Handel’s Messiah at the Royal Albert Hall

Just before the Christmas break, Year 8 students took part in a performance of Handel’s Messiah at the Royal Albert Hall. After learning the choruses in their music lessons during the previous halfterm, including the famous Hallelujah Chorus, they gave a fantastically confident performance as part of a choir of 1,200 young people. They were joined by professional soloists and orchestra and were conducted by Ben Parry, Director of the National Youth Choir. The opportunity to sing this beautiful oratorio in such a prestigious venue in front of a huge audience (including a large number of Godolphin families and friends) was a truly unforgettable experience.

Economics

Economics Conference at Friends House

35 IB and A Level Economics students attended an Economics Conference discussing the UK and Brexit at Friends House in London. Some fascinating topics were discussed such as the worth of forecasting future economic performance, the post Brexit economic priorities, the decreasing power of trade unions, the economics of the NHS and the economic policies of the Labour party.

Art

GCSE trip to the V&A

Year 11 artists experienced the wonders of the V&A’s ‘Food: Bigger than the Plate’ exhibition - a multi-sensory show that takes a creative look at the future of food production, through the lens of artists, designers, chefs, scientists and farmers. Students contemplated the formidable challenge of how we recycle and reduce the waste we all produce, and learnt how scientists and designers have developed ingenious ways of transforming unwanted materials into fabrics made from waste animal bones, coffee cups made from discarded coffee granules, and ceramics made from cow manure.

Art and Design Trip to Worthing

Sixth Form Art and Design students spent a day on Worthing beachfront exploring expressive approaches to drawing and innovative forms of relief painting. Students also had the opportunity to use a breadth of specialist photographic processes such as cyanotype, pinhole camera work and got to grips with manual SLR cameras before rounding off the day with fish and chips on the beach.

Skiing in Vermont

Nearly 50 girls travelled to Vermont over February half-term to experience the wide, quiet slopes of Killington in beautiful winter sunshine, with lots of progress made by girls and staff of all abilities over the course of the week. Some of the advanced girls got a surprise mogul lesson from Donna Weinbrecht who won gold in the first ever Women’s mogul event at the 1992 Olympics. The week was rounded off with a trip to Harvard where the girls were given a tour of the campus from Old Dolphins Sophia and Charlotte Dyvik Henke (Classes of 2019 and 2016).

Holland Netball and Hockey Tour 2019

During October half-term, 56 Godolphin hockey and netball players visited Valkenburg in the Netherlands for a week of coaching from the likes of Hayley Mulheron, Scotland’s former national netball captain, and came home with a clutch of medals after competing in tournaments against other English schools and Dutch hockey club HC Blerick.