Out and About

Art and Design Trip to Worthing

One of the highlights of the Autumn Term was the Sixth Form Art and Design trip to the south coast for a day of sketching, printmaking and photography in the seaside town of Worthing. The trip was an opportunity for students to enrich their sketchbooks and explore a range of media, including Tetrapak printing and SLR photography. The spectacular seascape and sunny weather provided wonderful inspiration and fish and chips and ice cream rounded off the day nicely.

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Sixth Form Trip to Royal Academy

In October the Sixth Form Art and Design students viewed over 1,300 works of contemporary art and architecture – including a piece by Art Teacher Miss Ockenden – when they visited the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition. The theme of the exhibition was ‘Reclaiming Magic’ and it covered a broad range of media, from statues to tapestries to 3D paintings.

Burnham Beeches

In October our Year 8 geographers soaked up some Autumn sunshine and studied the workings of a deciduous woodland ecosystem when they visited Burnham Beeches.

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Classics Symposium

Sixth Form Classics students attended the Classics Symposium held at Francis Holland School, Regent’s Park, with sessions from Professor Robin Osborne of King’s College, Cambridge, on ‘Theatre and Democracy in Classical Athens’ and Professor Caroline Vout of Christ’s College, Cambridge, on ‘Seeing God in Greece and Rome’. Just before February half-term, Classics, Greek, Latin and Ancient History students in Years 10 – Upper Sixth attended University College London’s production of Euripides’ Electra at the Bloomsbury Theatre. The production was particularly powerful and offered students an insight into student drama at degree level, while also providing the opportunity for them to enrich their appreciation of Greek theatre and ancient literature as studied in school.

British Museum

In February Year 11 classicists visited the British Museum’s fantastic Parthenon galleries and the frieze of the Temple of Apollo at Bassae. These monuments are key artefacts in the Myth and Religion paper of the GCSE course and it was wonderful for students to be able to see the actual sculptures with the reopening of the galleries. Later in the year our Year 10 classicists also paid a visit to the exhibition.

Fishbourne Roman Palace

The Classics department was delighted to take Year 8 to Fishbourne Roman Palace which they have been studying in their Latin lessons. They took part in a very engaging Roman artefact handling session where they were able to hold and examine various pieces of pottery, bone and masonry and to try to deduce what they were and what they revealed to us about the Britons and Romans who lived there. Students studied the elaborate mosaics of the remains of the floor north wing of the palace as well as the museum cases containing further artefacts found at the site.

Spitalfields

In glorious November sunshine, Sixth Form geographers looked at changing places, regeneration, gentrification and migration in Spitalfields.

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Stratford Olympic Park

On a lovely sunny June day, Year 7 students visited the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford as part of their Geography studies and evaluated the sustainability of its urban regeneration. WATCH THE VIDEO

Summer Field Trips

Year 10 geographers took part in two summer field trips over two days: one urban investigation based on the area from Hammersmith Broadway to Chiswick, and a rivers investigation at the River Tillingbourne in Surrey.

Blencathra Field Studies Centre

Lower Sixth Geography students experienced a mixed bag of May weather when they visited the boggy moors of Blencathra for the first time since 2019. Armed with ranging poles and clinometers, students spent the weekend investigating the physical geography of the lakes in order to piece together the direction and extent of ice flow in the northern Lake District.

Flatford Mill Field Centre

In May our Lower Sixth IB biologists visited the National Trust Field Centre in Flatford Mill, Suffolk. It proved to be an excellent setting for students to complete their ecological investigations and all produced thought-provoking individual projects, whilst enjoying the beautiful surrounding countryside.

London Zoo

This trip enabled our Year 8 biologists to examine the role of animal parks in conservation and gain a wider appreciation of biodiversity as they explored the many enclosures, including the Reptile House and Rainforest Area. In group workshops they considered the plight of animals, such as the Amur leopard and the Atlantic bluefin tuna, and the range of international in-situ conservation campaigns supported by the zoo.

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Amersham Field Studies Centre

Upper Sixth Biology students visited the Amersham Field Studies Centre to study biodiversity, how human activity is threatening species, and the conservation methods used within the woodland’s habitats.

London Wetlands Centre

Year 7 biologists soaked up some sunshine and explored the wildlife at Barnes’ Wetland Centre spending time discovering the role of the Centre in conservation. The nature reserve is home to over 180 bird species and pupils observed a range of bird species to inform their biological drawings. In addition, the pond dipping activities provided students with an opportunity to evaluate the water quality based on the type and abundance of species identified in their samples. WATCH THE VIDEO

Bon Voyage en France

128 Year 8 girls and fifteen members of staff set off across the channel for our first international trip since the pandemic. They stayed at the wonderful Château d’Ebblinghem near St Omer in Northern France set in beautiful French countryside. There were many highlights and all the visitors were mesmerized by the city of Lille, the capital of the Hauts-de-France near the border with Belgium and they even got to practise a bit of French! Many of them are already planning their return visit.

Chinatown

Just before February half-term, Year 8 students had a fabulous day exploring Chinatown on a treasure hunt and practising their Mandarin food vocabulary in the supermarkets and at a traditional Chinese restaurant. WATCH HERE

National Gallery

Year 8 students enjoyed a day devoted to Spanish, getting warmed up with chocolate con churros for breakfast before heading to the National Gallery for a guided tour in Spanish of Golden Age masterpieces. Led by the fantastic Spanish language and History of Art teacher María Carmona from Spanish House London, there was a particular focus on the works of Diego Velázquez.

Hayward Gallery and the Tate Modern

In June Year 8 German students went on a trip to see several German works of art in the Hayward Gallery and the Tate Modern. The students explored Klaus Weber’s stunning bronze statues that worked with water from a fountain to create the effect of a beautiful peacock. Afterwards they visited the Tate Modern, looking first at several different German expressionist paintings and then using German vocabulary and structures to describe some paintings by the visual artist Gerhard Richter.