Skylight - Autumn 2016

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Art, Music & Drama

The HABS Community

Pitt Rivers Trip

Careers Convention 2016 On Thursday 10 November, the Careers Team held its biennial Careers Convention - an important event in the School calendar. The Convention involved representatives from a huge range of sectors including advertising, banking, journalism, law, PR, architecture, engineering, medicine, scientific research and technology. Boys from Years 10, 11 and the Lower Sixth had the chance to talk informally to people at the very top of their fields (many of whom were Old Haberdashers), finding out about career paths, opportunities, and getting useful advice for the future. This year’s event was bigger than ever before, giving students the opportunity to discover careers that they may not previously have considered. Wendy Tan-White MBE delivered an inspiring keynote speech on how technology is changing the world. Boys and parents also enjoyed two interactive panel sessions. The first of these was on the Creative Industries, giving students the opportunity to gain valuable advice from Frank PR’s Stay in touch with Habs Andrew Bloch (OH 1992), Magnus Djaba (OH 1992) from Saatchi & Saatchi and Alan Hunter (1989) from The Times who have all enjoyed enormous success in this competitive field. Online Community – www.habsonline.org.uk The second panel was on Entrepreneurship, and featured successful entrepreneurs Andrew Facebook – /habsboys Evans (OH 1994), Rishi Sachdev (OH 1994), Jyotin Sethi (OH 1998) and Dr Amit Patel. Twitter - @habsboys We are extremely grateful to all of the speakers and exhibitors who gave up their time to join LinkedIn – Haberdashers’ Aske’s Alumni us for this important occasion.

Recent Reunions

Israel Reunion The HABS Foundation has recently held a number of successful events this term; to kick things off, a History Reunion on Thursday 6 October at the Institute of Historical Research, on Monday 14 November a reunion for the Class of 2007 leavers in Smithfield, London (next to Haberdashers Hall) took place, we hosted the Class of 2012 at our Elstree site on Monday 21 November and also held a reunion in Tel Aviv, Israel on Thursday 24 November.

The first Old Haberdashers in Israel (OHII) reunion took place on Thursday 24 November 2016 in the Goshen restaurant in the thriving heart of Tel Aviv. The Headmaster, Mr Hamilton, and Director of the Foundation, Mr Llewellyn, were welcomed to this very special event by the evening’s host Terry Newman (OH 1999) and over 50 Old Boys and Girls from our two Haberdashers’ Schools in Elstree. During a highly enjoyable evening (including a rousing rendition of ‘Jerusalem’), friendships were rekindled and established and the common experience of a Habs education was duly celebrated by all.

Sport Football Spurred on by impressive debutants Joe Leslie and Dilan Markanday, Habs 1st XI football team produced an excellent performance to beat RGS Guildford 5-0 in the Boodles ISFA Cup. Although the team were beaten in the following round, away at Tonbridge School, the team played some really attractive passing football on a tricky pitch and caused the home team numerous problems, all of which bodes well for the upcoming season.

Habs Remembers On Friday 11 November 2016, the CCF held its annual Remembrance parade on the Aldenham House Croquet Lawn, attended by Old Boys, staff and current pupils. At 11am, before the parade took place, the whole School observed a twominute silence. School librarian, Mrs Stanbury, created a display in the library celebrating the life of William R ‘Nobbly’ Tanner (OH 1935) who served in the Army as one of Field Marshal Montgomery’s Desert Rats. Nobbly, as he was fondly known to OHs, bequeathed his old uniform, medals and a note from ‘Monty’ to the School.

Rugby 21 members of the Senior Rugby Squad and three staff headed to Biarritz in South West France over the October half term break. One of the objectives of the trip was to develop a greater sense of togetherness after a difficult domestic campaign and the boys forged a strong group identity thanks to the various activities the site had to offer. Highlights included a full surfing lesson in the Atlantic Ocean and an intense training session in the dark arts of defence. The squad performed with great tenacity and aggression in the match against the locals Souston and the boys returned to school invigorated by the touring experience.

The 25 boys who were presented Art badges in Year 7 were specially invited to attend the Pitt Rivers museum in Oxford. Part of the University of Oxford, this museum has over 50,000 objects on show from all over the world. Highlights of the collection include a witch in a bottle, an 11.36m high totem pole, shrunken heads and a vast range of weaponry. The boys created some fabulous drawings and sketches from the articles which most interested them. In the afternoon they were treated to an object handling session, during which they were given valuable and precious objects from the collection. In groups and just armed with a map and clues of where to look, they had to find out the answers about the identity and use of their objects. Museum staff commented on how focused the boys were and Habs staff are looking forward to seeing their finished sketchbook pages.

Senior House Drama Competition

Yorkshire Art Tour

Another busy start to the year saw the return of the boys’ favourite competition. Under the guidance of our new Head of Performance Drama, Mr Weinman, each house performed a short excerpt to great success. From the creative freedom this competition offers came a wide range of pieces to enjoy, from Pinter and Orwell to more recent selections, including an adaptation of TV’s The Office. Special mention must go to Alexander Cohen (Hendersons) who took it upon himself to write an original piece in such a short timeframe and the cast of Growth led by Max Goldstone and Covi Franklin (Joblings), who produced a subtle masterpiece to grab first place.

25 students armed with sketchbooks ranging from Year 8 to Year 12 spent four days in Yorkshire, finding inspiration was never far away; admiring the grandeur of York Minster, creating 3D clay work at The Hepworth Gallery, discovering sheep as well as sculpture at The Yorkshire Sculpture Park, trying to comprehend the inner workings of a steam train at The National Railway Museum, and observing the stunning work of traditional and contemporary artists at The York Art Gallery. There was even time to take in a spine-chilling ghost walk of the streets of York! A fantastic time was had by all.

SKYLIGHT AUTUMN 2016

Autumn Music Concert The annual Autumn Concert boasted its usual display of first rate musical talent, from Year 7 boys through to the Sixth Form. The first half kicked off with Concert Band performing a powerful Count Basie number with an excellent solo from Andrew Crabtree, followed by the School Choir, who surprised everyone with Geographical Fugue, a piece not sung but spoken rhythmically. Wind Sinfonia provided an energetic rendition of Uptown Funk, and Habs’ signature Big Band rounded off the first half with three pieces, featuring scorching solos from Benjy Sandler, Sam PfefferMatthews, Alex Astruc, Freddie Bird and Rohan Virani. Special mention also needs to go to Habs Young Musician, pianist Harjivan Singh, who gave a sensitive and highly musical performance of Ravel and Rachmaninov. In the second half we were treated to Guitar Orchestra, Percussion Ensemble and the Year 7 Singers, who had waited impeccably at the back for the entire concert, giving a memorable performance of a Beatles medley. Philomusica treated us to Pirates of the Caribbean, and Symphony Orchestra closed the night with a tight Rossini overture, with a commendable solo from Nikhil Chavda, and a little known piece by William Mathias. Overall, the concert was a splendid night of top musical talent from across the School, and a triumph for the new Music team in their first concert at Habs.

Cricket In the first few weeks of the autumn term, shouts of ‘catch’ and ‘howzat’ could be heard alongside the usual cries of ‘ruck’ and ‘maul’ as the School Cricket Season continued into the month of September. In an exciting and successful new initiative, two T20s away at Merchant Taylors’ were organised and both games were played in perfect conditions under warm, sunny skies – considerably better weather than that experienced during much of May and June! We were well beaten in the first game, but the second encounter turned out to be a thriller. Tight bowling (two wickets apiece to Saavan Shah, Nikhil Chavda and Jack Ronayne) and fielding restricted our hosts to 140 for 9 in their 20 overs. In reply, the Habs openers Amaan Lakhani (57*) and Vinosh Jegatheesan (46) batted superbly, putting on 112 before Jegatheesan was stumped. Captain Jordan Urban followed him back to the pavilion two balls later as the pressure began to build. Still requiring just over 7 runs an over, Lakhani and Naresh Rasakulasuriar took the score to 139 with one ball remaining. Unfortunately Lakhani missed the ball and Rasakulasuriar was run out by the MTs wicket-keeper as he tried to sneak a single, backing up, to tie the game.

Tennis This term the senior team played two games in the group stages of the National Senior Students competition. The quartet of Sudeep Khadka, Adam Vaughan, James O’Brien and Josh Sassoon got underway against Monk’s Walk and came away with a win by four sets to two. The following week we faced the Watford Grammar second team knowing that a win was needed to progress to the knockout stages. Despite a hotly-contested line call in James’ match, we completed a decisive sweep of the singles to ensure victory, eventually winning by five sets to one and guaranteeing a knockout round berth for next term.

The Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School


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