Senior School Newsletter - End of Term - Autumn 2022

Newsletter End of Term

Headmistress’ End of Term Message

Dear Parents and Guardians,

It has been a wonderful Autumn Term and I am so proud of what every one of our students has achieved whether it be in the classroom, on the stage, on the pitch or participating in the wealth of co-curricular activities here at Habs.

This term we have reorganised our newsletter to showcase how our students have embodied our four values: Ambition, Curiosity, Courage and Community. It is important for us that our values are not only to be understood by staff and students but also lived through their day-to-day school lives, so I am thrilled to see so many shining examples this term.

Particular highlights have been the amazing Haberdashers’ Young Musician concert which saw some of our finest musicians playing to an amazing standard and exemplifying our first value, Ambition. The winner, Amelie Jones, goes on to play at the Haberdashers’ Hall in February with musicians from the whole Haberdashers’ family of schools.

Our second value, Curiosity, can be seen throughout the school. Our desire to continually

learn and improve is no better seen than in our alignment of our timetables across both schools to enable our Lower Sixth co-educational A Level teaching. Our Sixth Form students have demonstrated open and enquiring minds in all their lessons and watching the Boys’ School students fill our corridors and classrooms has been a delight. We are pleased to have received incredibly positive feedback from students and staff alike.

We also saw the launch of our Academic enrichment Monday afternoons throughout the Junior and Senior Schools. These sessions are to encourage our students to think beyond the curriculum and inspire our students’ curiosity by expanding their horizons and opportunities with subject matters included, ethics and philosophy, leadership and first aid.

Our third value, Courage, is our belief to face challenge and embrace opportunities to step out of our comfort zones. Our Senior Lacrosse team have spent years challenging themselves. Lacrosse involves huge levels of hard work, dedication and commitment and the team has regularly experienced both successes and failures in which

they learnt from. Back in October they beat the reigning County champions for the last 10 years, Berkhamsted, winning the Hertfordshire County Tournament. We are all absolutely thrilled for the team.

Our philanthropic foundations lie at the heart of everything we do. Our final value, Community, can be seen through so many examples this term; the generosity of our community both at Harvest Festival in our collection for Akshaya Patra, the Islington Migrant Centre and again this December in our collection for Crisis and St Martin-in-the-Fields Christmas appeal was heartwarming.

We believe that part of your child’s education is to have a care and responsibility for others both in our community and beyond and I am impressed at the altruism of our students and staff who demonstrate this in their school life and activities.

The Senior Citizens Tea Party saw exactly this when we welcomed over 100 guests to the Prevett Hall to spend an afternoon with our Sixth Formers and students from the Boys’ School.

I wish you and your families a Happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year. We look forward to welcoming you and your children back to school in 2023.

Mrs Rose Hardy

Ambition

We set our sights high in terms of what we want to achieve as individuals and as a community, in and outside the classroom, aspiring to achieve our full potential in whatever we put our minds to.

Art

This term, the Art department were ambitious with their programmes and workshops. In November, the Visiting Artist Programme had over 200 students work closely with visiting external artist, including Mark (spray landscape painter), Sally Adkins (print maker), Julia Elmore (painter), Paul Brandford (portrait painter) and Claire McCardle (sculptor). The Big Habs Wrap, an art workshop for over 400 students in Years 7 to 11, also took place during the morning of St Catherine’s Day. Lastly, there were three full days of life drawing which looked to develop our ambitious art students’ observational skills.

Drama

In Drama, 75 GCSE and A Level students have just completed either their Bronze, Silver or Gold Arts Awards qualifications. This ambitious award requires students to set themselves a series of creative tasks and participate in events, visits, work experience or teamwork tasks as they lead creative projects. Moderators praised the quality of portfolios seen and were impressed by the ambition displayed in leadership projects and events run by the students!

Along with this, 150 students across Years 7 to 9 have shown fantastic ambition as they have danced, sung and acted their way through the Matilda Jnr auditions this term. Staged next March, this will be a shortened version of the show but includes many formidable numbers from the West End production!

Computing

It was fantastic to see two teams compete in the Cyberfirst Girls’ Competition, run by the National Cyber Security Centre for Year 8 pupils who identify as female with the intention to support those with an interest in a computing or cyber security career. This ambitious undertaking saw the pupils working in groups for seven days, answering questions on Logic and Coding, Networking, Cryptography and Cyber Security. All those involved embodied the school’s value of ambition as they took on the challenge of this competition, showing resilience and fantastic teamwork and problem-solving skills.

Maths

We are thrilled to see so much ambition within our students when it comes to Maths. We have had success in the Mathematical Olympiad for Girls, with Rachel (U6WM), Keshni (U6WM) and Michelle (U6WM) all achieving Distinction in this national competition. Keshni also scored full marks, qualifying for the British Mathematical Olympiad!

We also had students across Years 11 to 13 enter the Senior Mathematical Challenge, with eight achieving gold certificates, 33 earning silver and 45 getting bronze. Keshni (U6WM) won Best in School while Avi (Habs Boys, L6J2) and Thishana (L6RVP) were Best in Year 12 and Ellen (11A) was Best in Year 11! Seven students went through to the Kangaroo and Benjamin (Habs Boys, L6C2) and Natasha (L6RY) achieved Merit.

There was also a fantastic show of ambition in the Hans Woyda Competition and we are excited to announce that our team of Year 11 to 13 students beat Immanuel College and Watford Girls Grammar School to make it through to the second round, which will take place next term!

Music

The Autumn Term for Music has been positively glowing! With such an ambitious calendar for this academic year, the first term has been packed full of fantastic events. Open Mic concerts continue to be a popular Friday lunchtime feature and the department started with a superb Chamber Concert, featuring a rich variety of solo, duet and ensemble performances. There were also debuts from the newly formed Lee String Quartet and the De Silva String Quartet.

Continuing into November, a glittering array of large ensembles and choirs took to the stage in front of a sold-out audience at our Autumn Concert. Over 200 students participated in the concert, performing in our Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra, Wind Orchestra, Wind Band, Fourth Form Choir, Cantabile, Senior Choir, Senior Trombone Ensemble and Clarinet Ensemble.

Our St Catherine Singers have been busy, providing us with beautiful performances at Evensong in Exeter College, Oxford, and then at the St Catherine’s Day Service in St Albans Cathedral, where they joined by the Junior School Choristers.

The Music department then joined with the Boys’ School for the Concerto Concert, which was a brilliant opportunity to hear from students across both schools playing together as a joint Symphony Orchestra, Big Band, Chamber Orchestra and Jazz Ensemble. A special mention to Eliza (8A) and Kira (U6PS) for their stunning solo performances in the Bruch Violin Concerto.

The term was then closed by a wonderful Nine Lessons and Carols at St John the Baptist Church, Chipping Barnet and our Carol Service at St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Well done and thank you to all those involved in making such a brilliant contribution to the ambitious musical life at the school! We are very excited to see what the Spring Term holds.

Abbey Road

This summer, some of our musicians combined with Habs Boys Big Band and took part in a very special and ambitious project, a recording at the world-famous Abbey Road Studios.

The Habs Big Band has run for 19 years and yet we didn’t have any recordings to document the ensemble. This project was an opportunity to capture this wonderful group of musicians, as well as to tell the story of the band, and our process at the studio.

The resulting video is to be released at the end of term and combines incredible music with a more personal look at the journey of our band members, and their relationship to the music.

Abbey Road, Studio 1 has a roster of the most famous artists in the world including The Beatles, Queen, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Oasis, Tom Jones, Amy Winehouse, Adele and many more…

For our students to follow in the footsteps of iconic acts such as The Beatles by recording in this studio was very special, look out for video - it’s certainly not to be missed!

Whilst festivities for the Platinum jubilee took place, our very own Big Band spent the weekend in Studio 1! After months of dedication and ambition, two marvellous days took place recording and making the best music the band has to offer. It was truly remarkable to see our very own musicians, making their best music, in the room where world famous records came to life. We will be releasing the full tracks on music platforms shortly. During the weekend, we were able to work a film crew to produce a short documentary of our two days. We are thrilled to be able to share this with you.

Netball at Habs has seen as successful Autumn Term. The school welcomed London Pulse Super League and England Netball athlete, Halimat Adio, in November.

Halimat led coaching sessions with the U13 to U19 Netball squads, including our Sports Scholars, and we are incredibly grateful to have such a wonderful opportunity with such an inspirational athlete. As a source of inspiration, we hope that it inspires ambition within our athletes to represent their country and go that step further with their sport.

There was further success with the U19 squad as they competed in the County Schools Tournament in October. Facing some good opposition during the morning games, the students did not let that detertheir confidence and got a place in the semi-finals. From there, they won and were again victorious in the finals. Congratulations to all!

Netball Cross Country

It has been an excellent start to the season for the Cross-Country teams who have shown their ambitions for this year! In November, students in Years 7 to 13 participated in the District Cross Country. There were some tremendous individual and team performances, with the Year 7 and Seniors finishing 1st as a team and the Year 8 to 10s finishing a close 2nd. Individual performances included 1st place for Aimee (7 A), Anna (9 A) and Dina (10 Alpha), 2nd place for Rachel (U6PS) and 4th place for Eleni (8 Aleph).

There was also the ESAA Cross Country Cup and the Inter Girls team qualified for the Regional round where they finished 6th overall, with Dina and Anna finishing 12th and 13th individually.

Well done to all involved so far! We look forward to what the rest of the year will bring!

Since we were founded, we have had an inherent responsibility to our diverse internal and wider community and continue to dedicate ourselves to nurturing it and supporting each other to be our best selves.

Haberdashers’ Elstree Schools Win Prestigious National Award

The schools’ Alumni and Development team have had an incredibly successful Autumn Term and we are excited to see what they have planned for the rest of the academic year.

This term, the department were awarded the ‘Development Award for an Outstanding Fundraising Achievement’ at the Independent Schools of the Year Awards in October! This comes as an acknowledgement to the Elstree Schools’ ambitious Inaugural Giving Day in March 2022 and, selected from more than 700 nominations, Habs were commended by the judges for an ‘innovative and effective fundraising initiative’ as well as for an ‘honest and different take on giving days and for bringing two communities together’.

The Giving Day brought together both Haberdashers’ Girls School and Haberdashers’ Boys’ School for a major initiative and inspired 648 parents, Old Haberdashers and staff to donate and nearly 850 students and staff ran in a Habs GivingDash to unlock additional ‘challenge gifts’. The money raised went on to support bursaries, greatest needs, capital projects, student projects and other priorities at the schools.

Together, the Habs community raised more than £135,000 in 36 hours.

The schools would like to thank everyone who was involved, with a special mention to Mrs Nina Saurymper. A Habs parent and Senior Partner of Accenture, Mrs Saurymper accepted the award on behalf of Habs along with Mr Bill Friar, the Director of Development at the schools. Mrs Saurymper was a fantastic Parent Ambassador during the Giving Day, inspiring 23 Habs families, including her own, to make a gift.

The schools will be holding their second annual Giving Day on Tuesday 7 March 2023 and are looking for some creative and exciting ideas to involve more of our community. If you want to get involved, send our Alumni and Development team a message at foundation@habselstree.org.uk!

Habs Partnerships

Partnerships at Habs has been incredibly busy during the Autumn Term, and even before, as we aim to build educational opportunities through sustainable partnerships with local schools and community groups.

Over the summer, we had 70 children from five local state partner schools attend the Habs Summer School. Here, they had a wonderful time building their skills and having fun using the facilities we are incredibly lucky to have on campus.

The Community Service team (under the Partnerships group) has also been busy collecting donations for Akshaya Patra. This is a charity providing food to underprivileged children in the UK. These donations were collected during our Harvest Festival donations, through contacting local businesses and then also collecting donations at Morrisons in Borehamwood.

In the term, we have been running 18 hours, per week, of Partnership activities with local schools and community groups. These sessions include creative writing, sports, Music, Maths, Science, swimming and even a motherand-child group at the Refugee Hub nearby.

We have been very lucky to continue our commitment to the Afghan refugees housed in our area and we are so pleased to say that, after having run what amounted to an entire school there during 2021/22, all the children

have been placed into local schools and we continue to provide wraparound provision.

Many of our sessions are led by Habs students who relish the opportunities to build their leadership communication and team working skills. Their sense of enjoyment and fulfilment is so obvious and is wonderful to overhear, with one student saying to another: “That was the best thing I have ever done… in my life!”

Haberdashers’ Publication Event

As part of the Haberdashers’ Company community, we were delighted to receive invites for our Head Girl and Mrs Rose Hardy to attend the Publication Ceremony, Service and Dinner where the new Master and Wardens were installed at Haberdashers’ Hall. They joined Haberdashers’ Boys’ School School Captain and other Haberdashers’ Schools at this wonderful event.

“That was the best thing I have ever done… in my life!”

Senior Citizens Tea Party

After a three-year hiatus, this year the Senior Citizen’s Tea Party made a fabulous return. With the theme ‘The Best of British’, the Prevett Hall welcomed 120 local senior citizens to a day filled with music, afternoon tea and lots and lots of dancing. The Prevett had been transformed into a beautiful venue, complete with stunning centrepieces, a balloon arch and confetti. The Senior Citizen’s Tea Party is an annual charity event, joint with the Boys’ School, in which the committee prepare for months to organise everything from the decorations to entertainment to the quiz, raffle and bingo. On the day, each guest was paired with one of our eager volunteers, and they spent the day talking and laughing; amidst our wonderful singers and performers. But the highlight of the event was when everyone, guests and volunteers alike, came together on the dance floor and danced their hearts away. Everyone left the event with a smile on their face!

Habs Garba 2022

Our two school communities, came together for their second Habs Garba, organised by the Hindu Societies from both schools. The event was open to all years and all faiths.

Garba is a Gujarati folk dance performed during the nine-night festival of Navaratri dedicated to the mother Goddess, and on the full moon night of Sharad Purnima dedicated to Lord Krishna.

The night was much bigger and better than last year with 350 students from both schools attending. The event had an amazing DJ for the night alongside our two Dhol players:

Kaylan (7S) and Dylan (L6S1). The night started with Be Tali, a dance consisting of two simple claps, and as the speed of the music increased, this developed into a much more complicated movement. All the students had great fun and were able to pick it up quickly, with volunteers helping where necessary. The students then moved on to Tran Tali, a three-clap dance, followed by the Aarti (prayer) to Lord Krishna, and His Consort the Goddess Yamuna. This ceremony was performed by student volunteers, with those not participating sitting down and listening respectfully.

After the Aarti, attendees were served food and given a chance to socialise while the musicians took a break. The students were welcomed back with a performance given by Kaylan (7S) playing the tabla and Shaurya (7J) playing the violin, performing a classical Garba song Nagada Sang Dhol which attendees enthusiastically danced to. The next dance was Dandiya Raas, where the students danced with sticks and was performed with really high energy and great enthusiasm by all the students. The final dance of the night was Ramjaniyu which, like last year, was definitely everyone’s favourite. Due to the extremely large scale of the event, we had more versions of Ramjaniyu popping up during the night, allowing everyone to learn a new dance from their peers and have even more fun.

The night was a huge successall participants were incredibly involved and energetically danced the night away. In following years, we hope this event only grows as Garba is an amazing opportunity for everyone in the school, students and staff, to immerse themselves in our rich culture.

Written by Anji (Haberdashers’ Girls’ School, U6WM) and Krish (Haberdashers’ Boys’ School, U6C1)

Junior School Update

There have been so many highlights to this term, including the visits of authors Jeremy Strong and Clare Balding, the chance to run a Mini-Marathon alongside pupils at Habs Boys Prep, an Art trip to Radlett Arts Centre, the Bebras Computing Challenge, the Primary Maths Challenge and a science competition. The amount on offer to our pupils, to keep young, curious minds engaged, has been phenomenal.

We have also worked alongside charities within year groups to provide pupils the chance to look beyond the school environment. These experiences develop their thinking and encourage them to acknowledge how they are citizens of a wider world and the impact they can have, both as a group and individually. A wonderful example of this is when Year 2 visited Heath House Care Home, where pupils shared their favourite stories with the residents. We also had our Harvest Celebration, which allowed the whole school to reach out to the wider community and support both Akshaya Patra and the Islington Migrant Centre with donations of much needed, relevant supplies.

Then there are all our sporting and musical and theatrical delights! In the last week of term, we have seen our Rainbow and KS1 production performances, our new annual SantaDash, the Merry Music Concert and our KS2 Carol Service. All our pupils are involved in one way or another and their enthusiasm and excitement to share all their hard work and creativity with friends and family is bursting at the seams!

It has been amazing to see the wonderful buzz of activity across our Junior School, both inside and outside the classrooms.

Our Habs community has been treated some fantastic artwork in the school corridors! Created by our GCSE and A Level Art students, we hope that our students, staff and visitors will enjoy the creativity on show.

Art History

It was fantastic to see our History Society share their passion for History with the younger members of the Habs community this term. Members of the History Society gave a talk about the history of Christmas to Year 5 and 6 pupils from the Junior School, expanding their knowledge on all things Christmas! From Saturnalia to Georgian Christmas’, gifts, Christmas trees and, not to be forgotten, the obligatory Muppets Christmas Carol.

We are also excited to announce that the MUN Society has now moved towards being run jointly. Weekly meetings are being held by Mr Yarlett and Mr Pedroz and students from both schools across Years 7 to 13 are all being trained together in preparation for HabsMUN 2023.

Physics

Congratulations to Miss Percy who has been recognised by the Institute of Physics as Teacher of the Year 2022!

Languages

The week commencing Monday 28 November, the whole school celebrated Languages Week as a community. Students participated in a range of exciting events, from a Linguistics Olympiad to a languages treasure hunt, from a Year 8 Spelling Bee to a wonderful talent show! There was also the European Challenge during enrichment day for Year 9, where they were tasked with rebranding Jelly Babies for a European market and had to use their languages skills to pitch to international clients. It was a fantastic show of community, fun and teamwork!

Then, in December, the department also held their annual Year 8 Spelling Bee. The students were brilliant in their support of one another as they had to spell various French, German and Spanish words in front of an audience. Félicitations to Vanessa (8 Alpha) who won for French, enhorabuena to Arianna (8 Aesc) who won for Spanish and glückwunsch to Rosie (8 Aleph) who won for German!

Sport

Cross-Country

It has been fantastic to see that interest and excitement continues for HabsDash this academic year! Students and staff have been running HabsDash, held jointly with Habs Boys. It is a wonderful community event that takes place every Tuesday lunchtime during the term, with the occasional one with a theme for fun or to raise awareness for a charity. Everyone completes a 3.5km, walking, jogging or running as quick as they can. There are Marathon awards given to those who complete a set number of events and it has been great to see a number of Personal Bests (PBs) being achieved, records set and bobble hats awarded to those who complete over 100 miles!

Sports Leaders: Women, Get Set, Go!

Bulldog and organised mini-competitions. It was fantastic to hear that the students who choose Sports Leaders did so because it sounded like a great opportunity to give back to the Habs community, as well as developing and nurturing their leadership skills.

We believe in the courage to face challenge, embrace opportunity and step out of our comfort zones to grow and become our best selves, whilst also having courage in our conviction, remaining true to our moral compass and what we believe is the right thing to do.

Lacrosse

The Senior Lacrosse team has had a phenomenal start to the academic year as they participated in the annual Hertfordshire County Lacrosse tournament in October.

Both the 1st and 2nd Senior Teams played incredibly well and saw some huge wins against good opposition. The 2nd Team came 4th overall in the tournament, while the 1st Team secured themselves a place in the Final. They played against Berkhamsted, who are one of the best lacrosse schools in the country and were reigning County champions for the last 10 years. We are absolutely thrilled to announce that Habs won 3-2, winning the Hertfordshire County tournament!

Congratulations to all involved and the whole Senior Lacrosse squad for their dedication, courage, commitment and hard work.

Trampolining

It was brilliant to see our Trampoline team performing so well in their Regional competition this term. The U19 team placed 2nd while the U15 team placed 3rd, qualifying them back for the Zonal round. We are also incredibly proud of the U13 team who participated for the first time in this competition and did extremely well.

Well done to all involved!

Student speaks to Department of Education on behalf of AVUK

Habs student Lauren (L6 JEP) embodied our value of courage multiple times throughout the term as she represented Auditory Verbal UK (AVUK), a charity that delivers auditoryverbal therapy to deaf children that will enable them to listen and talk. Even so recently as our last few days of term as Lauren spoke to the Department of Education about her experiences of being a deaf child in the education system. Lauren was fantastic as she spoke to a number of dignitaries about her life growing up, her time so far at Habs and how exciting it is to see technology evolving to help children, like her, who need that support. She further stated that technology was “only part of the solution” and that “technology alone should not be considered the golden bullet to creating choice and opportunity for deaf people.”

It is brilliant to see Lauren embracing such a fantastic opportunity and having the courage to use her experience to help transform other deaf childrens’ lives.

Senior School Play

This year, the Senior School play was a joint production with students from Habs Girls and Habs Boys and portrayed a bold and courageous retelling of Emma Rice’s lyrical and playful adaptation of the iconic Noel Coward 1945 screenplay, Brief Encounter, alongside a devised piece which celebrated the company’s exploration of what it means to fall in love.

This was a fantastic opportunity to create original work that gave voice to the company, in response to Coward’s characters and story, while still honouring the original work: a fascinating conversation

spanning eight decades.

The Habs production sits a group of young people growing up in Milford today, working at a café of the same name at Milford Station.

It allowed the cast to explore how relationships should look, feel and sound in 2022. Their words and thoughts - through a series of conversations, recordings and improvisations during rehearsals – were transcribed to create a new script, which interweaves with the original and explores the beginnings of a relationship between two boys. We were incredibly lucky and grateful that both Emma Rice and the Noel

Coward Estate were hugely supportive of this idea and gave special permission for us to add to the original script.

This was a bold and ambitious ensemble of storytelling and the actors showcased incredible energy, honesty and courage to explore and depict love in all its ways. This production was yet another genuine testament to the process, asking the students not simply to replicate other work that had gone before them, but to take risks, be creative and reflect their own voices; develop and take responsibility as an ensemble to tell stories.

Physics

Courage was in abundance as Art students got involved with Articulation, a nation-wide art public speaking competition which is open to Sixth Form students. We are excited to find out in the Spring Term how our students did in the internal heats ahead of the semi-final in the new year!

Art Physics

We are incredibly excited about the number of competitions that our students are stepping up and getting involved with. We have two Sixth Form teams competing in CityGen, a competition with the Institute of Civil Engineers and we also had a team travel to London for the first round of the UK Space Design Competition at Imperial.

Congratulations to Miss Percy who has been recognised by the Institute of Physics as Teacher of the Year 2022!

“Miss Percy is an exciting and progressive teacher, who pushes the boundaries of technology.”

Curiosity

In a diverse world, we believe that growth comes from not standing still. We are driven by an unending desire to learn and improve, not standing still and having an open and enquiring mind to anything we face.

Habs In Conversation: An Evening With Professor Turi King

The schools’ Alumni and Development team have recently introduced Habs in Conversation, a programme in which the department invite notable people within the Habs community to the school to give a talk and be interviewed to satisfy the curiosity of our students!

One evening, the school welcomed Professor Turi King, best known for identifying that famous body in the car park as Richard III. Professor King visited the school for an on-stage interview and drinks reception.

The first in this exciting new series of events, the evening was held in the Girls’ School’s Performance space but welcomed all from both Habs Girls and Habs Boys.

Professor King started the evening with a brief synopsis of her career including how she overcame the challenges she faced as a woman in STEM and was followed by an on-stage interview and an audience-led Q&A, managed by Director of Development, Mr Bill Friar.

The event was filled with fascinating tales of her work discovering Richard III in 2012, her life post-Richard III including uncovering the mystery of how Robert the Bruce died, trying

to find the remains of the governor of the Jamestown colony and convincing Sir David Attenborough that he is descended from a long line of faithful ancestors. Professor King also discussed her collaboration with crime novelist Patricia Cornwell as they tested Cornwell’s theory that spooky British artist Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper.

Earlier that day, Professor King also delivered the Girls’ School annual Dr Luena Hatcher Women in STEM lecture to senior school students from Habs Girls and Habs Boys. The annual event was named in the memory of Dr Luena Hatcher (OH 1994) who left a bequest of more than £320,000 to encourage the study of science at the Girls’ School. The bequest was put into the construction of a lab at the school, which was also named in her honour.

The Alumni and Development team are excited to continue the Habs in Conversation series. If you know anyone who would be a great interviewee for the future - whether they be parents, Old Haberdashers, even extended family members - please contact them at foundation@habselstree.org.uk. The series is open to any topic so long as it’s inspiring curiosity!

Academic Enrichment

After the introduction of Academic Enrichment to timetables for Years 4 to 11, students have been given Monday afternoons to think beyond the curriculum. The Autumn Term has seen units intending to challenge thinking and inspire curiosity. Students have experienced topics such as ethics and philosophy, developed skills such as leadership and learnt first aid.

The school also welcomed some fantastic speakers for this new timetable element, such as Dr Peter Lovett, June Angelides, Dr Matt Pritchard and, specifically for Years 6 and 7 Madeline Ward.

Art Classics

The Art department have shown some fantastic curiosity as Upper Sixth students visit Tate Britain to experience the Cornelia Parker exhibition. The Lower Sixth have also been using this exhibition as a basis for their projects.

The chances to be curious and dive deeper into their topics have not been lacking with the Classics department this term. So far, students across Years 10 to 13 have had opportunities to see a modernised performance of Sophocles’ Antigone at the Regents’ Park Open Air Theatre, visit the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford or the British Museum, or listen to bestselling author Natalie Haynes, who spoke about her new novel Stone Blind, or alumna Harry Derbyshire, who discussed her thesis on the beautiful frecoes from the Villa Boscotrecase near Pompeii and led a fascinating session on imperial panegyric poetry.

Computing

Lower Sixth students had the opportunity to meet and listen to Elona Shatri, who is a PhD candidate at the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Artificial Intelligence and Music (AIM). Elona discussed her interest in Music and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and her work on bringing new machine learning solutions to the field of OMR, achieving an end-to-end solution to the problem. Elona is a part of the Centre for Digital Music (C4DM) research group at Queen Mary University of London and her research interest is Optical Music recognition, as well as other MIR related subfields, with her goal to get computers to read sheet music.

This was a fantastic insight for our students, sparking curious and passionate conversations on the day.

Economics

It has been a fantastic start to the Autumn Term as we saw the launch of the Economics Society at the Girls’ School. The turnout from all year groups has been brilliant and they have all had the opportunity to engage with non-fungible tokens, unique cryptographic irreplicable tokens and representing real world artwork and real estate.

English

To stir further curiosity in both English Language and English Literature students, the English department have been out and about to multiple conferences already this term. Language students enjoyed hearing about new developments in language and linguistics studies, including the ways in which we use language when communicating online and attitudes to accents. Literature students, on another trip, listened and discussed poetry with poets and writers.

We are also very excited for next term too, as we hear from Years 7 and 8 in the Edna Judd poetry recital and we hold a novel writing competition with guest judge, Luigi Bonomi! We hope these future events will continue to inspire our students to find out more about new writing techniques and research new genres.

Geography

Continuing to inspire curiosity outside the classroom, the Geography department organised trips and lectures this term for GCSE and A Level students. Sixth Form students visited the London Docklands as part of their Regeneration unit while Year 10 collected data at Southend-on-Sea. Lectures were attended by the Sixth Form, hosted by Royal Holloway University on the Geography of Reproductive Rights, and students had the chance to further their knowledge and expand on their curiosity by asking questions.

The department was also once again involved in Habs Geographical, a joint publication with Habs Boys. Four new editors joined the team and they truly got stuck into this year’s topic, which was Energy. This is a fantastic joint venture which will allow our students to challenge themselves, each other and really inspire curiosity as they delve into subjects and research techniques they may not have previously experienced!

History

Along with Habs Boys, the Girls’ School history department was excited to welcome historian, writer and broadcaster, Dr Dominic Sandbrook onto campus to give a talk to Year 7 and Sixth Forms students across both schools. The author of seven history books for adults and six books for children, Dr Sandbrook also co-hosts the popular history podcast The Rest Is History. Curiosity was in abundance as students asked plenty of questions after Dr Sandbrook was finished discussing his experiences as a historian and his most recent book in his Adventures In Time series, The Fury of the Vikings.

Psychology

The Psychology department encouraged students to feed their curiosity earlier in the term as they took a trip to the Psychology in Action Conference, which was packed with six consecutive talks delivered by knowledgeable experts. As part of the school’s strategy, the students even had the opportunity to explore topics outside of the A Level curriculum.

Subjects ranged from memory and music to sports psychology and academic revision to how psychology has been deeply ingrained into our lives. The speakers included Professor Loveday, Dr Jolley, Mr Fagan and Professor Lovatt to name but a few! It was a great trip during which so much was learnt and fun was had.

Politics

The Politics Society has had plenty of talks, led by Sixth Form students, to satisfy curiosity regarding any topic this term! From the legacy of Mikhail Gorbachev to the Italian elections to the Brazilian General Election, there was plenty for our students – along with students from Habs Boys – to discuss.

The Languages (German) department were delighted to be able to offer the opportunity to take Year 11 German students to the British Film Institute in London. It was a great experience where students were able to watch clips of short German films, expand their vocabulary range and develop their listening skills.

They were also able to watch the German film, Berlin 36, a German film about the true story of Gretel Bergmann, a talented high jumper who was not allowed to compete in the 1936 Berlin Olympics because she was Jewish. However, she befriended the athlete who had been recruited to replace her and they worked together to try and outsmart the Nazis who were conspiring against them.

There was plenty learnt during this trip and students were able to expand their curiosity beyond the curriculum.

German Sports Scholars

It has been amazing to see our Sports Scholars becoming fully immersed in co-curricular life at Habs Girls over the Autumn Term. The academic year began with an introduction to PE staff and students meeting their department mentor, having the chance to meet with School Sports Captain, Alexandra Pareskeva, and watch a webinar from Independent Coach Education focused on ‘mastering your mind’. This webinar so important as it highlighted factors for our young athletes to consider when learning new skills or participating in competitive sport.

Our Sports Scholars also had a session with Miss Godsave, a Strength and Conditioning (S&C) coach from Habs Boys, where they learned the importance of muscular strength and endurance to enhance performance while preventing injury.

We wish them all every success as they continue with their sports!

Staff News