The Grange Magazine Vol. 4 No. 1

THE GRANGE MAGAZINE The Grange Reunion > Page 8

Solving the Unsolved > Page 10

Distinctions > Page 14

EDITORS OF THE GRANGE MAGAZINE

Daniel B. H. Koo, Edward J. B. Gaut

EDITORIAL This year not only marks the 90th anniversary for The Grange but also a return of The Grange Magazine, with MCO as our housemaster. The Grange Magazine made its debut in 1928 by David Clarke (Captain, 1930), Francis Pilcher and Hugh Oaks-Rind. As far as we know, no formal Grange Magazine has been published since 1966 and the original copies of previous volumes have been hiding in the school archive for many years. We would gratefully accept any old copies of the Grange Magazine to help recomplete our collection. As we now approach the 100th anniversary of The Grange, we believe it is time to bring back some of the memorable and meaningful traditions of The Grange, including the magazine. We hope that it will serve two main purposes: to help connect the old and new generations of the Grange and to be a new way to congratulate both house and individual successes at the end of each term. The editors will introduce new concepts and ideas for Volume 4 of the Grange Magazine but also adapt some format from previous volumes of the magazine. We hope to re-introduce old articles from past publications in the ‘Memorable article’ section. We would like to quote C. G. S. Paterson, editor of The Grange Newsletter May 1949, who said ‘Boys may come, and boys may go, without them, but it does, remaining always essentially the same, changing but little’ and to extend our thanks and appreciation to all those who helped us to make this reintroduction of The Grange Magazine possible.

July 2018 Daniel Koo and Edward Gaut

THE HOUSE Housemaster: Mr. M. C. Orders BSc Deputy Housemaster: Mr. E. J. Flower BA Matron: Ms. C. Robinson TUTORS Dr. D. M. Tanton MA MSc DipD’I PhD, Mr. M. W. Browning BA, Mr. M. C. E. Turner BSc, Dr. F. Elias Schilserman Ldo PhD, Mr. C. P. Wooldridge BSc, Mr. L. G. Bartlett BA MRSC, Miss J. M. Siemak BA Captain of House: W. J. C. Kirk Vice-Captain of House: J. S. Litvack

CAPTAINS OF HOUSE SPORT Captain of House Rugby

…

Lucas P. Lacamp

Captain of House Hockey

…

Joe J. Kennedy

Captain of House Swimming Captain of House Cricket

… …

Daniel B. H. Koo Lucas P. Lacamp

Captain of House Squash

…

Jamie A. Dix

Captain of House Athletics

…

Lucas P. Lacamp

OTHER INTER-HOUSE COMPETITIONS Captain of Academic Challenge

…

Edward J. B. Gaut

Captain of House Debating

…

Daniel B. H. Koo

Captains of House Song

…

Alfie J. Gurtler

…

Jeremy S. H. Wan

HOUSE MONITORS T P B Bushell, I Buyvidovich, B Chermette, M W Fletcher, J J Kennedy, A N B Lindman, O E G Saarbach, S H J Wan, A S Young SALVETE A A Ajibade, A G Banks, E R Barker, E K Beckett, J J Bickersteth, Finn E. A. Cunningham, E J Leung, O D Lomas, R S Rana, A X Y Song, K W G Webster, L J F Woolaghan

From the Housemaster Dear Parents, Guardians and Boys of The Grange, I am delighted to be writing to you in recognition of the return of the Grange Magazine. We feel it is important to commemorate the important events in this busy house with a lasting record for the archives, and also hope it will become something you look forward to reading each term. This academic year has been a very special one for many reasons. First, we had the celebration of the 90th anniversary of The Grange in May, where old Grange pupils and Housemasters were joined by current members of the house to commemorate this great milestone. I had the great privilege of meeting and talking to many of the OKS as well as former housemasters who also attended the great gathering. It was a very informative and unique occasion where many valuable memories and stories were told by both the old and current Grange pupils. Thank you to all those who attended and the OKS Foundation for their organisation. On the sporting side we have had some fantastic performances. In the Autumn Term the boys showed resilience and effort in the inter-house Cross Country competition, with James Crawley celebrating success in the Intermediate category. The House Swimming team yet again brought the silverware back for the second year in a row. The Football, Rugby and Cricket teams gave excellent performances and we were unlucky not to retain any of these trophies despite fielding talented teams. There has been many changes to the house over the course of the year including the great addition to the tutor team of Mr Mike Turner and Mr Luke Bartlett, the Deputy Head (Academic). I am happy to announce that Lucas Lacamp will be the House Captain of Grange in 2018/19. He will succeed William Kirk, who has done a tremendous job of leading the house during the current academic year, a highlight being his inspired speech to the gathered OKS at the recent reunion. Dr David Tanton will retire after this academic year, having served many years at King’s as a Teacher of Physics, a Deputy Housemaster of Tradescant, a Tutor of Mitchinson’s and latterly as a Tutor of The Grange. Miss Siemak, our Resident Tutor, leaves after two years living with us in The Grange, and I’d like to thank her for her tireless support as such as key part of the team! Next year, Mr Charlie Gardiner joins us as Resident Tutor from Linacre House, and we all wish him the very best of luck. With this academic year coming to an end, I would like to thank all the boys for their efforts and for the staff of the house for all their hard work (particular mention to our matron, Miss Robinson and my Deputy Housemaster Mr Edd Flower). For those leaving The Grange, I give my best wishes for successful future studies and beyond, and for those returning in September I hope you have a restful and enjoyable Summer Holiday. I’d like to wish The Grange Magazine every success for the future.

Yours Sincerely, Mark Orders

From the future Captain of Grange Dear members of the Grange, I have been given the honour of being House Captain for the next academic year. I will be taking over from Will Kirk, and I would like to continue the outstanding work he has done and achieved this year. I am very excited to work alongside Alfie Gurtler (deputy house captain) as well as the other trusted house monitors and cannot wait to get started. We will all be working together as a team to help welcome all the new members to The Grange family and ensure the smooth running of the house. I am very excited as to how we can all work together to help make Grange retain its reputation of being such a wonderful community. There are, of course, aspects of day to day house life that we can improve on that would make this house the house that everyone admires and aspires to join and my goal is to achieve this over the course of next year. I believe that The Grange already has such a wonderful sense of community, and I would really like to build on this. I want to give every member of The Grange a sense of belonging to the house, and get everyone involved in every way possible. I believe the stronger the sense of community, the more successful the house will be. I believe that we have the potential of being the best year yet. I am passionate about establishing a firm sense of integrity, community and personal ambition: the three important pillars of the Grange, by encouraging student activities and initiatives both in house and in the school community. I would like to give my best wishes to those members of The Grange who are leaving us, and I am very excited to welcome all the existing and new members of The Grange in September. Yours sincerely, Lucas Lacamp

Valedictory Dr D. M. Tanton

I started my Kings career in GR in 2004, when Mr.D’Ath was housemaster. After a couple of iterations, I’ve now finished, again in GR, as both Mrs.T and I are retiring – we’ll be on the road, but we don’t know where we’re headed just yet. In any case, we’re unlikely to leave Fordwich for about another year, so I regret to inform you that I shall probably rematerialize in GR from time to time, perhaps armed with crisps and cakes – this latter depends on my supplier. Duty evenings have often developed into 90 minutes or more of discussion with various of the more senior inmates (rather like Oxford’s Inklings, of a previous generation), and I shall now declare that I shall be available for further help or questions should any GR’s wish to be in touch. If I may make so bold, could I encourage denizens to lean rather more towards H.Hesse, Hemingway, Lawrence, and the like, and away from the default ball-tapping which is currently prevalent? College courses await, and you will need a resource drawn from a richer vein if you are to count when you emerge from Kings… Best wishes to all, and to MCO (with whom, if it were not for GR, I might have developed a useful departure in physics…) DMT

Miss J. M. Siemak

As soon as I arrived in The Grange the boys were extremely welcoming and a pleasure to spend time with. Getting to know each and every one of them; their little quirks, humour and annoyances included, has been a real highlight of my time here at Kingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. The Grange boys have so much to offer and it has been an honour to work with and alongside them and the staff that make it such an amazing place to work and live in. I wish them all the very best of luck in the future and hope they follow their hearts into careers that they love and thrive in. JMS

The Grange Reunion 2018 

Celebrating 90 years of the Grange Former members and current boys of the Grange celebrated the 90th anniversary this May.

his year marks the 90th anniversary of the Grange. To celebrate this milestone, the house invited old Grange pupils to join us in commemoration. The day commenced with tours of the Old Grange (now the Music School and some classrooms) by the musicians of the Grange. Then, the old pupils of the Grange were invited for a drinks reception in the courtyard of the current Grange, located in St Augustine’s Abbey, during which they could look around the house. The tour included the browsing of

various items from the King’s archives, generously put together by Mr Peter Henderson, the school archivist. At around one o’clock, the old members of the Grange enjoyed a great meal in the St A’s Undercroft during which the OKS were able to share stories of the both their current lives and their memories of the Grange. Overall, the reunion this year was a very successful event for all involved. We hope to invite the guests in the years ahead to share their experiences with the current pupils.

Both the former and current housemasters of the Grange. They are from left to right: • Peter Boorman (1965-1974) • Stephen Woodley (1979-1991) • Hugh Aldridge (1991-1997) • Marc Dath (1997-2014) • Mark Orders (2014- )

The former pupils of the Grange were entertained by a select group of musicians from the Grange, led by Mr Bartlett

Former pupils, here in the 1980s (shortly after the introduction of girls to King’s), catching up over lunch

Solving the Unsolved 

A question that has not been solved by mathematicians and game-theorists has been solved by Daniel Koo of the Grange. Tackling an unsolved question was hard but the process was unique and very exciting.

thought it was just another fun maths lesson until I fell in love with solving the unsolved Maker-Breaker game which completely changed my life. In summer term of remove, our class had a routine in which we had three revision lessons and one lesson dedicated to fun and interesting maths which covered areas beyond what the GCSE syllabus allowed us to explore. In one of the fun lessons, Dr Johnson, head of Oxbridge applications and deputy housemaster of Marlowe house, introduced the MakerBreaker positional game which was first conceived by Paul Erdös and John Selfridge. Maker-Breaker is a territorial game, which is similar to the Korean ‘Go’ game. Before the game starts, a ‘target shape’ is introduced. The target shape is a shape which the Maker tries to make throughout the game; it is Maker’s ultimate goal and Maker will win if it 10

successfully creates the target shape, despite Breaker’s attempt to block Maker’s potential positions. Maker is a character which always tries to claim positions on the grid whilst Breaker’s ultimate goal is to prevent Maker from claiming the correct positions to create the target shape. The game commences by Maker placing its first Maker on the grid. Breaker then follows Maker’s move and it must place itself adjacent to a Maker or Breaker previously placed on the grid. Maker and Breaker both determine their next moves by using a ‘valuation formula’ which measures the values for each potential position which can be claimed by Maker or Breaker on their next move. The game continues until Maker wins or a pattern is discovered which can prove that Breaker will win.

After a year’s research, Dr Johnson and I found out that Maker can create the ‘Snaky’ shape without failure. There are three ways the game can progress but at the end, it always ends with Maker’s victory. In my King’s week talk on Thursday, I did not just talk about the maths side of things related to our research. There are many other aspects of research which I would like to share with you in this article: First, the recurring theme behind the research was resilience. The question I tackled was an unsolved question. I started from the bottom all the way to the top as I progressed with my research which made me think positively and creatively every time I was faced with a challenge. Over the course of the year, I wrote 20 separate versions of the Maker-Breaker research with different mathematical proof behind each one: 19 of them were incorrect but the last one was correct. This is what I call resilience. True resilience comes from recognising failure and improving personal ability from past failures. There is always the option of giving up when it comes to life’s challenges but I strongly advise all of you reading this article to tackle the challenges you are facing with resilience. The second thing I mentioned is the importance of being fearless. Tim Cook, in his recent commencement speech, mentioned the importance of being fearless to the challenges you are faced with. I would like to add to his words by applying my experience with Maker-Breaker research. Be

fearless and be ready to fail and learn from the failures that you have experienced. If you are fearless of failure and you have the willingness to improve based on your failures, there is a higher chance that you will get it right the next time you are faced with the same challenge. Be fearless to learn! Do not be afraid to learn new things, try new things and explore new areas of knowledge. For example, for this research, I had to learn a programming software called LaTeX. It took me a few months to get used to it but I can now confidently code on what is an invaluable programming language. I learnt so much from doing this research, not purely about Maker-Breaker but the process of research. Research requires not only the aforementioned sense of resilience, but also dedication and passion. I would like to conclude this article on a more general note. King’s is a great place where young people can really explore and try many new things. I strongly recommend all of you who are reading this to grab every opportunity you can at King’s. > Many thanks and appreciation goes to Dr R. A. B Johnson for his help and support. My thanks also goes to Dr D. M. Tanton for his advice throughout the research.

The first draft of the Maker-Breaker solution that Dr Johnson and I came up with on a winter evening in classroom F6.

The House Song ď&#x20AC;ž

A report from Octoberâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house song competition

The house song competition is one of King's most historical, prestigious and looked forward to occasions. With 2 weeks to go, we first familiarised ourselves with the song, which was chosen to be Riptide by Vance Joy. The song itself, is a relatively well known modern pop song, which was then converted to a SATB choral piece, with the help of Ed Gaut. In the first 2 weeks, significant progress was made. In fact, within 4 days, the whole song was fully learnt. On the fifth day, Mr Bersey, Head of Music, was able to come around to hear the song and to give advice on what to work on before the competition. The performance itself went very well, without mistake. The posture, concentration and effort was very much noticeable to me as I conducted, with an excellence response from the rest of the school when finished. From the judges point of view, the remarks went from strength to strength, with comments such as "excellent warmth", "great sound and community feel" and even the word "excellent" to finish off the summary. In the end, Grange did not place this year, although as a house we know that 4th place remains in the trophy cabinet, as it has 12

done for many years previous. The day after, whenever the subject of House Song arose throughout the day, many comforting comments from pupils came about, saying the they were very impressed with the shift Grange managed to pull off in the mere 2 weeks that we had, with others saying as much as they believed that we deserved to be placed. Overall, I am eternally grateful for the effort the boys put in, agreeing with other pupils that for a 2-week rehearsal schedule, the performance was quite brilliant. I thank them all for their hard work, and also this year's House Song deputy, Ed, who assisted the house on Piano with every performance. As for next year, we as a house can only look forward to finally bringing the trophy back home, knowing what we can improve on from this year. Alfie Gurtler, 6b

House Debating 

A report from the junior competition in March

There was a rocky start for the Grange debating team as we got knocked out in the first round of the competition. However, all hope was not lost and we managed to got selected as the “highest scoring losers” allowing us to compete in the fourth first round stage. This debate, which had the motion “This house would equip police officers with automatic facial recognition equipment,” ended in Grange (proposition) and Galpin’s (opposition) progressing to the semi-finals. Having got through to the semi-finals, we ended up competing in the first of the two, against School House, Mitchinson’s and Luxmoore. The motion for this debate was “this house would ban private cars in cities,” which, after a very close debate, ended in Grange placing first and School house coming second, with Mitchinson’s and Luxmoore being knocked out. Finally, the time arose for the final which ended up including School House, Galpin’s, Jervis and Grange. The motion was “this house believes that study drugs should be available to all learners.” School House opened for the proposition and focused solely on society benefitting as whole if the drug 13

was made available. Grange then went second, speaking as the first opposition, and we made points about the longer term effects of the drugs as well as the possible dependence upon these drugs in later life. Jervis and Galpin’s then went on to close each side of the argument after which the judges, after a very lengthy discussion, decided that it should be School House who won the competition this year. Overall, we were happy with our performance but hope to achieve a better result next year. My personal thanks goes to Euan Barker, who also represented the Grange alongside me. Edward Gaut, Remove

DISTINCTIONS

he Grange had a very successful year of sport ranging from rugby to swimming. The rugby first team had a successful season this academic year and special mention goes to our Grange boys who played for the first team. On the inter-house competition side of things, The Grange has now firmly placed itself as one of the strongest houses for swimming. The house swimming team has consistently placed itself at the top of the leader board for the last 2 years. This year, we had success from both junior and senior teams and both teams came second in

their division which gave us an overall first place. There were also successes in other inter-house competitions such as debating, in which the junior debating team reached the finals. Special mention goes to the house competition captains for their leadership and organisation of teams for their respective events. Daniel Koo, 5th

HOC ET ILLUD 90 years

The Grange celebrated its 90th anniversary on 5th May. The reunion was joined by members of the OKS society as well as current members of The Grange.

DMT

The boys of The Grange congratulate DMT for his career and dedication to The Grange and wishes him luck for his future.

JMS

Sadly, Miss J. Siemak leaves after 2 years as resident tutor of the grange. We wish her every success for the future

ARD

Miss A. Donkin, former resident tutor of the Grange also leaves at the end of the academic year. The boys wish her luck for her future journey

4th year

Miss Robinson, the matron of the Grange, marks her 10 years at The Grange in September.

The boys of the Grange congratulate MCO on the completion of his 4th year as the housemaster of the Grange

MEMORABLE ARTICLES In the Grange Magazine Volume 4, the editors will share memorable articles from past editions, dating all the way back to 1928. Hungary bleeds. So does the Grange. We have a lot in common. Russia is a young country â&#x20AC;&#x201C; perhaps not as young as America, but still quite young enough to be self-conscious. Imagine a person who is suddenly made a monitor, though he is younger than many around him. He will be self-conscious in rather the same way. Russia has power (like a monitor), and in her fright of losing or spoiling it she extends its bounds. In the same way our monitor will practise his strongest authority. Then one of Russiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s subjects rebels, and rejects her authority. Russia comes down with a vengeance. Similarly, if somebody (say the average stunt-man) tries to pull off a stunt that our monitor feels is an affront to his authority, he will act vigorously. In as much as we feel Russia has acted wrongly, we show our disapproval, even though we are aware of the psychological difficulties in part responsible. We would do the same to our monitor, and perhaps point the parallel with Russia W.L.C. W.A.H. The Grange Newsletter Vol 2, No 12 May 1957 15

The Courtyard 

New courtyard decorated by The Fifth Trust (a local Kentish charity)

his year has seen a dramatic improvement to the courtyard of the Grange, in the form of beautiful planting (as pictured above) built by a local charity, The Fifth Trust. Here is an excerpt from their website that says a bit about who they are: “[We are] a Kent-based charity that supports adults with learning difficulties. We provide day care facilities on two sites in the Elham Valley near Canterbury for over 120 students, half of whom live locally in residential homes associated with the Trust. Our aim is to provide a safe and fulfilling way of life, helping each individual to achieve their full potential.” Thanks to Mark Collins (the Head of Gardening), the Grange now has a much more attractive courtyard area which has not 16

only improved the space outside the Grange, but also supports the work of the 5th Trust. We are also very grateful to the Headmaster for helping to fund the work done by the trust as we believe it is a very worthwhile cause to support. Whilst their 2 current locations (located around 10 miles from Canterbury) have enabled them to support so many adults in need, their “Greenbanks” site in Barham is in need of renovation to keep it fit for purpose. I’m sure The Fifth Trust would be very grateful for donations/help in any way possible to help them renovate “Greenbanks.” Ed Gaut, Remove

The Headmaster talking with OKS at the Grange 90th reunion in the newly improved courtyard of the Grange

The Courtyard filled with colourful flowers

A view across the courtyard

The Grange Album 2018-19 The 6A leavers

6B leadership day

Inter-house cross country competition

Senior inter-house football

Shell trip to Whitstable

Theme of the edition: The editorial of this edition focusses on the history and purpose of the Grange Magazine which is to share creativity and congratulate excellence. The roses are delivered in the morning of the Commemoration Service for each and every member of the school. The service is an opportunity to remember and commemorate the past year at The Kingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s School.