The Royal Masonic School For Girls Senior School Weekly News Update
Friday 9th December 2016
SENIOR SCHOOL NEWS UPDATE Friday 9th December 2016 Forthcoming Events at a Glance
Devonshire House and Tea Arrangements
Here are just a few important
To make sure that all Day Pupils are supervised
forthcoming events coming in the last
and kept safe if staying for tea after school, we
two weeks of term and at the beginning
would like to emphasise the following
of next term…
arrangements:
For our full calendar, click here Friday 9th December Christmas Concert Sunday 11th December TEDx Youth@RMS Wednesday 14th December Senior School Christmas Lunch Senior School Carol Service
Day Pupils who are staying in School for tea should go to the normal Senior School tea time which is at 6.00pm and supervised by Boarding Staff. Day Pupils must have finished and leave the Dining Hall by the time the Boarding Staff leave. If Day Pupils are staying for tea and the start time of their activity is 6.00pm, then they may go to early tea but
Thursday 15th December
they must leave the Dining Hall at 5.55pm when the
END OF TERM
Cadogan House after school club leaves as there
———————————— Monday 9th January 2017
will be no supervision for these pupils in the Dining Hall. This should work well as they will need to
Boarder Return
arrive at their activity for 6.00pm.
Tuesday 10th January
If these timings do not work for any day girl then
Term Starts
she may order a packed tea and eat it in
Tuesday 17th January Charity Cake Sale and Non Uniform Day
Devonshire before 6pm. Thank you, Mrs Young
Wednesday 18th January STEAM Lecture Monday 30th January Life Skills Evening for Parents/ Guardians 4th—5th February EXEAT Weekend
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SCHOOL NEWS Emails sent this week Year 10
Information and Consent Forms for Tetanus, Diphtheria and Polio Vaccinations
Year 9
GCSE Options Information
Whole School
Thank you message from FORMS re Christmas Fair
Whole School
Warning about car park this evening
Year 12 Geography
Letter, consent form and kit list for Slapton Ley Field Trip March 2017
Parent Portal queries & updating contact details To advise us of any changes to your contact details, change of boarding status etc., please contact changeofdetails@royalmasonic.herts.sch.uk . If you have any other questions relating to the Parent Portal, please contact our Data Systems team on data support@royalmasonic.herts.sch.uk
Astronomy Extravaganza Click here to see a video of the week’s
Reminder about School Lockdown Practice As mentioned in last week’s Parent
activities that culminated in our Cadogan House and Senior School Astronomy Extravaganzas last month. Many thanks to Mrs Newson in the Prep Department for putting the film together—it is lovely to see the whole
Newsletter, on Wednesday 14th December we will be having a practice of our lockdown procedure. Students have already been briefed about this, and will also be reminded on Monday.
school involved, from Ruspini House through to the Sixth Form!
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SCHOOL NEWS RMS to host TEDx Event in December We are delighted to announce that RMS will be hosting a TEDx event at School THIS SUNDAY 1.00-4.00pm
Background TED is a non-profit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a four-day conference in California 25 years ago, TED has grown to support those world-changing ideas with multiple initiatives. The annual TED Conference invites the world’s leading thinkers and doers to speak for 18 minutes. Their talks are then made available, free, at TED.com. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Al Gore, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Philippe Starck, Isabel Allende and former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The annual TED Conference takes place in Long Beach, California; TEDGlobal is held each year in Oxford, UK, and this November, the TEDIndia Conference will be held in Mysore, India. TEDx Youth@RMS The RMS TEDx’s theme is RESILIENCE and we have already confirmed a number of outstanding speakers who will attend the event, including Dr Manrutt Wonkaew (art director, stylist and choreographer), Liz Atkin (visual artist), Tom Fox (experimental instrument maker), Lee Cox (London cabbie and aspiring teacher), Peter Jukes (news curator and podcaster) and former TV Presenter Gail Porter (now a motivational speaker). For more information, visit bit.ly/tedxrmsinfo (this website will be constantly updated as other speakers confirm) Tickets for the event are entirely FREE and will be available to students, members of their families, staff members and the general public. We want to encourage whole families attending and so the ticketing facility allows Group Booking.
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SCHOOL NEWS The Curious Incident of Maths in the Day Time-Year 9 Mathematics Trip On the 30th of November 2016, 45 Year 9 girls went on the first ever Year 9 Mathematics trip to the Gielgud Theatre. The Gielgud Theatre is where ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time’ is performed. The play and book has lots of mathematics equations and concepts hidden in it. So we went to see ‘The Curious Incident of Maths in the Day Time’ a series of mini mathematics lectures about these concepts. The lecture was run by Matt Parker, who invited three other mathematicians, Rob Eastaway, Hannah Fry and Ben Sparks. Although we have only just started our GCSE the way they explained the mathematics inside the book was fun, engaging and relatable. They showed us how the music in the play is made by prime numbers, we also found out how the set, costumes and lighting were done. After the interval the actor who plays ‘Christopher’ in the play showed us the scene where he explains the A level Mathematics question. He also answered our questions. We then had a Q&A with all the mathematicians. It was a great day out and everyone enjoyed it. Thank you Miss Cassidy for organizing it, and all the teachers who gave up their day to take us. Sami and Liberty – Year 9
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SCHOOL NEWS UKMT Senior Maths Challenge—November 2016 The UKMT Senior Maths Challenge was a fun day where the four of us worked well altogether as well as in pairs to complete challenging questions which required us to think outside the box. The first round were simply ten questions worth six marks each which needed a variety of skills and techniques in order to solve them. Chineme and I worked together of the first two questions we came across and then worked individually on the subsequent questions we attempted. Jenny and Esther did the same, and when we had an initial answer to all questions, we individually checked the questions we hadn't done the first time around and then after that we discussed all of the questions and talked about our different approaches until the end of the allotted 40 minute time limit. The second round was the cross number round. This was a crossword type grid where all the answers were numbers. One pair had the across clues and the other pair had the down clues, and many clues were reliant on an answer from the other pair. In addition, no communication was allowed between the pairs other than asking the teacher sat with us to pass on a message regarding which answer you needed. For this challenge Esther and I worked together on the down clues and Chineme worked with Jenny on the across clues. We performed well on this only dropping three marks out of a potential 57. The third round was the lightening round, which gave eight minutes to complete four questions, of which, the final three were reliant on subsequent answers from the previous question. We worked in the same pairs as before for this receiving either the first and third question or the second and fourth question. There were four lots of four questions for this and on the second lot of questions, with 17 seconds to go, Esther and I passed the answer to Jenny and Chineme and Jenny was able to complete the question and write the answer in correctly with 2 seconds to spare. In the end, we came 5th out of 21 schools. It was a very enjoyable day which expanded our perspective and stretched our mathematical ability. Thank you to Mrs Cubbon and the Mathematics Department for their support and encouragement. Alex B, Year 12
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FORTHCOMING EVENTS Performing Arts Events Coming up Our annual Christmas Concert is TONIGHT at 7.00pm in the Great Hall. This promises to be our biggest yet with all the school orchestras and choirs playing festive music, and the premiere of a new work for massed choir by our Composer in Residence, Chris Brammeld. Tickets are also now available for our visiting opera production 'The Diary of Anne Frank', produced by critically-acclaimed About Turn who wowed audiences at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year. The performance is on Monday 23rd January at 7.30om, Starring international soprano Polly Ott, we are incredibly lucky to host this production. Tickets are strictly limited as it is to be held in Alex Drama Studio, so I recommend you buy them early. They can be purchased here: https://www.trybooking.co.uk/950 All of our events are advertised in our printed Programme of Events.
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SPORTS NEWS Another good week for RMS Sports Teams—to keep up to date with news, fixtures and results, follow us on twitter @RMSPEDept
Hockey
Netball
RMS vs Hockerill
RMS vs Emanuel School
Year 8 won 4-1
Year 7 B Team won 11—1
RMS vs Simon Balle
RMS vs Rickmansworth School
Year 9 lost 5-0
Year 9 won 20-1 (MVP Georgina Vane)
RMS vs Rickmansworth School
Year 10 won 18-7 (MVP Jasmine Lobo)
Senior Team won 6-2
RMS vs John F Kennedy
(MVP Beth Halbard)
Senior Team won 28-14
Gymnastics Congratulations to our Cadogan House gymnasts who competed in a development event against St Helen’s Northwood. The Year 3 and 4 competition was won by Bella Davies, with second place being shared between Hannah Brockie and Sophia Joseph. The Year 5 and 6 competition was won by Mia Downes.
Swimming Cadogan House swam against Charlotte House, with the following results: Year 4
RMS 36, Charlotte House 18
Year 5
RMS 32, Charlotte House 32
Year 6
RMS 37, Charlotte House 28
TOTAL
RMS 105, Charlotte House 78
Well done to all the girls who took part.
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CHARITY NEWS This week’s news... Christmas Concert! – tonight at 7.00pm, in the Great Hall This is the perfect opportunity to get into the Christmas spirit. Come along to enjoy an evening of wonderful Christmas music, which will be performed by an array of talented RMS musicians and singers. We will be there too, fundraising at the door, and would really appreciate any donations, no matter how big or small. So come along to help spread the Christmas cheer! We ho ho hope to see lots of you there!
Christmas Fair Last Saturday, members of our Charities Committee volunteered to run our Sparks Christmas stall. It was a very action-packed but rewarding day and we had an array of things on offer, such as a lucky dip, ‘pin the nose on the Rudolf’, homemade cookies, and Sparks merchandise, including our very own Christmas cards! However, perhaps most popular was the glitter tattoo station which was extremely busy throughout the day! Overall, we managed to raise a very pleasing total of £570.62! Thank you to everyone who donated so generously, we really appreciate it! We ho ho hope to see lots of you there!
Non-uniform day This Thursday, we held a non-uniform day and the theme was ‘Christmas knitwear’. It was wonderful to see so many people in the RMS community, teachers and pupils alike, sporting their Christmas jumpers. Thank you to everyone who donated. Our Christmas Committee elves are hard at work, counting the money, and we look forward to updating you next week on how much we raised!
Pizza Raffle Congratulations to 7S who won the Form Pizza Raffle—they certainly looked as if they enjoyed it at lunchtime today!
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CHARITY NEWS Next week Candy canes and Sparks Christmas cards! This is your last chance to order a candy cane or Christmas card, to be delivered to your friend on the last day of term! Come along to centre doors at lunch time and personalise either a label for your candy cane, or a Christmas card. There are also chocolate coins that can be put inside your card, for an added surprise when you you friend opens it! Both the canes and cards are 50p, but of course, larger donations are also more than welcome! We hope that yule take advantage of this exciting opportunity!
Next term Cake Sale and non-uniform day – Tuesday 17th January The theme for the non-uniform day will be ‘Sparks’, in honour of our chosen charity. Ideas include: yellow and navy (the Sparks colours), sparkles and stars. We look forward to seeing what you come up with! And, what’s more, thanks to the cake sale being on the same day, you can also look forward to fuelling up mid-morning on our cakes, cookies and crispy bites galore! What more could an RMS girl wish for?
Pet photo competition! Pay £1 to submit a cute and funny photo of your pet. It can be any kind of pet and ideas can include: dressing them up, catching them in the act of doing something naughty, taking a photo when they are pulling a funny face or just when they are ‘horsing’ around! Perhaps a Christmas ‘elfie would make for a good entry! The Christmas holidays will be a great opportunity for you to start thinking about ideas, particularly as there will hopefully be a lot of tinsel and presents lying around! We will shortlist the top photos and reveal them in Great Hall Assembly! The winner will be the person who submits the most purrfect photo, and will receive an exciting prize! Email either of us with your photo and you can hand your £1 in to Mrs Baron or the two of us. Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Katie and Hannah, RMS Charity Prefects, @RMSCharities
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SCHOOL NEWS “RMS Works on Paper” Art and Textiles Exhibition at Watersmeet, Rickmansworth ‘RMS Works on Paper’ is an exhibition by our students, featuring a piece of work from each girl who is currently working towards a GCSE or A Level in Fine Art or Textile Design. The exhibition aims to showcase the outstanding preparatory drawings, prints, embroidery, models and photographs that often hide within the pages of lovingly crafted sketchbooks and folders. Each girl has thoughtfully selected a piece of work that exhibits her talents, observations and interests. For further information call 01923 776611 or email leisure@threerivers.gov.uk Artistsmeet at Watersmeet is open Monday to Friday 9.00am - 5.00pm, Saturday 10.00am - 2.00pm. Entry is free; High Street, Rickmansworth WD3 1EH www.facebook.com/artistsmeet
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FORMS NEWS Message from FORMS Thank you to everyone who helped with the Christmas Fair last weekend, and to all of you who came along to support the event. We are delighted to announce that we raised over £4000 on the day! Season’s Greetings and a very Happy New Year to everyone! The FORMS Committee
SECOND HAND UNIFORM Winter is here, and we have some excellent quality ski and winter gear in stock if you are on the slopes in the near future! If you would like to join our uniform volunteer rota please email us at forms.rms2hu@gmail.com The shop is open once more this year, on Friday 16th December from 8.00-9.00am We have completed the ticket sales from last year – please contact us so we can update you and arrange payment or keep funds on account for you. We have also had a large influx of lost property so it’s worth coming down to see us to see if you can reclaim any lost items! Thank you for all your support this year! FORMS
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