2nd March 2018 - Issue 8
HEAD’S
WEEKLY REVIEW
Penny paying a visit to Paris
Head’s Introduction
Year 7 Geography projects
Roedean has been blanketed in snow a number of times over the last week. This has provided excellent opportunities for amazing picturepostcard shots of the School and lots of fun outside, but it has also presented us with a number of challenges. I am delighted with the way the girls have responded, wrapping up warm and just making the best of it. This has only been possible because, behind the scenes and largely unnoticed, Mr Hawkes and Miss Polawski and their teams have been gritting the roads and pathways from the very early hours of the morning to ensure that the School can continue to function – I am very grateful indeed to them all.
Over the half term holiday, Year 7 produced projects on a landscape of their choice, such as volcanoes, deserts, oceans, and rainforests. It was very interesting how everyone interpreted the task, showing great imagination, and there was even a volcano made out of cake! In our last lesson, they had the opportunity to display their work, and learn from each other’s projects. Everyone put a lot of work into their projects, and I was fascinated by the variety of work on display. HSM
Congratulations to everyone involved in last week’s Movie Magic Gala Concert, which really was fantastic. The number of students involved was outstanding, and well done in particular to the fantastic soloists. Of course, the amount of rehearsal and preparation required for a concert of this scale is huge, and I am grateful to Miss Fewkes, Mr Rous, and Ms Bartlette for all of this and their dynamism on the night. Well done! I am pleased that the Year 9s enjoyed their steel pan workshop on Monday, thank you to Dr Blood for organising the wonderful author visits this week and to Miss Whiteson for the activities she organised for World Book Day, and well done to the GCSE Drama group who performed a dress rehearsal yesterday for an audience of their peers, before their exam performance this morning. We have Open Day tomorrow at which we are expecting over 100 families, so I would like to thank the students and staff in advance for their efforts in making this a wonderful event for our visitors – those who come to the School are always so impressed with what they see and they love hearing about your experiences of Roedean and what it means to you. Looking ahead to next week, there will be a range of exciting activities taking place for Academic Week, and we have our Festival Celebrating Women to mark International Women’s Day on Thursday. The calibre of the speakers coming to Roedean is exceptional, and, because the students have been able to choose which talks to attend, I am sure that the day will have a lasting effect on many of them. Good luck to you all for a wonderful week!
Year 9 transport us to the Caribbean as Solid Steel returns to Roedean All the girls in Year 9 enjoyed an amazing day on Monday of vibrant music-making in the company of musicians from the group SOLID STEEL. The girls learned from scratch how to play steel pans in a whole class ensemble in this interactive workshop. Each of the four classes had just one 50-minute lesson to put their piece together, so all our students showed a great deal of concentration, teamwork, and disciplined learning. For many girls this was their second experience of playing in a steel band, as SOLID STEEL led last year’s Year 8 in the first steel band workshop. The more experienced players helped each class to learn the pieces more quickly, and led the way for those new to steel band ensemble playing. All the performances were just fabulous, and it was good to see how a good much the girls clearly enjoyed the whole “I thought it was n more event. It was quite clear from the buzz in experience to lear lture “Iandenjthe the Theatre, the commitment in rehearsal, oyeperformance, d constructing a about African cu that the Year 9s had a wonderful experience piec e of mumaking sic on a new and music.” music together. Excited and instrume nt.enthusiastic The fin conversation followed each sessional piec e we “I pro re duc all e sounde y enjoyed the workshop; and here are some of the girls’ reactions tod am azi ng wh I’v en e the ne ver tried that type of drums their day:
instrument before! I re all that we can have that y hope kind of workshop again!”
all played together.” Sophia C