4 May 2018 - Issue 3
HEAD’S
WEEKLY REVIEW
Year12 Chemistry - Oxidation of Alcohols
Head’s Introduction
International Chemistry Olympiad 2018
The number and range of different events this week has been wonderful, from the girls’ long-awaited first steps on the new all-weather pitch to celebrating the arrival of chicks on the farm, from the stunning Dance Showcase last Friday to the CAP Presentations rounding off the Year 12 placements, and from the GCSE Drama performances to victorious tennis and rounders fixtures.
In Tuesday morning’s Assembly, we said congratulations to girls in the Sixth Form who had put themselves forward for an extra challenge on top of their A Level Chemistry studies – the Royal Society of Chemistry’s International Olympiad. The Olympiad paper is always full of fiendishly difficult questions, but that didn’t stop them giving it a go. Many of them attended extra sessions to help them prepare. Hopefully they even enjoyed it!
We have all watched how the all-weather pitch has developed from a building site with piles of brown earth, to flattened sections with flood-lights and fencing, and now to a nearly completed pitch with markings and dug-outs. Although it seems as if it has been many more months in the making, the speed and professionalism of the contractors has been impressive, and I am very pleased indeed with the final product. Now that the girls are using it, the impact of having such a facility on site has become even clearer, both to me and to them – it really will transform sport at Roedean, and for the entire school body, not just the top teams. I am delighted that the girls appreciate what this huge investment in sporting facilities will mean for them over the coming years. It is hard to believe that the wonderful Dance Showcase was already a week ago. The two performances were very high quality, with slick, seamless changes between them. I was impressed to see not only the diverse styles performed beautifully, but also the number of dancers from all age-groups in the school, including some who danced in more than one piece and were able to change styles effortlessly. Well done to everyone involved, and particularly to all of the Dance teachers who must have been incredibly proud of their students. This weekend will be a busy one for the school. On Bank Holiday Monday, we shall be pleased to welcome 100 families to Roedean for our summer Open Day – thank you in advance to everyone involved, and for all the preparatory work which has taken place at this busy time of year. Good luck to everyone who is involved in Saturday’s Brighton Festival Fringe Concert, and particularly to our soloists, who I know will relish this opportunity to play and sing on a big stage! I know that the concert is the product of a huge amount of preparation and rehearsal, and, even before I have heard it, I would like to thank our Director of Music, Miss Fewkes, and the entire Music Department. Every year, the quality of the performances, the ensemble playing, and the sheer musicality on show impresses me greatly, so I am very excited about this year’s concert on Saturday – good luck to you all!
Particular congratulations to the girls from Year 12, who did fantastically well considering they haven’t even studied some of the topics the questions covered yet. We handed out 19 awards this year, our best ever haul! Gold certificates – with scores that put them in the top 5% of chemists nationally – went to Mavis Z and Selen S. Silver awards were handed to Janice W, Nadia W, Yian Z, Martha N, Emily T, and Alya MF. And we had bronze awards for Charlotte Z, Lydia L, Arya L, Samantha C, Melissa D, Shirley H, Mary M, Freya S, Cherry L, Angela L, and Sophie H. Mavis, Selen, Yian, Emily, and Martha also collected the certificates they earned for their results in the Cambridge Year 12 Chemistry Challenge last year. MEB
What a glorious day to finally be play
ing on the new pitch!
HEAD’S WEEKLY REVIEW
Unsung heroes in the spotlight
House cinema trip
Each week, many wonderful things happen at Roedean, about which many in the school are perhaps unaware; this section of the weekly review is dedicated to ‘unsung heroes’, in order to draw our attention to these people and remind us that our community is special.
Miss Kingston and Miss Ford-Senior had the pleasure of taking 13 senior boarders down to the cinema on Saturday to watch The Avengers: Infinity War. The girls walked down to the cinema, bought their popcorn, and were soon engrossed in the film. We even managed to get a cheeky photo with Spider-Man and the Star Lord! The girls thoroughly enjoyed the film and there was much discussion about it on the way back to school. CHK
Martha N (Yr13) for stoically working on her Art in between the two performances of the dance showcase, and also being in the studio bright and early the morning! [SEL]
4 May 2018 - Issue 3
Chicks on the Farm
The farm prefects and staff have successfully raised their first brood of chicks! After 21 anxious days, 4 chicks have successfully hatched. The new chicks include the Cream Legbar breed known for its friendly and calm nature. The new chicks will join the current flock and will hopefully be excellent layers. Feel free to pop along to the farm during Activity 1 to meet the brood!
Katie C (Yr12) for being an amazing support to the KS3 production of Alice; she stepped in at the last minute to run a full cast rehearsal when she heard that the relevant staff were not able to make it! [DSP]
Winner of the Design a New Book Cover for Margot and Me Competition
Scarlet in Madame Butterfly
During the SSBA presentation evening in January, author Juno Dawson confessed that she didn’t like the cover of her latest book, Margot and Me. With this in mind, we challenged the girls to design a new book cover for Margot and Me as part of the World Book Day celebrations, and Juno agreed to judge the entries. She chose Catherine WB (Yr8) as the winner with her beautiful painting of Margot and her grandmother as a young girl. Congratulations Catherine, and well done to Kate F (Yr9), Flo IS (Yr8), and Darcey P (Yr9) for their commended entries. SBL
Congratulations to Scarlet P (Yr11) who has appeared in Ellen Kemp’s production of Madame Butterfly at the Theatre Royal Brighton with a professional Opera company. She had a wonderful time and found the experience completely exhilarating!
Premier Pro Masteclass On Friday, BAFTA award winning animator and editor, Claire Underwood, visited the Art Department to run a masterclass on Premier Pro. This really helped me, because I want to incorporate film into my coursework and Premier Pro is a complicated application to navigate. I learnt new skills that I can apply to my own work, which is briliant. Laura F (Yr12) Page 2
HEAD’S WEEKLY REVIEW
4 May 2018 - Issue 3
Book Fayre Saturday 12 May will see Roedean girls taking part in the very first Brighton and Hove Book Fayre at All Saints’ Church in Hove. This new event from 2 to 6pm is dedicated to books and authors. The girls of 9P will be hosting a stall selling their favourite books and handmade bookmarks, all in aid of the Pitch Perfect Appeal. This is going to be the first Community Literary Festival in Brighton and Hove. There will be a wide range of books available to suit all tastes.
All book donations to 9P’s Pitch Perfect fundraising will be very gratefully received. If you have books you would like to give to our stall, please contact Miss Roden on er@roedean.co.uk.
Please come along and support our girls, whilst also meeting a host of local authors and self-published authors, including Holocaust Survivor Dorit Oliver Wolff, who recently gave a fantastic talk at School.
Thank you for your support and we hope to see you there! ER
Roedean helping children in a Nairobi slum Year 12 students welcomed Tasha Ely, the EdClub coordinator, to Roedean this week. EdClub maintains 26 computers in two huts in a slum in a wealthy part of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Those who live in the slum, which has no sanitation or fresh water, are incredibly impoverished, and prostitution from the age of about 12 is unfortunately the only option for many children. During the day, the adults leave the slum to try to earn some money, often forced to leave very young children behind to look after siblings who are babies and toddlers. EdClub was initially the brainchild of three girls at Marlborough College, who set it up with three computers. Tasha was teaching there at the time, and then decided to leave teaching to devote herself to EdClub. 120 Kenyan children come to the huts each day to spend an hour being ‘taught’ via Skype on the 26 computers by students at 17 independent schools in the UK.
In this introductory session, our Year 12 students ‘chatted’ with Margaret. She is 11, and has been going to EdClub for 18 months. It was clear that she was delighted to meet new people and she had a great sense of humour. As a result of her improved level of English, she has just secured a job as a maid for a wealthy Kenyan family – what a brilliant success story! 15-20 girls in Year 12 will pilot the scheme at Roedean for the rest of the summer term, and it will be one of the choices for Year 12 CAP next year. Chatting to Margaret was an incredibly humbling experience, and our girls are desperate to get started right away. Their only commitment is one hour per week on a Wednesday afternoon, and a pledge to raise £300, which will buy a new computer screen in Kenya – that seems so little when compared to the incredible difference it makes to the children in Nairobi. RB
EdClub is open between 3:00 and 4:00 each weekday afternoon, and the Kenyan students are matched with UK ‘mentors’, who speak to them on a weekly basis. Whenever possible, the teaching is done via Skype video calls, but the huts are powered by solar panels and the connection is sometimes not strong enough, so the UK-Kenya dialogue is sometimes conducted by Skype instant messenger chats. It goes without saying that the Kenyan children benefit hugely from this contact – using websites such as BBC bitesize and Topmarks broadens their knowledge, but the interaction also improves their knowledge and fluency in English – the more they read and speak in English, the quicker they improve.
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HEAD’S WEEKLY REVIEW
CAP Fair This week, all of the Year 12 CAP groups held a fair in the Sixth Form Centre at Keswick House to celebrate what they have achieved over the year. Each group had a display, and they welcomed their mentors from the placements, who also heard a brief presentation given by Georgia A and Meghan G. The placements are all very grateful for the support the Year 12s give them each week, and Atlanta Cook from Beacon Hub wrote the following: ‘It was lovely to attend your CAP presentation this afternoon and thank you so much for raising such a substantial sum for the charity. We cannot tell you how grateful we are to you and the team for putting such a lot of effort into your fund-raising events. They really smashed last year’s total with £220 raised! The CAP Presentation event was a real joy. The students were so polite and attentive. We were so glad to hear everything that the girls felt they had learnt through the programme and for their feedback on how we did too. We found the social media & marketing report that the girls produced very useful indeed, and were inspired to kick start our Instagram. We now have an Education Officer, retired local teacher Andy Wilson, who we hope will help us manage this year’s CAP Fair & CAP Programme to ensure that we engage with you pupils at every opportunity.’
• BYO LUNCH AND DRINKS BOTTLES • WEAR COMFORTABLE SPORTS CLOTHING
• EQUIPMENT PROVIDED
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4 May 2018 - Issue 3
HEAD’S WEEKLY REVIEW
Dance Showcase The Dance Showcase is always a favourite date in the school calendar and the two performances last Friday continued the fabulous Roedean tradition of an annual celebration of dance talent. This year’s theme, chosen by the new Head of Co-Curricular Dance, Miss Austen, was Tribute, with all the routines being dedicated to various legendary characters from the performing
arts. We were treated to a fantastic range of dance styles and reminded of important icons such as George Michael and David Bowie, who continue to inspire performers today. It was an uplifting performance with sixty-six girls from all year groups coming together to create a wonderful visual spectacle. Well done to all the girls and staff involved!
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4 May 2018 - Issue 3
4 May 2018 - Issue 3
HEAD’S WEEKLY REVIEW
Admissions Guidance Day at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Last Friday, fifteen Year 12 students, accompanied by Mr Homer and Ms Kazem, attended an Admissions Guidance Day at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The day was organised specifically for Roedean by Dr Shona Whatford, the Schools’ Liaison Officer at Corpus, and consisted of a morning of talks on how to prepare a competitive application for admission to Oxford or Cambridge colleges.
Roedean in the newspaper 85 years ago This week, Sasha and Georgia H brought in the Daily Telegraph English Girls’ Schools’ illustrated supplement, dated 26th June 1933 which was recently discovered in their grandparents’ loft. Roedean features on the front page and others; there are some great photos and articles of the girls and the school, at the time when Miss Tanner was Headmistress. What a brilliant discovery. Thank you to Georgia and Sasha for sharing and allowing us to take a step back in time! JC
Undergraduates took us on a tour of the college, which was founded in 1352. On our way, we had discussions about study, supervisions, and lectures, and also about workload. It wasn’t all work though, as the undergraduates also talked about accommodation, societies, and the May Ball. They were clearly enjoying their time at Cambridge, but also working hard. After lunch, we visited the Parker Library, Corpus’s antiquarian and rare book library, not the library used by students and staff on a regular basis. Archbishop Matthew Parker (1504-75) donated
We were fortunate to be hosted by the inspirational Dr Anne McLaughlin, and had the upper reading room to ourselves. All of us were quite simply mesmerised as Dr McLaughlin handed out ancient books such as 15th century bibles, inviting us to ‘feel the parchment’ and asking us to roll out ancient scrolls detailing Saxon family trees. She made history really come to life whilst injecting large helpings of humour. This was truly a taste of academic study that we’ll all remember for many years. The trip was a great success, and it’s one we run every year, so if you are in Year 11, you might want to come along next year. AK
Meal at the Marina The House 3 and 4 Year 8s enjoyed a delicious evening meal out at the Brighton Marina this week with Mrs Muggeridge and Mrs Wilson. It was lovely to see the girls relax and enjoy a special evening together!
over 400 manuscripts to the college in 1575, including the 6th-century Gospels of St Augustine and the oldest manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, from which the collection has grown over the years. The oldest item in the collection is from 100BC.
House 4 welcomed its newest member last weekend, Lennie the dog! Lennie is a Pets as Therapy dog which means he has been assessed and certified by the PAT charity. Lennie will visit the House 4 girls on a Saturday morning for relaxation, walking, and plenty of patting. Pets as Therapy aims to provide the community with a dog or cat for companionship and relaxation purposes. House 4 have been on the waiting list for well over a year, so we are very lucky that Martin (Lennie’s owner) has offered to give up his time on the weekend to visit us. Many of the girls miss their own dogs from home, so the chance to spend time with Lennie is a worthwhile initiative to support the girls while they are in boarding. The girls met Lennie for the first time on Saturday and he certainly made a lasting impression. They were thrilled to take him on a walk in the surrounding countryside and enjoy a game of fetch. They were impressed with Lennie’s speed and fitness as he didn’t stop running the whole time! Page 6
The girls are already excited about his next visit next weekend and we hope Lennie is too.
4 May 2018 - Issue 3
HEAD’S WEEKLY REVIEW
Victorious Rounders vs Lancing Seniors
The seniors had a fantastic first game of the season, defeating Lancing College by half a rounder. We fielded first and Lancing had a good batting innings to score 7½ rounders. We couldn’t match this and only scored 4 in our first batting innings. We knew that it was going to be tough to hold Lancing, but the girls fielded brilliantly to keep their score to only 1½ in their last batting innings. Super rounders from Freya F and Emily F kept the score going and we ended the game 11½ - 11.
The appeal still needs your support We need your help to complete this fantastic project
U15A
The U15A rounders team was dominant throughout the entire match at the weekend. With a slow but steady start in the first innings, the team was able to score 6 rounders, with some incredible batting by Abby B and Tabitha M. Moving into the second innings, the team really put the pedal down. They were faster when running to first base, which created more opportunities for us to score at second and consequently we were able to score 7½ rounders, bringing our total to 13½ overall. Our fielding was impressive in both innings, with some speedy and safe hands from Ami F and Olivia H to get the opposition out at first, and some accurate and powerful passes from Jess K and Amelia J in outfield. Overall score: Roedean 13½ – Lancing 8½ Girl of the Game: Jess K
U14A
The U14A rounders team had a well-matched and closely competitive game last weekend. Both teams started rather steadily in the first innings of batting, finishing with Lancing on 4½ and Roedean on 5. As they moved into the second innings, both teams were taking more risks and batting strongly, which enabled them to get a few more rounders. However, even though it was close at the end, Roedean was able to remain calm and make informed decisions to steal the win. Roedean 14 – Lancing 12.
U14B
The U14B Rounders team had a great game. To get as many games going as possible, a pitch was set up to the side of the Tennis courts – this did mean that the ball rolled down the grass verge many a time, much to both teams’ entertainment! There were some excellent fielding skills on display from the girls, in particular Valerie and Darcey. Strong batting meant the game was very close, but the girls just missed out 9½ to 12½. It was a great game, with lots of fun, and there was a great long search for the balls after the game concluded!
Name a bench, paving stone or floodlight (from £12/week) Join the Roedean 1885 Society (from £24/week)
Cricket Masterclass This Tuesday, St James Cricket Club co-ordinated a cricket masterclass for Year 7 and 8. The club is local, in Ditchling, and if any parents would like to encourage their daughter to play club cricket, please get in touch with them directly on their website (www.stjamescricket.com).
Brilliant victory for the Aegon Tennis vs Bede’s On Saturday 28 April, our Y10 tennis team had their first AEGON fixture vs Bede’s. The format consisted of a singles match and a doubles match. It was a glorious day at Roedean, with the sun shining and no wind. Both Eloise and Jemima had fantastic singles matches, where they were both consistently hitting the ball deep and into the space, so it was hard for their opponents. Eloise had a cracking game, with a 6-0 win, and Jemima had a close game, winning 6-4. Ines demonstrated her strong serve and consistent groundstrokes with a comfortable win of 6-0. Olivia tried her hardest and showed some great resilience, with a close match of 4-6. During the doubles match Eloise and Jemima demonstrated some fantastic teamwork. In particular, their serves were strong and Bede’s struggled to return some. As a result, they earned a 6-2 win. Both Ines and Olivia also performed fantastically during the doubles match. Ines demonstrated some excellent volleys and groundstrokes. Olivia played some fantastic forehand winners too. Roedean won 6-1. Overall this meant that Roedean beat Bede’s 5 matches to 1, which is a superb result for our first AEGON match. SCH
We welcome contributions from all parts of the Roedean community. If you have something you would like featured in the Headmaster’s Weekly Review, please email: marketing@roedean.co.uk Page 7
Every gift, large or small, is appreciated Thank you for your support. For more information contact: Mark Taylor mta@roedean.co.uk / 01273 667588
JJ WHAT’S COMING UP IN THE
WEEK AHEAD?
Mon 7 May
OPEN DAY
Tue 8 May
U13 Tennis vs Sion (A)
Wed 9 May
U12 Athletics vs Westbourne House
Years 12&13 Theatre Studies ‘Woyzeck’ performance
U13 Tennis vs Lingfield College (A) Years 8-10 Athletics – Brighton, Hove & Portslade selection trials for Sussex Thur 10 May
Years 12 & 13 Theatre Studies trip to Kneehigh Theatre Company
Fri 11 May
Year 13 Theatre Studies trip to ‘Adam’ – National Theatre of Scotland Year 11 Celebration Assembly, and their Study Leave begins
Sat 12 May
Sussex County Athletics Championship at K2 Crawley (A) U13 & U14 Tennis Invitational Tournament U14 & U15 Cricket vs Mayfield (H)
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