9th June 2017 - Issue 6
HEAD’S
WEEKLY REVIEW
Roedean Mock Election Soon after the snap General Election was announced, our Year 12 Politics students metamorphosed into campaign managers and launched campaigns for the four major parties. With their sterling teams of campaigners drawn from all years, they distributed cakes and biscuits, and posters and mini-manifestos. Despite half the school being on exam leave, turnout on the day was high, with 336 votes being cast by students and staff. The total Key Stage 3 turnout was 76%, which is higher than the 68.7% national average. The results of the Roedean elections were as follows: Greens – 131 (Campaign Managers: Loretta Sargeant and Abigail Tarran)
Welcome back after half-term! I hope that you all had the chance to spend some valuable time with your families and friends. The end of last week was blighted by another tragic event in London, and I know that this must be hugely unsettling for our young people. I hope that the girls have had the opportunity this week to reflect on and discuss how they feel. This could have been just with friends or in tutor time, but I am also grateful to Mr Reid for running a session in Chapel yesterday to allow the girls to do exactly this in a quiet and open forum.
I can, however, comment on our own internal elections. I am delighted that the
Conservatives – 85 (Campaign Managers: Maggie El Beleidi and Georgie Williamson) Liberal Democrats – 26 (Campaign Managers: Maria Paduroiu and Emike Ajiamah)
26 92
131
Greens Labour
85
Head’s Introduction
I will, as is only right, avoid any comment on the General Election, save to congratulate Mr Lutwyche who stood as an independent candidate. While we was not elected, we are delighted that he will be continuing as a Maths teacher for the foreseeable future and have been impressed to see his commitment to the political process.
Labour – 92 (Campaign Managers: Nahida Usha and Yasmin Mahmood)
Conservative
These results are perhaps surprising, but the result of the General Election was itself a surprise – a hung Parliament. The Roedean results also reflect the general tone of Brighton politics: Green MP Caroline Lucas increased her majority in Pavilion; Labour’s Peter Kyle was comfortably reelected in Hove, and Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour) took the marginal Kemptown seat from Simon Kirby (Conservative). Thanks to Mr Marchant for all his organisation, and Mrs Ellis for her support; to Maria Paduroiu for manning the polling station; and, of course, to the campaign teams. Well done!
Liberal Democrats
Politics Department here at school organised such a brilliant mock election, with Year 12 Politics students ‘standing for parliament’. Congratulations to all candidates and to our winners, the Green Party. You can find out more about the Roedean results in this review, but we would like to make green issues a central school concern next year. With a backdrop of the elections, this has been a very busy first week back, with public examinations continuing, and End of Year Exams for Years 10 and 12. On Wednesday, we welcomed nearly 60 girls who are coming to Roedean in September, or hoping to do so a year later, to take part in our Visual and Performing Arts Day. The girls had a great day, and their final performance in front of their parents, after just a few short hours of preparation, was excellent. This was followed yesterday by our annual Primary Science Day, when 180 pupils in Year 6 from six local primary schools enjoyed a day of experiments, which finished with a brilliant showcase in the Theatre.
The girls in Years 7 to 9 also enjoyed our Women in the Workplace event only this afternoon. They heard from a variety of professionals about gender inequality at work, and they had the opportunity to ask questions of the panellists in order to try to understand better why it exists, as well as hearing about how a variety of professions function. I am sure that they have taken away a great deal from it. Despite the windy and wet conditions this week, there have been rounders matches and a football tournament, our talented musicians have been auditioning for Roedean Young Musician of the Year, and rehearsals for Annie are building towards the performances next week. Well done to everyone involved. Congratulations too to Mr Rous, our Assistant Director of Music, whose wife gave birth to their son, Theo, over half term. Thank you and well done for everything you have done this busy week, and I wish you all a wonderful week to come – if you are in Annie, break a leg!
Come and join us for the Roedean Race for Life Tuesday 27th June in the afternoon!
HEAD’S WEEKLY REVIEW
9th June 2017 - Issue 6
Unsung heroes in the spotlight 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.
Year 7 for helping with the Primary Science Day and the Visual Performing Arts Day!
London Our thoughts turn again this week to people affected by mindless acts of violence. I am sorry about this for those affected and also for all our young people, because it is difficult to hear about tragedies and to know how to respond. I can only echo what I said after the Manchester attacks. In response to the inhuman, be human, in response to hated, be loving, in response to irrationality, be rational. Rationality first. It is always horrific to hear about harm to others, but remember that, over the last few months, a very small number of people in a country with a population of over 60 million have been affected by propaganda and hatred, and have attacked their own communities. Remind yourselves of the rarity of these acts, and the numberless positive acts and people all around you.
Love not Hate: in response to degenerate and cowardly acts, we should remember, much stronger than ever before, the strengths of our communities, the kindness of strangers, the concerted, united effort of ordinary men and women who took careers in medicine and policing. Love, support, and solidarity are the strongest messages we see in response to crude attempts to spread hatred and disruption. Be human: Westminster Bridge, London Bridge, and Manchester. We will not remember the brief stupidity of deluded young men. But each of us, in our own way, will respond with feelings, whatever they are – with fear, anxiety, sadness, with any number of unclear and difficult emotions. Remember to talk about your feelings and that you don’t need to silence them or solve them. Express your feelings to others, because it really does help. The aim of terror attacks is to cause
Summer Reading 2017
Leavers’ Ball
Following the success of last year’s reading challenge, the Library is launching it again for students this summer. The aim of the challenge is to persuade all to read as widely as possible over the summer, and to try books which they may not have considered reading before. To do this, participants should complete as many of the reading goals below as possible. There will be prizes for students who read a substantial number of books. Scarlett B (Yr8) won the challenge last year, reading and reviewing an incredible 17 books – can you do any better?
After a brilliant day on the Friday before half-term, when the girls in Yr13 had a lovely breakfast and their Leavers’ Chapel and Hand-Shaking, they had a wonderful ball at The Grand that evening. It was a lovely event, with every girl in the year-group enjoying the brilliant food, the company, and the atmosphere, and sharing the end of their last official day in school with their parents and members of staff. It was a lovely evening!
The challenge is to read a play, an autobiography, or a book from these categories: with a yellow cover about supernatural events ■■ with alliteration in the title ■■ featuring a medical condition ■■ with food as a theme ■■ with weather in the title ■■ set in London ■■ with a name of a month in the title ■■ about murder/mystery ■■ that features a boat ■■ ■■
with the letter z in the title ■■ set in Africa ■■ featuring anthropomorphism ■■ about a family ■■ published this year ■■ featuring time travel ■■ you can finish in a day ■■ published before you were born ■■ about slavery ■■
Happy reading! Page 2
argument and discontent. Don’t let it. Just be your kind and thoughtful self, and recognise that it is okay to feel, and it is okay that these acts make us feel vulnerable. Be human. We give our thanks to the thousands who flooded to offer their support and the millions across the world who gave their thoughts and shared their compassion. Let isolated acts of ignorance, wherever they happen, give rise to a million acts of compassion and love. Our wounds will heal, the fear will subside, the forces of unity, community, and reason will prevail. But those who lost their lives, and those who lost loved ones will be ever affected. So all our thoughts and compassion must go to them. Not to make us feel better, but because it does help to let those affected know how much we care.
HEAD’S WEEKLY REVIEW
9th June 2017 - Issue 6
Lutwyche for MP? Congratulations to Mr Lutwyche, who stood as an independent candidate for Parliament in Worthing – while he was not successful, he did win 432 votes, which is excellent. One of his friends sent him a message, saying, ‘Well done for standing. You definitely don’t have 432 friends, so you clearly persuaded about 430 people that you were saying the right thing.’ He has enjoyed the experience and feels that he has learned a great deal about the political system. Well done!
Explosions, Science, and Rockets 180 primary school children had a brilliant time at our annual Primary Science Day. They were from six schools in the local area, Saltdean, Westdene, St Bernadette’s, St John the Baptist’s, Our Lady of Lourdes, and St Margaret’s. They all had a wonderful opportunity to do lots of scientific experiments which they cannot normally do at their own schools. The pupils had a carousel of different activities: in Biology, they burnt foodstuffs to determine the energy content; in
Chemistry, they investigated how chemical energy can be changed into other forms of energy; in Physics, they designed airpowered rockets; in DT, they designed an airship; they also had a chance to have a swim in our pool; and they had a fantastic workshop with Jonathan Hare on converting the human voice into modulated light. The day’s finale was an absolutely brilliant showcase of chemical explosions, flashes, colour changes, and bangs, given by Prof Hal Sosabowski. The pupils absolutely loved
it, as did our Year 7 girls who joined them for the finale – there was lots of cheering, screaming with the bangs, gasping with the flashes, and they had a great time! Thank you to the Science Department and PE for leading the workshops during the day, and also to the Year 7 chaperones who worked with each of the schools. It was a brilliant group effort, and our visitors loved it. AWO
Women in the Workplace Conference for Yrs7-9 Following the great success of this conference last term, which was aimed primarily at older girls, Mr Taylor, the Director of Development and Alumnae Relations, and his team organised another event for the younger girls today. After a welcome from the Headmaster and an introduction by Molly Maclean (Yr8),
the girls took part in a quiz about careers. They then had a wonderful opportunity to hear from a panel of a variety of professionals, who are either parents or ORs: we are very grateful to Mike McLaughlin, Derek Spicer, Katie Bourne, Leo Spall, Dr Amanda Clarke, Anna Dunn, and Valerie Kaye, who gave up Page 3
their time to be panellists at this event. They spoke about their careers and experiences in a broad sense, as well as touching on gender equality, and this generated discussion amongst the girls. Afterwards, the girls in Year 9 had the chance to speak to the panellists over tea in the Dance Studio.
9th June 2017 - Issue 6
HEAD’S WEEKLY REVIEW SPORTS REPORT
3 Rounders Wins against Hurst This week, two U12 and two U13 teams took on Hurst in very windy conditions at home. We were delighted to win three of the matches, and draw the fourth! For the U12 teams, the best batter was Liv B, and India H was the best fielder, and well done in particular to Darcey P and Amelie H, who were the players of U13B match, for their excellent fielding and hitting. The scores were as follows: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■
12A won 12½ – 8½ 12B drew 9 – 9 13A won by one rounder 13B won 14 – 11½
Football Tournament at Roedean
Visual and Performing Arts Day Roedean welcomed fifty-eight girls from a number of primary and prep schools to take part in an action-packed day of arts workshops on Wednesday. The stimulus for the day was the school’s location, and the girls worked in groups entitled Sea, Sky, Sand, and the South Downs, creating their own dance routines, drama improvisations, musical pieces, and masks based on their theme. The day culminated with all the girls coming together in the Theatre to share their creative work with an audience of family and friends. Thank you to the workshop leaders, Miss Fewkes, Miss Abaza, Mr Earl, and Mrs Alexander – they were all incredibly impressed with the girls who worked very hard and with great humour, and managed to create an exciting show to round off the day. Thank you too to the Year 7 chaperones, and Miss Fewkes would like to thank Katarina H (Yr9) and Frieda J (Yr7) for their help with the music elements. Everyone involved had great fun, and the rousing chorus of ‘Oh I do like to be beside the seaside’ was definitely a fitting way to end the day. CRI
On Wednesday, Roedean hosted a Football tournament with four other schools. The footballers in the Year 8/9 team battled hard against more experienced teams; with every match, the girls are growing in experience and confidence, and we are excited about next year. The Year 7 team played very well, in tricky windy conditions, and they came third out of five schools, with two draws and one excellent 3-0 victory over Gildredge House. It is great to see teams regularly representing Roedean in a variety of other sports in addition to our main sports – well done to everyone involved. JJ WHAT’S COMING UP
GCR
IN THE WEEK AHEAD?
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 4
Mon 12 June
Junior House Tennis
Tues 13 June
Vocal Masterclass and Teatime Recital Oxbridge Event
Wed 14 June
U12A & U13A Rounders vs St Christopher’s (H) U13 & U15 AEGON Tennis vs Burgess Hill (H) KS3 PERFORMANCE OF ANNIE
Thur 15 June
Years 7&8 South East Regional Track & Field Cup Finals U13 & U14/15 Cricket Tournament at Hurst (A) KS3 PERFORMANCE OF ANNIE
Fri 16 June
KS3 PERFORMANCE OF ANNIE
Sat 17 June
EXEAT
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