19th January 2018 - Issue 3
HEAD’S
WEEKLY REVIEW
Year 7 ceramic tiles. These were made by Nia, Tallulah, Amalie and Alissandra
Head’s Introduction This week began with an excellent thought-provoking Assembly by 12P about equal representation in different fields, regardless of colour or gender, and it ended with a Chapel marking Martin Luther King Day this week, which focused on the importance of belief and resilience when trying to bring about change. I am very pleased that the students at Roedean feel strongly about issues such as these, issues which are bigger than the School itself. Thinking about our theme for the year and what we can change at Roedean, the Head of School team is working with School Council, supported by Mr Fieldsend and Mrs Dunlop, to make Roedean more environmentally friendly, and I am confident that collectively we can make a big difference. Further to last week’s article about university offers, congratulations to Sharon in Year 13 who has also won a place at Cambridge University to study Economics, meaning that 5 Roedean students have Oxbridge offers. This is outstanding, and I am delighted for Sharon. After sitting their Trial Exams last week, Year 13 have been getting their results; I hope that they use these productively to identify where they did well, as well as which areas need more focus before the real things in June. There has also been lots of sport this week, and I am very pleased to see that we are fielding 4 Netball teams at both U12 and U13s, and also two senior Netball teams. In Performing Arts, the Year 10 group learnt a great deal from their Dance workshop on Tuesday, and yesterday all of Year 8 really enjoyed their Gamelan workshop. Their group performance was a lovely, calming way to end the day, with hypnotic repeating patterns and amazingly resonant gongs. Thank you again to all those girls and staff who give up a chunk of their Saturday last week to host 130 prospective pupils so well as they did their entrance tests, and congratulations too to the Admissions’ Department for running another excellent event.
Gamelan for Year 8 Over recent months, the school has focused a great deal on mindfulness and a positive mindset. To complement this, Year 8 all took part in a Gamelan workshop as part of their musical education. The Gamelan is an ancient and traditional musical form from the island of Bali, in Indonesia, and it is used to summon the Gods and ward off evil spirits and negativity. Metallophones and gongs of various pitches are struck with hammers and mallets to create a spiritual atmosphere. Musicians play without shoes in order to show respect for the instruments and culture, as well as to savour the natural vibration of the sounds physically. The Year 8 pupils loved the workshops and rose admirably to the challenges posed by the unfamiliar instrumental techniques. In order for the sounds not to blur and overlap, each note has to be dampened; the non-playing hand therefore has to shadow the playing hand and dampen each note in turn by pinching it: as the second note is struck, the first note is dampened, and so on.
I hope that the SSBA book awards go well this evening, and that you all have a lovely exeat weekend.
The day ended with a short concert involving the whole of Year 8. Darcey said, ‘I really enjoyed playing in unison with all my friends. It was a challenging as well as an enjoyable experience.’ It was a lovely, calm end to the day, and the staff and parents who came to see the culmination of the day’s workshop were extremely impressed with what they heard, and with what the girls had achieved in such a short period of time.
Winter Photo Competition – The City Are you a budding photographer? The termly Roedean photo competition theme for the Christmas holiday was ‘The City’. The entries for
the summer holiday competition were excellent and are now up along main corridor. The deadline for your submissions for this round is Friday 26
January. Please email them to Miss Boles on jbo@roedean.co.uk – the best entries will be displayed for all to see along the Main Corridor.