Head's Weekly Review - Summer Issue 10

HEAD ’ S WEEKLY REVIEW

Head’s Introduction

Roedean Day last Saturday brought together so much of what the School is all about - community, fun, and variety! In the morning, parents, students, and ORs visited departments, marvelled at the work in the Art Exhibition, and were blown away by how good Mary Poppins was, and this was all followed by Sports Day. House spirit was overflowing down on the fields, and the spectators enjoyed the talents of some excellent athletes, alongside worthy attempts just to get valuable points for the House. It was a brilliant day, and I am grateful to the entire school community for making it such a success.

This week, the students enjoyed their trips on Tuesday, including an exciting day-trip to France for Year 7, and this was followed by an exciting and diverse festival day, masterminded by Ms Boobis. Our students collected materials for time-capsules, recreated Roedean archive photos, Roedeanified the Pride flag, and made pieces for the catwalk show in Chapel. Everyone engaged brilliantly with the day, and what they produced in such a short time was outstanding.

Yesterday was Speech Day in the iconic Dome, and I was full of pride when I saw and heard the students’ talents shared with the entire community. Our guest speaker, Pip Delamere-Wright was inspiring, and I know that what she said was so relevant to so many of us, about challenging ourselves, and getting back up and trying again if we do not succeed the first time. As a ground-breaking woman herself, I am sure this message came across very loudly and clearly. The Leavers’ Ball on the i360 and in the Grand last night was the perfect way for the Year 13s to round off their careers at Roedean - the respect and fondness they have for their teachers was very clear, and they had a great time.

I wish you all a wonderful Summer holiday, and, at the end of my first term as Head at Roedean, I would like to thank you all for welcoming me into the School so warmly.

£39,021 for Charity

Year 11 Prom

National Pride Day Celebration

A Farewell from Talia Keller to Roedean

I wanted to thank you, and Roedean, past and present, for being able to be part of such a great community - and to have been here to see it flourish over the last 9 years.

I was thinking that 9 years doesn’t seem a long time until I realised that the youngest of you were just 3 years old 9 years ago, and probably not very many of you then were thinking of Roedean as the place where you would be today.

But Roedean was thinking it.

And what I mean by that is for you to be here now, there had to be a vision then, of what here would and could look like – and from a school then of just over 350 pupils, all 700 of you have indeed realised that vision – this was the school that was imagined.

Now, you may not be clear about the vision you have for yourself in 9 or 10 years time, but there will be things you do know you want for yourself, and having a vision of it is a key to getting there.

I don’t know if you will remember, but, at the start of this academic year, I shared with you the research about our brains being prediction machines.

So a quick recap: we all have assumptions about ourselves, what you think you are good at, what you think you are not good at, those assumptions may also be true, but whether they are true or not, they are still assumptions.

Your brain is assuming what you are good at or not good at, based on some experiences you have had in the past, and it can construct what is likely in your future. Your brain is simply predicting.

Remember, the difference between an assumption or prediction, and a truth, will be shaped by whether you believe it or not. So essentially you can influence your brain and you can use this influence to move to positive outcomes.

My new year resolution in January was simply not to say no to invitations or opportunities. Which I typically tend to have a reason to do.

As a result, in the last 6 months, I met up with 5 friends I haven’t seen since university – I started a postgraduate course at Cambridge University, and I went overseas this half term for the first time in 30 years (I usually work during half terms).

So I have done things that my brain would not have predicted I would have based on past experience. It is probably the only resolution I have ever made that I have kept too.

I think what I have done is simply not allowing my brain to assume I can’t or don’t want to do something based on my previous choices, or experiences. I am slowly changing the habit of my brain.

The quote which best represents this relationship with our brains was one I found in Paradise Lost by John Milton – it goes:

'The Mind is its own Place, and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.'

So the thought I want to leave you with is that it is in our power to make a Heaven here, to think ourselves to better things - it is in your power to do things well, so keep doing things well.

And to end I would like to re-read another poem – this was written by Amelia Mitchell – she read this to you at the end of last term as her thank you and farewell to Mr Blond. I have asked her permission to read it again today, as I also think this poem says everything I would want to say, about each one of you – so with you in my mind, here goes:

Once upon a time, upon a cliff, beside the shore, A gardener had a humble plot, but yearned for something more, So he took a shovel, he took some seeds, and buried them in earth, He knew before they grew what those many seeds were worth,

Day and night, he watched them grow, No matter fast, no matter slow, He waited, knowing that they would bud, Waited, through wind and rain and mud, And every single precious, careful seed that he had sewn, Grew to be a flower, each with beauty of its own, A garden rich with blossoms, rich with every colour and creed, And all it ever took was some care, and a seed. Whilst most of us will never be able to write as beautifully as Amelia to express what we want to say, when your time comes to leave Roedean, I hope that you, like me, will only feel thanks and gratitude for the time you spent here, and with the people with whom you spent it.

National Pride Day Celebration

The term, in lots of different ways, we have celebrated the amazing milestone of Roedean being on this site for 125 years. Our 125 booklet, and this video capture much of the Roedean story over this time.

Festival Day - What a Brilliant Celebration!

Everyone had a great day on Wednesday, and they threw themselves into the array of activities – well done!

BSA National Boarding Week

Last week, we celebrated the BSA National Boarding Week in a variety of ways. This year's theme was to "Be Active", with a different focus each day.

Monday - Be Active in our Bodies

Boarders completed a 2km run around our incredible school site on Monday evening in the glorious sunshine, to keep fit and energies high towards the end of term. Everyone was in good spirits and cheered each other on!

Tuesday - Be Active in our Compassion

In support of those affected by current conflict in Sudan, boarders held a bake sale to raise money. Lots of cakes and biscuits were made and enjoyed by all, and a terrific total was reached and will be donated to those in need in Sudan.

Wednesday - Be Active in our Community

To help our community, we have worked closely with the charity Rockinghorse in order for boarders to collect books and toys to be donated to the Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital. We hope these donations put smiles on the faces of the children at the hospital!

Thursday - Be Active in Nature

To celebrate the wonderful nature surrounding Roedean, we hosted a campfire evening and were blessed with a stunning backdrop of a golden sunset. Girls enjoyed roasting marshmallows on the fire to make tasty s'mores. The evening was accompanied by some lovely guitar playing by Mr Edwin-Scott and Mr Hawkes - a big thank you to them!

Friday - Be Active in Joy

To round off the end of the last week and to celebrate the last weekend in boarding this academic year, our new Boarding Prefects hosted an inter-house water fight! Girls enjoyed cooling off in the sunny weather with water balloons to soak each other!

Sunday - Be Active in Charity

An amazing group of 24 boarders, along with Mrs Wilson, Miss Barnett and Mrs Hurley, participated in the Race for Life 3km at Stanmer Park. The girls have raised an impressive £4000 for Cancer Research UK, a big thank you to anyone who donated. All dressed in pink, the girls supported each other around the course and enjoyed their time supporting such an important charity. A special shoutout to Mrs Hurley and Mancy, who finished as 1st and 2nd women in the 3km!

Miss Barnett

£39,021 for Charity

Congratulations and thank you to everyone who has contributed to making this year a recordbreaker for charitable fund-raising. Over the last decade, the most we have raised in a year was just over £30,000 when we pledged to build a library at St Mark’s, so we have not simply clipped the record, but smashed it!

Not only have we, as a community, been able to raise valuable funds for an impressive range of charities, but we have also supported a number of causes and initiatives which have been raised by students.

Well done to everyone, and the bar has been set high for next year!

Dr Barrand

Year 11 Prom

The Year 11s enjoyed a brilliant prom down on the fields to celebrate the end of their GCSEsthey got all dressed up, and had a great time.

Miss Orrells

Reenacting the archive photographs!

As part of the 125 Festival celebration day, groups of students had the opportunity to study some photographs from the archives and then reenact them! After finding the right location around site and taking their props with them, the girls took turns to model, direct and take photographs. They then had a speedy lesson in Photoshop to convert their images to black and white or layer a sepia filter on. The girls were amazing, really worked cohesively to achieve some high quality outcomes.

Mrs Alexander

Sports Day

Congratulations to everyone who took part in Sports Day on Saturday. It was fantastic to see so many people throwing themselves into the events and having a great time.

Our cup winners on the day were:

100m Anana Nwuba Cup winner

Eva, who ran the 100m this season in 13.0 seconds! This was at a recent meet in which she was the fastest out of all Brighton and Hove schools.

The Morlock Cup

Which is awarded to the fastest 800m athlete this season – Ruby (Yr9) who ran it in 2 min 24 seconds at the Track and Field Cup.

The Fields Events Trophy

This goes to the student who has made excellent progress in field events –Grace (Yr10) for her progress in both Discus and Javelin. Grace has trained really hard this year across both and is now regularly hitting top distances!

The Carter Cup

the most improved all-around athlete of the year – Poppy (Yr8) for her commitment and improvement in both the Long Jump and Hurdles.

Finally, another record was broken this year by Year 7 superstar Katherine, who broke the 3000m record by a whopping 1 min 45sec.

Congratulations!

Miss Kirby-Jones and Miss Hammond

Miss Donovan's Three Peaks Challenge Success!

On Sunday 25 June, the PE Department’s Miss Donovan took on the Three Peaks Challenge, attempting to climb the three highest peaks across Scotland, England, and Wales within 24 hours.

Miss Donovan started Ben Nevis at 7:00am, the largest of the three climbs, and managed to get up and down by 12:05pm. It was particularly challenging due to significant rain and very poor visibility for the descent!

Next came the long drive from Scotland to Scafell Pike in the Lake District, and she began the next ascent at 6:50pm. Miss Donovan had to run the last 200m of elevation to the summit and much of the way down to escape a freak thunder, lightning, and painful hailstone storm! Having completed Scafell Pike by 10:00pm, they travelled to the final mountain, Snowdon, and began the climb in the dark at 2:50am.

It was particularly difficult with only a head-torch and over 28% gradient for the last mile to the summit. Desperate to make the 24-hour time limit, Miss Donovan and the team managed to get all the way back down as the sun came up without stopping, completing the challenge at 6:19am! Miss Donovan managed the 23-mile hiking distance, 450-mile driving distance, and 11,181 feet combined ascent in 23 hours and 19 minutes. It was a very tough challenge, but she and the team managed to raise over £2500 for Rethink Mental Illness, a very worthy charity that supports those living with mental illness.

Now for some much-needed rest before sea swimming again on Wednesday!

Pre-A i360 Trip

On Monday 26 June, the Pre A group went on a trip to the i360 with Mrs Hammond and Ms Cleary. It was a good, clear day, and we had a great view. Afterwards, even though it was a bit windy, we enjoyed some delicious gelato from a little cafe next door.

Mrs Howson

Backstage

As the backstage team, we act as the unseen, unheard cogs that raise a skilled performance to a fully-fledged production. For ‘Mary Poppins’, students from Years 9-12 volunteered to assist the tech team across many areas of technical theatre.

Alissandra (Yr12) was the spotlight operator

Galina (Yr11) acted as assistant music director

Merla (Yr11), Mia (Yr11) & Anna (Yr10) were stage hands who orchestrated the fluid set changes

Edie (Yr9), Alice (Yr9) & Daisy (Yr9) researched and designed the costumes, and were mentored in Costume Club, run by Niamh (Yr12)

Here are some of the students' reflections:

Edie in Year 9 said, “I’ve worked in costumes backstage for Mary Poppins and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I decided to work backstage as I have always loved theatre but have never had the confidence to be on stage.

Costumes have always been my favourite aspect of any show I have seen and working on them this year I have realised how much effort is put into them.”

Galina in Year 11, “After finishing my GCSEs on the day of the first show, I was kept very busy by assistant musical directing Mary Poppins. I wanted to work as assistant musical director since MDing is a career I would love to go into. The buzz of a theatre cannot be replicated anywhere else and being a part of creating magic is something something I love - there’s no other feeling like it.”

Anna in Year 10, “This was my first time working backstage on a theatre production and it was quite a hectic time but it was also such a pleasant and eye-opening experience. I got to know my way around the theatre more and I got to meet a lot of amazing people. All in all, it was a great opportunity and I would definitely try my best to help out in the next production again.”

Art Prize for Mrs North

Congratulations to Mrs North, who has won an award for her art work:

'When I’m not at school, I work as an artist under my maiden name Rosie Good. I currently have work in the New English Art Club annual show at the Mall Galleries, London, where I was awarded the Anthony Lester Art Critic Prize for a large drawing based on the wooden groynes at Cuckmere Haven. This show runs until 1st July.'

She is also taking part in a few shows over the summer in case anyone happens to be passing:

Time and Tide Exhibition, group show at South Hill Barn (21st – 28th August)

Small solo show at Covet in Lewes for Artwave (2nd -17th September)

‘Biodiversity’ group show at the Star Brewery Gallery (2nd -17th September)

‘Wide Blue Spaces’ group show at South Hill Barn (2nd -17th September)

Niamh in Year 12, “Costume is an aspect of Theatre I have contributed to since year 8. I have always found joy in creating outfits with a lot of symbolism and aesthetics and the Roedean Productions was my way of sharing that creativity. Mary Poppins was my chance to teach the next generation of students about the process of costume production at Roedean. This included how to approach answering a brief, whilst introducing your own artistic style into your work, as well as how to balance the comfort of the actor and contentment of the director in the final costumes they pull together. This experience has benefited me greatly over my school career, it has taught me communication, leadership, patience and to have confidence in your creative opinion. Thank you to Mrs Woodbridge, Mr Wailes, Mrs Sellers and Mrs Clarke for their generosity in allowing me to have a leadership role in this Musical, and for balancing the stress of not only the performers but the backstage team as well.”

Junior Classics Competition

Congratulations to everyone who entered projects to the Summer Term Classics Competition. The submissions were many and varied, and they included all sorts of creative interpretations of the different briefs which each year group was given!

The list of 3 winners for each year group is below, but there were many more entries in each year which deserved a prize:

Year 7

Beth - for her outstanding coloured cardboard model of a Roman house with furniture

Luciana - for her outstanding model of a Roman house

Greta and Rosa - for their amazing coloured lego model of a Roman house with furniture

Year 8

Sofia - for her excellent model of Mount Vesuvius erupting complete with red illumination

Scarlett - for her innovatively designed video depicting the eruption of Mount Vesuvius

Arezou - for her amazing, originally executed video depicting the eruption of Mount Vesuvius

Year 9

Millie - for a very convincing and aesthetically appealing Pandora's Box made of gingerbread

Bella - for her wonderfully detailed and intricate 'Medusa cake'

Zyta - for her extremely neat and detailed series of Instagram posts

Well done to everyone who entered.

Egyptian Mummy at Roedean

On Monday, the Science Department were visited by Gerry Thraves, a former Biology teacher, who brought with him parts of a disarticulated Egyptian mummy ‘Esmerelda’ to show several of our 9 Science classes.  He talked through the techniques used to date Esmerelda, and how scientists have been able to identify particular features and things about her, based on various measurements and tests they have been able to carry out.

He explained that the 2,500-year-old mummy had good teeth, was well-nourished, and had no schistosomiasis, which suggests that she didn’t work in the fields – all these facts lead to the conclusion that she was wealthy.  She was in her

iAdiós, Melina!

Goodbye to Melina - 10Sp3 said 'adiós' to Melina Mani with a rousing rendition of 'Vivir Mi Vida'. We wish you all the best in your new school in the US, Melina!

Miss Cleary and 10Sp3

early 20s when she died, probably of some kind of trauma.  He explained the preserving process which she had gone through, and showed a reconstruction of her face.

The students listened intently and many of them had interesting and thought-provoking questions which Mr Thraves was able to answer.  Many of them were able to handle various parts of her, something I'm sure they weren't expecting.

It was a really interesting afternoon and a great way to end the term in the Science Department.

Mrs Bond

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: aws@roedean.co.uk

Mr Barber