26th February 2016 - Issue 7
HEAD’S
WEEKLY REVIEW
Head’s Introduction Rested and relaxed after the Half Term holiday, the girls have returned to Roedean and hit the ground running this week. As ever, there has been a huge variety of activities and events taking place, with something for everyone. I am looking forward to tonight’s Strictly Broadway Concert, with so many girls taking part in the different elements of the evening. I know how much time and energy is involved so contratulations in advance for all the hard work. At the weekend, Roedean is hosting a Politics Conference, organised by Miss Hawks, with five speakers of an impressive calibre, and I am pleased that parents are joining the girls at this event, as well as some students who will be joining the Roedean Sixth Form in September. Good luck to those members of staff who are running the Brighton Half Marathon on Sunday - I know that Miss Andrew, Mr Carter, Mr Camburn, Miss Robin, Miss Hyams, and Mr Orys are all extremely competitive, so I look forward to hearing who comes in first! This week, particular congratulations go to Amber Anning, Tatum Walker, and Ruby Anning,
What’s coming up in the week ahead? SATURDAY 27 FEBRUARY
Lacrosse Juniors vs St Catherine’s (A) Politics Conference in the Theatre Derren Brown Show at Theatre Royal Brighton
Brighton Half Marathon London Museums trip
all of whom have enjoyed wonderful individual successes in sport, and to Fran Seaborne who is performing in an opera at Glyndebourne – these successes are the result of brilliant talent, supported by practice and focused dedication: Roedean is very proud of them all. Looking ahead to next week, we have sporting, performing, and academic activities to look forward to, with Lacrosse and Swimming fixtures, a performance of the Greek play ‘Lysistrata’, Guitar Masterclasses, and the Classical Reading Competition. We also have two author visits, as part of programme of events in the Library to mark World Book Day. At the end of the week, we have Open Day, and I am grateful to all the girls for playing such an important role in showcasing the school to prospective families. With only four weeks in this half of term, there is a great deal for the girls to take part in, but this is exactly what makes Roedean such a vibrant and dynamic school. I wish you all a wonderful and fruitful week.
SUNDAY 28 FEBRUARY
MONDAY 29 FEBRUARY
Y11 & Y12 Business Studies Conference in London Swimming Gala vs Farlington (H) TUESDAY 1 MARCH
Netball U14 & U16 SISNA Tournament Classical Reading Competition for local schools
WEDNESDAY 2 MARCH
L4 & U4 Author Visit: Miriam Moss, 12.05 in Old Ref Netball U12A vs Hurst (H) THURSDAY 3 MARCH
South Region IAPS Netball Tournament World Book Day Fancy Dress Competition – dress as a book character U3 Author Visit: Helen Peters, 2.15 in Theatre
Amber’s the golden girl! Amber Anning, in her first year as an Under 17 athlete, won gold at the National Indoor Athletics Championships at Sheffield over 300m and the next day took the silver medal in the Triple Jump competition. Amber went into the 300m as a favourite as she is the only U17 to have run under 40 seconds indoors this year, and she won the outdoor U17 title last August, when still an Under 15. In the third heat, she ran 39.97 seconds to go into the final as the fastest qualifier later that afternoon. After a controlled start, Amber moved up a gear with 100m to go, to win effortlessly in a time of 39.37, almost a second ahead of the silver medallist Natasha Harrison from Stockport. The following day Amber returned to the England Institute of Sport, keen for a podium place in the Triple Jump. There she renewed her rivalry with Adelaide Omitowoju from Cambridge, the UK U17 rankings’ leader, who had beaten her to gold at the Southern Championships in January. It was the same result as the regional championships, with Adelaide leaping to a fine personal best of 11.86m to win, and Amber taking silver with 11.55m. She achieved a massive amount in one weekend! You can watch Amber’s 300m final by following this link: http://www.runjumpthrow.com/videos/16522.
FRIDAY 4 MARCH
South Region IAPS Netball Tournament Years 9-13 Paul Gregory Guitar Masterclasses Bowling & Meal Brighton Marina World Book Day Quiz, lunchtime in library
SATURDAY 5 MARCH
OPEN MORNING (all students expected to be in school) Lysistrata performance in the Theatre
Everyone is welcome to submit an entry for the World Book Day Competition for a drawing or a photo representation of any book title of your choosing. Please submit your entries to Dr Blood in the Library; a display will be made of all the entries, and the best will win prizes.
26th February 2016 - Issue 7
HEAD’S WEEKLY REVIEW
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. Iris McClafferty for her excellent determination and effort in the match on Wednesday [ACA]
Tabitha McCulloch for an outstanding essay on the rule of Oliver Cromwell [RCH]
Rhiannon Burgess for outstanding commitment in Spanish lessons [JSM]
Rose Yan for helping to umpire and score on Wednesday, despite being injured and not being able to play [ACA] Sinem Aziz for asking excellent questions on the History trip to the Keep and generally participating well [RCH] Cherry Tam for exceptionally hard work on harp [JLI]
Hannah Kerr for playing everybody into Assembly on piano [AWH]
Zarbanu Malekshahi for taking on the challenge to complete her French iGCSE in one year [JSM]
Bella Mason, Tasha Spinks, and Emmy Pu, for their excellent work putting on the second TEDx-style conference with Ringmer this week [RB] The Admissions Team would like to say a big thank you to all the girls who help on taster days and provide tours. Your support, energy, enthusiasm, care and attention is hugely appreciated and valued. Thank you!
Roedean Artists to bip-Art On Sunday 7 February, Mrs Stanway, Miss Griffiths-Moore, and a party of excited 6.2s travelled down the road (literally) to bip-Art Printmaking Studios in Arundel Place. The aim was to spend a day making prints in etching, lino-block, and lithography – a tall order for just a few hours. Meeting Ann d’Arcy Hughes (whose niece is an OR) and the rest of the bip-Art team was to feel immediately confident that we were in very good hands, and, joy of joys, the superb Britannia Printing Press, a monster that had evolved during the Luddite period, was still in fantastic service there and could be used for us! At first, there was some questioning as to just how many hours we could really spend ‘on a few prints’ but, within minutes, we were caught up in the full excitement of seeing the most gorgeous effects unveiled when each piece of paper was peeled off. We stopped for a sandwich lunch, but even those edibles were hastily stuffed in mouths to make sure another print was created before the ink dried on the plate or block. Plates were still being inked and printed when 5:30 rolled round all too quickly, and cries of ‘just one more’ were heard more than once. Our prints, dried, sealed, and delivered, were at school for us on Tuesday, but before that moment, the constant question ‘Are they here yet?’ proved just how pleased our students were with their day. The lovely results will be seen on display in the Main Art Studio on Open Day. Mrs Stanway Page 2
Sussex Classical Reading Competition Speak Out in Latin and Greek! The annual Sussex Classical Reading Competition is at Roedean! ■ ■ ■ ■
When? – on Tuesday 1 March What time? – between 4.30 and 6.30pm Where? – Keswick Hall Why? Why not!
Come and listen to our girls attempting to recreate these fabulous ancient languages. The senior sections will include some of the most beautiful poetry ever written. The junior girls will be recreating scenes from ancient domestic life! Hurst, Brighton College, Reigate Grammar, and King Edward’s School are among those competing. See Miss Wynne or Mrs Miller for further details. There will be ‘classicallythemed’ doughnuts to entice you along!
HEAD’S WEEKLY REVIEW
26th February 2016 - Issue 7
A Night of Hands at Roedean This week saw the second TEDx-style conference organised by students as part of the Roedean-Ringmer partnership. It was a great event, and all the more impressive because the students of the two schools organised the event themselves. The theme of this conference, organised by Bella Mason, Tasha Spinks, Emmy Pu, and Alyx Harrington, Georgina Mason, Josie Hammond, Victoria Warland, Lauren Ablett from Ringmer, was ‘Hands’. The first speaker was Miss Kayleigh Bristow, the Head of Dance at Shoreham Academy, who spoke about how life-changing a hands-on experience like volunteering in Africa can be. She led a group of 27 students who went to Ghana for a month to work in a school and construct some additional buildings. She drew the audience’s attention in particular to how poverty can hold back students’ education. In Ghana, even though they only cost as much as a can of Sprite, if a student cannot pay to sit their end of year exams, they are not allowed to progress into the next year. When Kayleigh’s students came back to England, every member of the group agreed to sponsor a child to guarantee that they could always make progress. She ended by saying that it is too easy to get wrapped up in a world of exams and work, and that this experience had opened her students’ eyes to the bigger picture. It was a wonderful and uplifting talk. There was a brief interlude between each of the speakers, in the form of a dance, focusing on hand gestures; these were both beautiful and allowed some of what had been said to sink in. The second speaker was Miss Karen Andrew, the Faculty Lead for Sport at Roedean. She spoke about her experiences as an international rugby player for England. This year, it will be ten years since she played in the World Cup final, representing England against New Zealand. Unfortunately, New Zealand were victorious and Miss Andrew showed us her silver medal which has been in a box in the loft for ten years. She described the bitter disappointment of
this ‘failure’ (although few in the audience agreed that coming second in the world was a failure!), and about how she had had to fight for her place in the team and push through difficulties to be successful. She spoke at length about how failure had developed her career, and how, when she could have buckled and thrown in the towel, how she was determined to prove wrong the coach who said she was not fit enough, or not skilful enough, or not tough enough. There was a point where she thought, ‘how many knockbacks can I take?’, but then she decided that she was going to prove that she deserved her place. She worked unbelievably hard, despite not having access to the top physios and trainers, and her perseverance paid off and she made it. It was a brilliant talk, and wonderful to hear of the huge success of one of our number. The last speaker was Mrs Jan Meek, whose motto is ‘why not?’ when asked any question. Always ready to take on a challenge, she rowed the Atlantic with her son, when she was 53 years old. Despite terrible arthritic pain in her hands, she rowed two hours on and two hours off right across the ocean, on a trip that took 101 days. There were times in the early days when she thought that she was broken, and she wondered if she would be able to complete the task. A group of Marines who were also in the race had placed bets on how long she would last, some said 2 weeks, some said 2 days, and some just 2 hours. She admits that it was incredibly hard, both physically and mentally. One example is that they had covered 147 miles by day 7, and, despite rowing constantly for the next 13 days, after twenty days they had still only covered 147 miles – they had been rowing for nearly two weeks just to stay where they were! That is hard to bear, particularly when the journey is 2907 miles long. Fortunately, the currents and winds
Fran singing opera at Glyndebourne On Wednesday this week, we all coached our way to the opera house at Glyndebourne, to watch NOTHING, which is a new youth opera based on the award-winning novel about a group of teenagers trying to convince their classmate that life has a meaning. From the
very start of the performance all the way to the end, we were all mesmerised! It is incredible to watch such talent from musicians, but the fact that they were our age made us even more intrigued. The set and costumes were also amazing! Most importantly, we, as a year group, were there in support to watch our fellow classmate Fran Seaborne perform, and she did amazingly well. Watching our friend achieve something so spectacular made everyone so proud – well done, Fran, we can’t wait to see you in your next opera! Lizzie Wilmot Page 3
changed, and became much more favourable, so they covered more distance over the next weeks. Janice’s talk was another example of an inspirational talk, which focused on the immense power of self-belief and grasping a challenge with both hands. Congratulations to the Roedean and Ringmer students for organising such a great event – Ben Welch, Callum Ward, Alyx Harrington, Georgina Mason, Josie Hammond, Lauren Ablett from Ringmer, and Bella Mason, Tasha Spinks, Emmy Pu, Natalie Tang, Eunice Yuen, and Natasha Tan from Roedean have done a wonderful job, and I am sure that they have learnt a great deal from the process about the organisation required behind the scenes to make a success of such a project, which they certainly did. Thank you to Miss Beynon and Mr Dean for their support of these conferences throughout the process. These two conferences have been the perfect initial stage in the partnership between Roedean and Ringmer, and we look forward to the collaborations between the Art, Physics, and Business Studies departments, and two joint ventures for UCAS and establishing a farm at Roedean.
Lysistrata On Saturday 5 march at 7:30pm, we are really lucky to have a professional theatre company coming to Roedean to perform this play as part of their national tour. Actors of Dionysus specialise in performing ancient plays, comic and tragic, often with a modern twist… Their performances have been described as ‘riotous, irreverent and even a little naughty’. A modern re-telling of Aristophanes’ masterpiece, Lysistrata, promises to be an absurd laugh out loud romp as it brings the battle of the sexes to a stunning climax. The play follows the heroine, Lysistrata, as she gathers females on a bawdy crusade to deny their men-folk sex in order to halt a Grecian Civil War. As the women flaunt their sexuality, the men are driven wild and a number of battles between the sexes ensue. But as all is fair in love and war, when the men finally declare peace, the women join them in revelry. Suitable only for 14+ – contains some strong language and comic scenes of an adult nature. Box Office details: https://www.ents24. com/brighton-events/roedean-school/ lysistrata/4571447
HEAD’S WEEKLY REVIEW
U12B Netball vs Westbourne House
U12 & U13 Sussex Schools’ Cross Country
Roedean started well and the girls were down by 1 goal at the end of the 1st quarter. Serena Clyde worked hard in the centre court to keep the attack going forward. Both our shooters were on point, and we moved to all square at half time. This continued in the 3rd quarter, but unfortunately we just lost our lead in the last few minutes to lose 11-13. It was a wonderful game and the girls were a credit to themselves and Roedean. The players of the match were Eva Fletcher and Serena Clyde.
The U12 and U13 girls competed in the Sussex Schools’ Cross Country Competition at Christ’s Hospital on Thursday. With over 150 girls taking part in each race, it was going to prove tough for the girls to make the top 20 for selection into the Sussex squad. The U12s went off first and Tatum Walker, Serena and Sophia Clyde all looked strong. The course proved really boggy in places, and Serena unfortunately twisted her knee in the mud and had to be escorted to the finish in the tractor! Tatum Walker came in 5th and Sophia in 18th, so both made the cut! Well done girls! – they will be competing for Sussex on 19th March at Bexhill. Bonnie White came 52nd, Maddie Quinn came in in 69th, and Ella Spall in 99th place – congratulations to all.
Tatum takes home gold! Last Saturday, at Hickstead, Tatum Walker ran in the final race in the Sussex Cross Country League, representing Brighton and Hove Athletics, coming in 9th position overall in the U13s and taking home a team Gold for winning the league. Tatum has another year in this age group – it is all very exciting... and very muddy too. On the following day, she was running again and won the U14 Worthing Mini Mile, with a Personal Best of 6.08minutes – two gold medals in one weekend is fantastic! On Sunday, Tatum will be running in another Mini Mile, this time in the Brighton Half Marathon – we wish her well!
26th February 2016 - Issue 7
The U13s then set off on a slightly longer course, and again the race was extremely competitive. Gracie Bernard did amazingly and came in 9th place to make the Sussex squad for her age-group. Jess Kaye came 46th, and Liv Henderson was 50th. Overall, it was a super day and really well done to all of the runners. We look forward to the next event at Worth in two weeks’ time.
Gold rush for the Annings! Congratulations to Ruby and Amber Anning who were both successful at the County Indoor Athletics Championships last week. Ruby won Gold in the U13 girls’ 60m and silver in the Long Jump. This achievement is all the more impressive since there were only two events in this age group, so to medal in both is great. Amber continued her winning ways and won three Golds and set championship best performances in the U17 Long Jump, Triple Jump, and the 60m, and she also won silver in Shot Put. These are all wonderful achievements – well done!
Over the next few weeks, Roedean is proud to be hosting the IAPS Netball competition and the National Schools’ Netball, with over 2,000 people attending. All girls are welcome to come and show their support; please ask Miss Andrew for information.
The Brighton Mini Mile is taking place on Saturday 16 April. If you are keen to take part, please use the following link to sign up: http://www.brightonminimile. co.uk/home. The full marathon is taking place on the next day, Sunday 17 April, and several staff are running this year. 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: news@roedean.co.uk Page 4
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