11th March 2016 - Issue 9
HEAD’S
WEEKLY REVIEW
Head’s Introduction
I have been immensely proud of the school and of the entire Roedean community this week. My colleagues and every single girl have worked very hard, firstly for Open Day, and then for the inspection this week, to show our visitors the school at its best, as well as the breadth of opportunities and the excellent teaching and learning which are on offer here. Inspection is an incredibly thorough and demanding process in which every aspect of what we do and every policy and record we keep is inspected, investigated and observed over four days. The girls and staff, however, have been delightful, and their liveliness and good humour is an indication of the strength of the school’s selfconfidence and community spirit. I can honestly say that I have really enjoyed seeing how well everyone has responded to the presence of our inspectors. We welcomed over one hundred families on Open Day, and I am delighted that this coincided with a record-breaking number of acceptances for places in Year 7 in September which is, I strongly believe, down to the quality and personality of the girls and staff that they meet. We have received acceptances from sixty
local and UK girls for Year 7, who will be joining the school next year at a time when we are going from strength to strength. Watching every girl in Year 7 taking part in the Open Day performance, which focused on the arrival of summer, it is strange to think that they were sitting in the audience only a year ago. They have grown in confidence so much in two terms and, as we saw at their Parents’ Evening this week, they are also as happy and energetic as ever. As you will read in this review, Roedean has marked International Women’s Day with a whole series of events over the week, and the girls have really engaged with this theme. The final event of the week was Chapel this morning, at which we were joined by our honorary Chaplain, Rose Hudson-Wilkin, and she spoke briefly about her own struggle for women to be accepted into the clergy. It was a special week in which each and every one of us wore a badge indicating a woman who has inspired us. You will not be surprised to know that many of those badges said ‘mum’.
This term, we have been piloting an Academic Mentoring Programme with girls from every year group, leading to a research project on a topic of their choosing. Three of the youngest girls involved made presentations this week, outlining their projects to the group; I would like to congratulate Maia Hobbs (Childhood), Amelie Samarasinghe (Happiness), and Darcey Priddle (Ai Wei Wei), on how well they presented their projects and on the depth of their research. When we give the girls the freedom and support to follow their own interests and passions, we are always inspired by what they can achieve for themselves. We are in the throes of Prefect selection for next year, and I am pleased that forty girls in Year 12 have put themselves forward for these roles. The students will be voting early next week for those they feel will lead the school the best. The final appointments will be made at the start of next term. I wish everyone a very good final week of term, and, when it comes, a restful break over the Easter holidays.
Musical Masterclass at Roedean On Friday 4th March, Paul Gregory came to Roedean to give a masterclass on the 1st movement of the Clarinet Trio in A minor by Brahms. Paul is renowned as a professional Classical guitarist; what is less well-known is that he was originally a first-study cellist.
Using gentle encouragement and questioning, Paul extended the girls’ understanding of the techniques, compositional devices and, above all, the emotional comprehension of very complex music that is not normally tackled until university or beyond.
Kelly HT Chan (clarinet), Dora Goode (cello) and Annabella Chen (piano) were put through their paces on how to interpret one of the most intellectually demanding pieces of the chamber music repertoire.
We all thank Paul for his help and encouragement, and look forward to the girls’ performance of this piece at the Falmer concert in April.
HEAD’S WEEKLY REVIEW
11th March 2016 - Issue 9
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.
April Zhou (6.1) for giving up her free time to support others who are struggling in Maths [EKE]
Spectroscopy, carbon, and rare metals Maya O’Neill (U5) for going above and beyond for the tutor assembly [KAN]
Niah Salmon (U3) and Dalel Balapanova (6.2) for giving thought-provoking Assemblies this week on the theme of International Women’s Day [RB]
Coco Au / Rose Yan / Sarah Lin (L4) for giving excellent drama presentations this week in English, showing that they have a clear understanding of the play [HBO]
On Monday, the Lower Sixth chemists took the train up to London in order to attend a series of lectures on a broad variety of topics. We arrived at the theatre near Leicester Square just in time to take our seats for the first lecture. Professor Andrea Sella gave a very high level talk on the Rare Earth Metals. This is a topic which won’t come up on the AS specification, so this lecture really helped to push us beyond our usual boundaries. The next lecture was given by Dr Philip Ball on A-level chemist Tiffany Lam failed to the properties of water and the explanations for complete her Chemistry prep properly its rather strange behaviour. This lecture veered more towards the biological side of chemistry and this week. As a result, she was incinerated to set an example to others. was my personal favourite. After a short break, the lectures kicked off again with some top revision tips from a current examiner, which will certainly be put to good use in the coming months. After another longer break for lunch we heard from another two eminent scientists about their work on the uses of carbon and spectroscopy respectively. Overall the day was a huge success, and we are all grateful to Mr England for escorting us on the trip. Grace Robertson
Darcey Priddle (U3), Amelie Samarasinghe (L4), and Maia Hobbs (L4) for giving excellent presentation at the Academic Mentoring Session this week [NDO]
Roedean wins 4 of the top 5 places! Oluwaseyi Adebutu (6.2) for being the hidden Karate Sensei Roedean never knew it had [CS]
Cici Jia (U5) for her excellent written work on the GCSE course in British History 1931 to 1951 [RCH]
Lucy Petit (U3) for speaking so eloquently about history to our visiting inspectors [RCH]
The annual “Problem Drive” organised by the Maths Association took place on Tuesday, 8th March, and was another great success. Roedean girls competed against students from Lancing College and Burgess Hill School, with 58 competitors all together. Impressively, Miranda Liu won the competition overall, with Emmy Pu coming in second and Valerie Lau sharing the 3rd place with one of our visitors. Vicky Zhang also finished in 5th, so our Roedean girls performed brilliantly. They received their certificates and, perhaps more excitingly, some chocolate! Having been the hosts for many years now, we are proud to state that girls from Roedean have won the competition every year since 2010 – long may this tradition last! Page 2
HEAD’S WEEKLY REVIEW
Roedean marks International Women’s Day To mark International Women’s Day this week, there have been a variety of events taking place in school. On Monday, every member of the school community was asked to write the name of a woman who has been an inspiration on a badge and wear it with pride – it was interesting to see the range of people chosen, from the famous to family members, and writers to sporting heroes. The girls were also asked in tutor period to write the name of an inspirational woman on a card, followed by an explanation, and these have been displayed in the fireplace in Reception all week for everyone to look at – as selection of them are included below:
In the two Assemblies this week, Niah Slamon (U3) and our Events’ Prefect, Dalel Balapanova (6.2) gave an excellent presentation about International Women’s Day, including some statistics which were both eye-opening and shocking – the script has been reproduced here: Niah – Dalel, what is International Women’s Day all about? Dalel – IWD is a time to reflect on the place of women in the world, on equality, and to celebrate all the women who inspire you. Every year a day in March is set aside to mark it. Niah – This year, it was on Tuesday 8th March. Can you explain this year’s theme to me? Dalel – The theme is #pledgeforparity – in many places in the world, women are gradually becoming more equal to men, but in others the inequality gap is huge! Niah – When you came in to Assembly today, some of you were given coloured cards. Please stand up if you have a blue card. [17 girls with blue cards stand up] You represent the 17 women presidents and prime ministers in the world, that’s just 17 out of 190 countries.
My u s bee s niro up h s o t als o n h Dalel – Thank you. Please stand up if you have n ab be he oh a red card. [76 girls with red cards stand] You l. She l represent the fact that 29% of Members of ar o d ok gad Parliament in Britain are women – that may n fo w sound small, but only 20 years ago, it was just ot. 7%. e d s – n o v D Emi co so sffat n o Mal Yofa go t e ac Hu la – se s inril e – se s l o r rat vo wa fe ta t d le an ry o d e l h e h n e s ; u is he wo d figin r en il’s ih lo to wa n ed as to uco, bu to fit o 12 ye, be s in det r ha y e f s a d re Tal min h fo e Gerd Eel t fir wo t im May Alo – te Cn in 1926, , y PE amg ar ti Mis r wa ar r a sah t en’s ea c ter i rit’ acs u c s an tg a t y e ff s – l so ra, bu n r bed wa t an ne e a t l i r in ovme d 30 ye , ‘on on he t em in , on yi i lt!’ fl bak n i uta yo me l sy Aun S u y so ut is – se bul ar he p i an n 19 Bm, 91 Nob Pec i
Tam Gre se for y – of G t ta a an s a l ca mor
Jan ol a pitos d d, anrog, wo o s ‘Wha do diffce. Yo he u de wa dffec wa t e.’
– Coc el sle on , fa ‘Fas s.’ res e
’t Ema Ws – ‘I do de to pe wa t wo I . I wa t de ta f yf.’ Page 3
11th March 2016 - Issue 9
Niah – Please stand up if you have a green card. [37 girls stand] You represent the fact that 1 in 7 women in Ethiopia die in childbirth or pregnancy, compared to 1 in 19,000 in the UK. Dalel – 493 million women in the world cannot read or write – that’s two thirds of the global female population. Niah – Please stand up if you have an orange card. [Just 10 girls with green cards stand up] 85 million girls in the world are not allowed an education. Those who are standing represent the lucky 4% of girls in Chad who do go to school. Dalel – That’s exactly why my inspirational woman is Malala Yousafzai, because she is fighting for equal education for girls all around the work, especially in the Middle East, where women have fewer or even no rights. And she was shot as a result of her determination towards equality. Who would yours be, Niah? Niah – Mine is Emma Watson, because she is not only a celebrity but uses her fame to campaign for the United Nations, especially her own ‘He for She’ campaign. Dalel – I wonder if any of you have thought of inspirational women? Amber Anning stood up and said, ‘Shelly-Ann Fraser Price, known as the “pocket rocket”, is a Jamaican sprinter who became the first Caribbean women to win 100m at the Olympics in 2008. Even though she was brought up in one of the poorest communities in Jamaica, she still managed to become one of the world’s best female sprinters ever.’ Lucy Brown stood and sang a few lines of ‘Feeling good’ by Nina Simone. Hannah Thompsett said, ‘My inspirational woman is Rosalind Franklin, who did groundbreaking research into the structure DNA – her work led to a deeper understanding of the information which is passed from one generation to the next.’ Dalel – To conclude, we are all very lucky, and I believe that it is our collective responsibility to make a difference and to improve the place of women in the world. All week there has been a display of women’s literature in the Library, and the debate yesterday run by Miss Balnaves had the motion ‘This House believes that Feminism is no longer needed’. The Sixth Form has also been lucky enough to have a lecture by Seema Sharma OR, about women in business. It has been wonderful to focus our attention on this theme, and the girls have learnt a great deal from it.
11th March 2016 - Issue 9
HEAD’S WEEKLY REVIEW
What’s coming up in the week ahead? MONDAY 14 MARCH
U5 & New 61 Girls’ Dinner with speaker Pauline Sanderson WEDNESDAY 16 MARCH
Piano Masterclass & Recital with Maria Marchant Roedean hosting Cross Country Competition
Roedean girls inspired by top netballers Last Saturday, after Open Day, fourteen girls travelled to the Copper Box arena with Miss Hyams and Miss Crawley to watch some exciting netball. The arena is beautiful to look at and I didn’t expect it to be so big – in fact 6332 of us packed into the arena to witness an exciting game of netball and we were pulled into the action by the electric atmosphere. We were all supporting Surrey Storm, with the exception of Awele who, much to our disgust and her amusement decided to support the Mavericks! She was over the moon when the match ended, and Storm were just blown away by the Mavericks. We were sitting in the very best seats in the arena. We watched the warm up of both teams and we definitely learnt why it is important to warm up before a match! As soon as the match started, the whole arena erupted, cheering every goal, pass and interception. Play was fast, furious and fantastic!
Briana’s dancing to the top Having taken part in the Eastbourne Music and Arts Festival and the Hastings Musical Festival every year when she was younger, Briana Kelly (L5) has this year entered these competitions again. She came third in her song & dance, song, character & acting improvisation in the Eastbourne festival, and next week she will be performing solos in ballet, modern, tap, character, and song & dance at the Hastings Festival – we wish her well.
THURSDAY 17 MARCH
Year 13 A2 Drama Performance at 17:30 Roedean Fireworks Display at 18:45 Parents’ Guild Quiz Night at 19:00
FRIDAY 18 MARCH
Final Chapel & Handshaking at 11:05 SPRING TERM ENDS at 12:00
Even though I wasn’t supporting them, the Mavericks were the better team on the day and they took home the Copper Box crown 55-50. Lara Sellins (U3)
Blacklands Farm On Sunday, several girls spent a fun-filled adventure to Blacklands Farm. They spent the day flying through the trees on a Zip Wire, working together to stack crates as high as they possibly could, and testing their strength and agility on the indoor climbing wall. They all had a great time and worked brilliantly as a team. 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
Amber wins the All-Rounder Competition Amber Anning, in her last Sportshall Regional event, won the All-Rounder competition, scoring 148 out of a possible 150 points. She brought home a tally of five medals – three individual golds, one individual silver, and a team silver. Her regional success means she has been invited to the UK Sportshall Final which takes place in Manchester on Sunday 17th April. We wish her the best of luck at this event.
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