Sydenham HighLIGHTS Autumn 2021
Hitting the ground running this term, the Drama department has already announced our Senior Play, ‘Education, Education, Education’ which is an upbeat, chaotic and irreverent comedy. The setting is Wordsworth Comprehensive School, May 1997. Tony Blair has won the election, Katrina and the Waves have won Eurovision and the year 11 have muck up day. What could possibly go wrong? The production is for years 10-13 and will be performed in February. Our Lower School production, which is open to years 7-9, will be announced later in the year and the performance will be staged in May. In addition to this, there will also be the ever popular Technical Theatre Club and Drama Club. Year 7 have had a busy start to secondary school life and heard from Sita Brahmachari about the inspiration for her book When Secrets Set Sail as part of a UK-wide online author event. A copy had previously been gifted to each of them on induction day to read over the summer as part of the Book Clubs in Schools transition event. Seven hundred pupils across the country responded to polls about their favourite character in the book, whether they had family from another country and whether they believed in ghosts, as Sita shared her family’s migration story and her journey to becoming an author. GP and mother of three, Attiya Khan, was another author visit who came in and spoke to year 9 about her debut YA book Ten Steps to Us and her journey to becoming a published author. Attiya spoke about being resilient to rejection, believing in yourself and not giving up when she was looking for a publisher for her book. Ten Steps to Us is a story of romance, bullying, frenemies, social media trolling, family expectations, religious commitment and finding your place in the world. Meanwhile, year 10 received an author visit of their own from Femi Fadugba who also shared some of the experiences that helped him to write his game changing, space and time defying, debut YA thriller, that is soon to be a major Netflix movie starring Daniel Kaluuya. The Upper World is set in South-East London with Sydenham High being one of only eight schools he visited as part of a school tour to celebrate the novel’s publication. We also welcomed Milou, a red fox labrador, to the school, who joined Mrs Woodcock for Google Meets amongst other things, whilst taking time out to visit pupils at lunch and break time. Milou, in fact belongs to Mrs Evans, Head of Year 9, and he was a great hit with our pupils and hopefully will make a return visit soon.
Year 13 Politics students joined up with other Politics students from Sutton High School and enjoyed an exciting and insightful visit to Parliament. They really enjoyed learning about all the different functions of each area of parliament and taking in the opulent and beautiful architecture. They also took part in an informative and immersive Suffragettes walking tour which left our students with a real understanding of the radicalism and bravery of the women who helped forge the path for women’s rights. Cross trust collaborations, bringing pupils together from different GDST schools, particularly at Sixth Form, are a fantastic way for our pupils to network and there are plenty of collaborations in the pipeline for this academic year. Pupils have definitely been making the most of visiting the library to browse and borrow resources, socialise and complete homework. Over 110 new titles have been added to the shelves since the beginning of September and book loans for September were 50% higher than any previous month since Mrs Pett’s records began in September 2017. The Accelerated Reader programme has been introduced to year 7 students, and has recommenced for year 8 with several students having already achieved Word Millionaire status! We’ve also seen the launch of the Empowered poetry competition. The national theme was ‘choices’, about taking control after a period when many felt they had no agency. As a school, our pupils focused on writing poetry about identity and celebrating heritage. Our three Eco Prefects, launched their reinvigorated Eco Community this term and the weekly meetings have been well attended. Our eco warriors, supported by Ms Gibbs, our Sustainability Lead, have already campaigned for and labelled, all recycling and general waste bins throughout the school. We hope to improve our recycling through carefully disposing of food waste, paper and cardboard and also less traditionally recycled items such as crisp packets and sweet wrappers. Read our Eco Prefects first newsletter here. As part of our Black History Month celebrations, we held our ‘Music Of Black Origin’ lunchtime concert in the Recital Hall. The Hall was packed and the concert itself compered confidently and eloquently by a year 10 pupil. It was a wonderful concert and included a range of genres from Jazz, to Reggae, as well as a range of instruments marking the first concert of the academic year. To end the half-term, years 7-10 and year 12 enjoyed a day of Body, Mind and Soul, coming off timetable to enjoy some fantastic opportunities including soulful sketching, yoga, orienteering, AI programming and more. The programme on offer really was extraordinary and a great way to end the first six weeks of term.
Laura Hooper Tamsin Culmer-Guevara l.hooper@syd.gdst.net t.culmer-guevara@syd.gdst.net Director of Marketing & Communications Registrar @SydenhamHigh
@sydenhamhighschool
Sydenham High
senior@syd.gdst.net