The Cryptian 2022-2023

The Cryptian 2022-23

Phil Stanlake – Acting Head Teacher

Welcome to this year's edition of the Cryptian. At the beginning of this academic year, writing this introduction was certainly something that was not on -or expected to be onmy job list! It has been an honour and a privilege to be the acting headteacher of a school in which I have worked for over 30 years. When I first set out in my career, it was not my ambition to be a headteacher, but my role this year has given me an opportunity to have an experience that I will never forget.

I have seen over the years a huge amount of change: the school population has doubled in size, the buildings have been expanded and developed, the number of staff has increased hugely and the educational challenges are greater and wider. However, the values and ethos that we promote remain constant. The pupils have an amazing experience and it is one that staff take great pride in - making sure that the learning is the best that it can be, both in and out of the classroom

I am very proud of our students; they are the very reason why we are successful. Their desire to inquire, investigate, participate and exercise their curiosity is testimony to their own investment in their education. Of course, they are supported by the parents who want the very best for their child.

I am extremely indebted to the staff body for all the work they have done this year. The academic curriculum, and the challenge that goes with it, is delivered in such a way that it allows the pupils to make the progress that they deserve. The staff give of themselves tirelessly, placing the students’ best interests at the heart of their day-to-day work. Alongside this are the support staff that are essential for running such a fantastic school. I have always stated that they are equally responsible for our pupils' education as they provide the right supportive environment in which the pupils can flourish.

On a personal level, I would like to thank everyone for all the support that has been given to me throughout this academic year. It has not been without its challenges, but it has been rewarding and enriching. I have always worked with the philosophy of 'what is best for the students' and I believe the continuity of education of our school's pupils has been preserved. I look forward to working with Mr Dyer in the years to come in moving the school further forward.

My very best wishes,

Phil Stanlake Acting Headteacher

Nick Dyer – Head Teacher

I am delighted to be writing this introduction, this year alongside Mr Stanlake, for the Cryptian magazine 2023.

It has, of course, been a difficult year personally for me and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my colleagues at Crypt, as well as our students, Governors and families at home, for the wonderful support I have received from them all over the past year. It was difficult not to have been in school last August to celebrate with students and staff our outstanding GCSE and A Level results and of course thereafter, as the school year got underway in September. I missed everyone greatly; missed being part of our wonderful Crypt community, working with all our hardworking school staff and helping support all of our students as they navigate their way through their school lives However, the School is blessed with both wonderful students and a committed and supportive staffing body, and it's little surprise therefore, that school life has continued to be a rich and diverse one for all our students, and for our staff who work so hard on behalf of our students to ensure that this is indeed the case. I'd like to thank Mr Stanlake for his outstanding leadership of the School this year, and also extend those thanks to other members of the School's Leadership Team, as well as to all my colleagues on the staff, for their incredible work in keeping the School running so well in my absence.

It was really wonderful, however, to have returned to school in late February and once again to be part of our rich school life. As I write this short introduction, public exam preparation is well under way for our Year 11 and 13 students, who I am sure will achieve outstanding outcomes in their exams this summer. I wish all our Year 13 and 11 leavers this year the very best of luck in their future lives and know that their Crypt education will provide them all with a wonderful springboard for their later adult lives. Equally, those valued staff who are leaving Crypt this year will be greatly missed, and I thank them all, for all that they have so generously contributed to the life of the school over their time with us. My very best wishes go with them as they leave and we hope that they, as well as our student leavers, will all wish to keep in touch with us here at school.

This outstanding magazine documents, as always, the rich and diverse life of the Crypt School over the last academic year; so much goes on that it's an incredible achievement that the team who have put this magazine together have captured so much of that life. My thanks then to the editorial team and to Mr Cobb in particular, for their work and effort in creating this year's Cryptian!

Nicholas Dyer Headmaster

YEAR GROUPS – HEADS OF YEARS’ REPORTS

Year 7 – George Roberts

What a wonderful start Year 7 have made to their secondary school careers. When Year 7 had their first assembly, Mr Dyer mentioned that the year would fly by, and he was not wrong! So many amazing things have been achieved by our year group this last year, from new budding actors, musicians, scientists, mathematicians, stargazers, photographers, designers to of course, settling in and learning.

I have been blown away by how well our Year 7 students have settled into the wider Crypt School community. They are fully fledged Cryptians, ready to move on to Year 8 and start setting an example to the next cohort of Year 7s this coming September. It has been a pleasure working with Year 7 this academic year. I wish them every success as they progress on their journey through our school.

Year 7 Residential to Abernant Lake

Students took part in a whole host of outdoor activities including raft building, archery, abseiling and rock climbing.

It was fantastic to see the students outside of their comfort zones and as their head of year, I was immensely proud of all of them. It was an eye-opening experience to see just how popular vending machines can be!

We were very lucky with the weather and had a beautiful clear day on our second day.

I am sure the students are looking forward to the Year 8 residential for something similar but a lot warmer!

Year 8 – Amy Leask

As the school year comes to a close it’s important to reflect on the achievements and opportunities that Year 8 students have accomplished this academic year. Overall it has been a pleasure to get to know the Year 8 student cohort as they fully embed themselves into Crypt life once again.

There have been many enrichment and educational opportunities offered to students and below are some of the highlights.

Year 8 Residential

In September we took 90 students away for a fantastic weekend of fun. Many students learnt new skills such as how to make a shelter, how to ride a bike or the importance of teamwork to succeed.

Over the weekend all students at some point displayed our Crypt values, however the one that impressed staff the most was resilience. Some students battled their fear of heights, others encouraged peers to keep going when things got tough on activities like the climbing wall and all managed to endure and participate in Mr Hart's morning dance of wake and shake!

Year 8 demonstrated brilliant teamwork and communication skills, all qualities that will help them throughout their lives. I hope they look back fondly on the memories they made and friendships they built.

School Disco

In January we had a Y8 New Year school disco and it was fantastic to see so many students enjoying themselves: some great dancing on display throughout and some fiercely competitive dance battles happening across the room! The highlight had to be the YMCA at the end of the night with many parents joining in!

Lego Robotics Regional Heats

Mr Antonious writes:

Six Year 8 students attended the Lego Robotics Challenge Regional Heats at Renishaw on Thursday 20th April. Around 40 students have been attending the club since Year 7, and this group are those that have shown the most dedication to the project. They competed in four events; speed and control, robot mat challenge, team verbal presentation and surprise teamwork challenge. The speed and control challenge was closely contested, with our team lying in second position after the first round of racing. After reducing the mass of the car, they came first in the second heats, picking up the trophy for fastest robot. The robot mat challenge is a tricky set of tasks, but our team completed many of the activities, including using a colour sensor to open a gate, moving pieces around the mat and using the colour sensor to follow a trail. Their verbal

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presentation was professional, and the students answered the judges’ questions very well. Finally, the students worked as a team to complete a production line challenge, producing LED torches to take away. Overall, The Crypt School team picked up the most points, so we are very excited to go to the National Finals at the Big Bang Fair in June.

Readathon

Well done to all Year 8s who took part in the Readathon in aid of Read for Good who support children who have to spend extended time in hospital. Special mention to Ethan Tingay who raised £84!

Cyber Girls

Our Young Cyber Champions T Poore and C Gardner in Year 8 were selected to enter CyberGirls Finals 2023. The Crypt School were allocated to compete with other schools in the finals in the Southwest Team which was held at Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, Shrivenham, Wiltshire on Saturday 4th February. The girls were fantastic throughout and at half term were in 1st place. Overall they came 6th out of 12 teams which is a huge achievement especially as they only had 2 in their team.

Year 8 Sporting Success

As you will see, the PE department create an overview of all the sporting achievements that have happened over the course of the academic year. The highlights of Year 8 for me have been the boys’ football team who came second in their county cup competition. High standards have been set for next year; a lovely group of boys who show great determination, teamwork and spirit. For the girls, their efforts in the Netball national plate competition were outstanding. They managed to get through to the third round of the plate competition and competed with some talented schools. They were unlucky to lose with a very narrow loss 27-33. I am very much looking forward to more sporting opportunities and the success this year group can bring.

House Events

Year 8 have had wonderful opportunities to get involved in house events this year. So far there have been a range on offer such as: Table football, math, paper aeroplane, badminton, table tennis, staring, spelling, rugby, christmas decorations, carols, T ball, photos, badges, rock-paper-scissors, and 5-a-side football. Lots still to come before the end of the year.

Clubs

This year students have had the opportunity to attend a variety of clubs, enriching their experiences at The Crypt. These clubs vary from, hidden histories, coding and programming, mathematical art, clay club, street basketball, Kahoot, debate, film, LGBTQ+, journalism, science and astronomy, Lego robotics, and drama. It has been

great to see so many Y8s attend these clubs and I hope they continue to try new things as they progress through the school.

ePraise

A special mention and well done to Ethan Tingay 8DW and Rayna Iheme-Madukairo 8RR who are currently first and second in the whole school! All 5 tutor groups in Year 8 hold the top 5 most ePraise points which shows their enthusiasm and commitment to learning.

I have thoroughly enjoyed leading Year 8 They are all wonderful students who demonstrate our Crypt values daily. I wish them all the best on their new journey into Year 9.

Year 9 – Andy Hart

Another busy year for the year 9 students which started with a transition into new teaching groups. This was an opportunity for students to mix with others rather than being taught in their tutor groups.

As the year has progressed there have been many enrichment and educational opportunities offered and below are some of the highlights: Fame Lab – This was a new, exciting opportunity open to everyone in year 9. It was run and organised by Miss Hall and was science based. Well done to Ameenah Vohra, Rishi Iyer and James McGlinchey who were the top performers.

Language Theatre - Year 9 have been lucky this year to watch live language theatre. They have watched a play in German, French and Spanish, which has had a big impact on their language experience.

Careers Fayre – This was organised by Mr Germaine and allowed students to speak to people in industry to find out a little more about the world of work. There were also representatives from universities talking about what they can offer. Careers at the school works closely with an app called Unifrog, which students have access to and where they are able to keep up to date with careers as well as record their achievements.

Trips – Year 9 had an opportunity to experience a German Market in Birmingham as well as attend a to Germany run by Mrs Thompson (read more about this in the MFL report later in this edition). Those that went on the trip were very positive about their experience. Some lucky year 9 students also had the opportunity to Ski in America which you can read more about later in this edition. Towards the end of the year, I am taking 51 year 9 students out to Correze in France for a residential which everyone is looking forward to.

D of E – Year 9 now have an opportunity to start their journey into D of E at the bronze stage. This is run by Mrs Peake (a full report on D of E activities can be found later in this

edition) and we have over half of the year group taking part. They are currently at their trail expedition stage having to navigate, cook and prepare to sleep.

Charity is always a focus and year 9s get involved in lots of charity events that take place but it was pleasing this year that some year 9 students organised a cake sale to raise money for Women’s aid. They raised over £200 and realised they could have sold even more cakes, which I’m sure they will do next time!

Year 9 have had lots of opportunity to get involved in house events. Here is a list so far: Table football, maths, badminton, table tennis, staring, spelling, rugby, netball, Xmas decorations, carols, T ball, photos, badges, rock-paper-scissors, 5-a-side football. Lots still to come before the end of the year.

Finally ePraise points are given to students for various reasons and they can be traded in for items of stationary. Below is a list of the top 5 ePraise points gained so far this year:

Erika Millard (9DW) 395

Aleksia Atanasova (9WEH) 392

Rishi Iyer (9RR) 391

Lestie Feld (9DW) 372

Alice Bartlett (9JC) 358

I have really enjoyed again leading this year group and I wish them all the best on their new Journey in year 10.

Year 10 – Harry Windsor

The first year of GCSEs can provide many barriers for students, but the Year 10 have made great progress and risen to the challenge. New subjects, teaching groups, new ways of working and a greater focus on exams, whilst also balancing other commitments, have meant the students have had to constantly adjust and adapt throughout the year. The Year 10s have done a fantastic job and are certainly stepping up their efforts.

A focus in tutor times this year has been the EDGE programme (Engage, Develop, Grow, Excel). All of the students have had the opportunity to develop their public speaking on a topic of their choice. Feedback from tutors has been overwhelmingly positive, and I hope the Year 10s found the experience useful in developing their skills.

Other opportunities available for the Year 10s this year have been wide-ranging. The students were encouraged to explore their futures at the careers convention. There was a buzz among the year group as they visited the different university and employer stalls, collecting prospectuses and freebies. Students will also have the opportunity to complete work experience in the summer term, further informing them on potential career pathways. Year 10s have also been able to extend their learning and experiences beyond the classroom with a number of trips that have run this year. Some of these include theGerman trip to the Christmas markets, the ski trip to America and the PGL netball trip. A huge well done to those from the year group who performed so well in the 39 Steps production and the various music concerts.

Many of the students have represented the school this year in sports. We have many successes in netball, handball, football, rugby, cricket and rounders. Congratulations to both the boys and girls handball teams who competed well in the county tournament at

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Oxstalls earlier in the year. A huge well done to the U15 netballers who won silver in the PGL netball tournament, came 3rd in the May Dent Challenge cup and also placed in district netball. The U15 footballers played some excellent football this season, (winning 2, drawing 1) and were unlucky to miss out on the County Cup final after missing out against strong opposition. The U15 cricketers registered their first win this year following years of disruption and tough fixtures. There have also been many representatives from the year group in the various athletics meetings that have taken place so far. Finally, a huge well done to all of the students who represented the school in rugby and played so well this season winning 9 games with a positive points difference of +250. The season included a thrilling cup run to the last 16 of the national plate and a much-anticipated run out at Kingsholm in the county cup (delayed from year 9), where the team narrowly missed out on glory 0-7 to our rivals Tommies. Well done to all students who have committed their time to training and playing in extra-curricular fixtures this year.

Finally, while there are too many individual successes from the year group in a number of areas to list here, a special mention should go to Tiana K, who is excelling in her quest to represent Great Britain in Taekwondo. This year Tiana has flown all over the world (to South Korea, France and Slovenia among others) for training and competitions and recently won gold at the Spanish Open in Alicante. We are immensely proud of Tiana’s accomplishments to date and look forward to hopefully seeing her in the Olympics one day.

Next year will be hugely important for all of the year 10 students, and I wish them well for everything that lies ahead of them.

Year 11 – Charlotte Sturge

It has been an absolute pleasure to get to know this year group. I think it is also important to remember that they have had a particularly difficult time over the last few years due to the impact of the pandemic, which meant that they have had to do a great deal of their studies online.

They have however proved themselves to be resilient in the face of these challenges which will go on to help them as they move to the next chapter of their lives. I have also been very impressed by their willingness to share their worries and concerns with us. Again, if they can do this then they are able to reach out for help and support when it is needed.

The year has moved by very quickly and I can’t quite believe that we are now as I write this in the thick of the GCSE examinations. I am glad to see however that they have taken the advice that was given at the start of the year and continued to do the things that they love. I know that the focus of the year for them and for us can seem very academic but they have certainly thrown themselves into the life of the school! For some it has been sports, for others music or the chess club or raising funds for the school prom or choosing to join a group which they feel is important to them. Yes academic results are important, but what is equally if not more important is that they are happy at school and as they move on to the next stage of their lives.

The end of year celebration was an emotional event for us all. I include myself in that as you know this will be my last year as a Head of Year, a great one to end on! It was so lovely to see them all enjoying their last day in year 11.

I wish them all the very best for the future, whatever that might look like for them. They will be in our thoughts and they will always remain a Cryptian.

I am going to sign off as I always do: above everything else I hope that they remember the message to be kind to each other and to themselves. If they remember this then the route ahead will be much easier and more rewarding.

Year 12 – Meghan Hayes

The transition between GCSE and A Level, whilst at times tough, has been successful. Our wonderful Year 12 students have had access to lots of opportunities this year which have allowed them to develop into young adults ready for what next year, and beyond, brings.

Throughout the year, students have had lots of opportunities to develop strong bonds and join in with the school community. To help students with the transition – especially those new to the school – we hosted breakfasts, teambuilding games, and a very messy activity involving hundreds of balloons! What was excellent to see was the enthusiasm of our new house captains who have ensured the school spirit and competition runs throughout all year groups within the school.

The most recent event to encourage the mixing of the year group was our annual Year 12 Teambuilding Day. Students competed against each other in various activities including a quiz, climbing, rounders and the ‘egg drop challenge’.

We saw the ‘cheetahs’ climb up the climbing wall without the use of their legs, the ‘hawks’ make an impressive sculpture of their animal, and the ‘Pigs’ correctly guessed that Mrs Hayes does not write slam poetry in the quiz. Overall, it was a successful day, and students came out with at the very least a funny story or experience.

Alongside all of the teambuilding opportunities, many students have entered the GE aviation ‘Employability Award’ showing employers all the wonderful things they do outside of their studies. Students also attended the ‘UCAS Discovery Newport 2023’ at Celtic Manor, where they could explore different universities and apprenticeships ready

for next year. Wednesday enrichment has been a huge success with some students achieving a QA level 3 award in Emergency First Aid, some students completing an EPQ and our very own F1 team who reached the national finals! (Read more about this in the science subject report later in this edition).

The prefect application saw a huge in-flux of applications this year. Mr Biggs and I were impressed with the level of well-thought-out written applications that made our job picking the correct students incredibly difficult. Our prefects have already shown themselves to be excellent role models to our younger students.

As a sixth-form team we had the even harder job in selecting of new student executive team! We had many strong candidates, and it was a privilege to hear the wonderful speeches the students gave. After a long process we finally settled on a student executive team that are a true asset to school. They will be helping me organise the new summer school for year 11 as well as many events throughout the next academic year. I also wanted to take the opportunity to congratulate Genevieve Chukwuonye and Samuel Powell who are our new Head boy and Head girl.

Overall, I have really enjoyed being head of year to this year group and getting to know such a diverse group of people – I look forward to seeing all of their future achievements next year and beyond. They will flourish.

Year 13 – Matthew Bevan

The final year of school for Crypt students is always one of mixed and varied emotions: the anticipation of moving onto pastures new, the freedom of first-time drivers, the trepidation of sitting A level examinations, and the dawning realisation of leaving school having reached the pinnacle of their secondary careers.

Preparations for life after Crypt began in earnest in September, marked by long hours polishing personal statements for university applications, visiting universities for Open Days (including a school visit to Oxford led by Mr Germaine and Mr Bevan), and adjusting to the demands of the second year of A level subjects.

The Careers Fair took place in October, with over 60 exhibitors coming to the Sports Hall. This was another valuable opportunity for our Year 13 students to inform their decisions about their futures, hopes and aspirations beyond school

The Student Executive Team have led the year group - and the school - really admirably this year, contributing in all aspects of school life. They organised Christmas Jumper Day for the school on the 8th December, raising money for Save the Children.

Friday morning tutor times have been a particular highlight for Year 13 students this year. Mr Armitstead and his form have led the way in getting the whole year learning ballroom dancing with passion and enthusiasm from Mr Armitstead in particular! This was a great bonding and wellbeing activity for all involved, and another life skill gained for our flourishing leavers.

Students have benefitted from the newly refurbished and uprated Sixth form Common Room for the first time this year, which responds to our increasing numbers who study at A level here. It is now a light, airy, welcoming social space with plenty of cafe-style and comfortable seating, where our senior students have been able to relax, socialise and meet between their subject lessons.

Welcoming the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Sir Chris Whitty, to school to speak to students in January was a particular highlight for many of our Year 13 scientists. He visited the school as part of Gloucester Cathedral's programme of events marking the bicentenary of the death of Edward Jenner, the Gloucestershire-born physician who carried out the world’s first ever vaccination, whose statue now stands in the nave of the cathedral. Professor Whitty was generous with his time, participating in a wideranging hour-long Q&A session about his experiences as a doctor, managing work-life balance, being one of key voices who led the country through the pandemic, and his reflections on his career and challenges he had faced and overcome. As he spoke and shared, students were struck by his openness, honesty and great humility which complement his formidable intellect and intelligence, and it was a privilege for all present.

We have had some outstanding individual achievements to celebrate in this year group too; not least the success of the F1 in Schools team of Will Tidmarsh, George Koeltgen, Timothy Abiade, Joshua Peters and Andrew Casewell competing in the national finals, as well as Ben Hannaford-Waddington competing in the 2023 European Brass Band Championships in Malmo, Sweden. Three Year 13 students were successful in securing university offers from Oxford and Cambridge this year: Rostom McNiven (Spanish & Italian at Pembroke College, Cambridge), Lacey Bradley (Law at Christ Church, Oxford), and Thomas Usmar (Engineering at St John's College, Oxford).

In Terms 3 and 4, in response to the fact that this year's cohort were not able to sit 'normal' GCSE exams two years ago, the Sixth form team gave some time and thought to how to best equip students with enhanced revision and studyskills to compensate fortheir lack of experience sitting public exams. Students benefitted from four 'exam success' workshops to ensure they were well prepared tin the run-up to their mock exams in February and their real A levels in May to help them realise their full academic potential.

Their final day in school was Tuesday 16th May. We marked this occasion with a breakfast and final assembly together in the Common Room with Mr Dyer, Mr Bevan and form tutors. It was a lovely final morning together, full of good humour, and heartfelt speeches from Wyatt and Lacey, our outgoing Head Boy and Head Girl for their time at the school.

SUBJECT REPORTS

Art – Sharmila Door

Welcome to a year so far in the Art department! We have been busy and the students have excelled themselves producing some outstanding works of art.

For the first time, the school has sent entries to the Royal Academy Young Artist of the Year Competition. We are waiting to hear how our entries have done, but the fact our students have entered a national competition is brilliant.

More competition news: we have our three entries for the Gloucestershire Young Photographer of the Year competition all included in the final presentation reel. An amazing achievement, especially with every secondary school in the county applying; our students have done very well. congratulations to Susanna Ineson Y7, Zach

and Daniel Wright Y8.

Key Stage 3 have created Picasso inspired self-portraits

Zygo Y7

explored fabric via tie dye and Kente inspired drawstring bags

designed wonderful greetings cards

and 3D food sculptures

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and have worked in a mixed media way on subject matter relating to them.

It was wonderful to change the displays around school to showcase the fantastic work of our exam students.

Finally our KS3 Monday Clay Club and Y7 Art Club have been busy on lunchtimes, experimenting with new art techniques and exploring new media, doing a lovely job along the way.

Business and Economics – Sam Armitstead

It has been a productive and exciting year for business and economics, particularly given the challenges we all face with the rising cost of living. Understanding that issue in terms of economics (and how policy makers of the future might do a better job) has been great fun. Particularly with such innovative and forward-thinking students that we are lucky to have in learning our subjects in this department.

Various visitors have graced the Cooke Centre with old Cryptian Ed Browning talking about carbon neutrality, Paul Jones giving insight into the British Business Bank investments and Sandy Park from Seagrave inc. and others. Business and economics provide us with a stronger perception of business and household behaviour These guest speakers have helped to invigorate lessons with fascinating real-world input.

The year 13 cohort passing through to higher education and other avenues have been excellent and we wish them the very best in their next steps. We now look ahead to next year with many new innovations to come.

Computer Science – James Rice

It is great to see how more and more pupils are engaging with computer science and realising how they can be part of shaping our future. We venture into a new era where it seems artificial intelligence is about to become a part of everyday life, and already governments are debating how it should be controlled. Whilst the focus may be on the negative elements, we should also realise the positives that it can bring. As a department, it has been busy with multiple clubs and external activities taking place.

As we move forward, there will be a focus on developing digital literacy as well as high level programming across all year groups. The iPad scheme still remains as popular as ever and it is amazing to see them being used across the entire curriculum. Students can benefit from numerous clubs and activities taking place during lunchtimes and some new ones to watch out for. These include ‘Raspberry Pi club’, ‘Python’ programming adventure club, and we will be offering a new graphic design club for those who prefer the graphical element of computer science.

Students wishing to work on their cyber skills at home can access ‘Immersive Labs’ using their school credentials. This is normally a paid service but free access provided to pupils at the Crypt school (via the QR code).

Design and Technology

In D&T students follow a rotation of 2 units (Design and Technology and Food Preparation and Nutrition) over the academic year.

Year 7

In Year 7 D&T, the students have designed, made, and evaluated a chocolate mould using CAD, namely 2D Design, CAM e.g., laser cutter, and a vacuum former.

Year 8

In Year 8, the students have made a test tube holder, marking, measuring, and creating joints during the assembly process. They applied a ‘finish’ to produce a quality product that can be given as a gift. Students also used the laser cutter to cut and engrave a test tube holder.

Year 9

In Year 9, the students made an LED light using the laser cutter to engrave a shape based on a design movement. They also learnt to solder several components and assemble the product precisely to ensure a good fit.

Year 11 - GCSE Design and Technology coursework catch-up

16 students came into School on Saturday 4th March from 9am until 4pm to complete the practical element of their coursework. The coursework is worth 50% of the overall grade. The students worked incredibly hard and have produced some excellent outcomes.

Unfortunately, due to exam board rules we are not able to publish photographs of the completed work. The commitment shown by these students should be commended.

Extra-curricular

First Lego League

On Wednesday 22nd March 2023, six year 9 students competed in the First Lego League competition in South East Wales.

They participated in three robot games, a judging task and an unseen activity. The student’s performance was excellent, and they were highly commended by the judging panel. The team was supported by Ultra PCS, a local aerospace company in Gloucestershire.

Drama – Sally I’Anson

‘An Inspector Calls’ trip

On the 16th February the English Department took 114 students to see a performance of ‘An Inspector Calls’ at the Waterside Theatre in Aylesbury. It was a great experience for our Year 11 students to see a performance of the text that they were studying for their GCSE English Literature exam. Studying a drama text in the classroom is fully enhanced when seeing the action brought to life on stage. Stephen Daldry’s multi-award winning National Theatre production did not disappoint. It gave the students lots to discuss; notably an impressive doll’s house-like construction that collapsed as the drama reached its climax. Students enjoyed the experience and hopefully felt they had lots to draw upon in preparation for their English Literature exam.

School Production – ‘The 39 Steps’

In February this year, our school production was ‘The 39 Steps’. It was a fantastic success, and we were so proud of all our students who performed, played in the jazz band and helped backstage. ‘The 39 Steps’ is a parody adapted from the 1915 novel by John Buchan and the 1935 film by Alfred Hitchcock Patrick Barlow rewrote this spoof-spy story adaptation in 2005.

Creating and directing a production of ‘The 39 Steps’ was an exciting and fulfilling experience. Drama at The Crypt believes in the philosophy of creating theatre for young people that establishes a wonderful sense of ensemble and collaborative work. The script for ‘The 39 Steps’ is written for four actors but the drama department loved the challenge of transforming the script into a cast of twenty-nine students from across the whole school.

Students were such an important part of creating this fastpaced and energetic piece of theatre; their tenacity and hard-work was impressive and resulted in an entertaining and lively performance for both nights.

English – Martha Williams and Christopher Cobb

2022-23 has seen us enhance our offer for both English and English Literature at all levels, including more extra-curricular activities and exploiting the post-COVID opportunity to gather, debate and enjoy trips. We have also made careers more central to our planning, so that students see the real-world relevance of what they are doing.

A particular highlight was a webinar with the award-winning journalist and ITV reporter Rachel Younger. She gave a fascinating and candid talk on her career, enriched by many impressive anecdotes, and moved on to discuss the benefits of studying English, and the need for more scientists to enter journalism. She then answered questions from the students, who were clearly amazed by her achievements and struck by the potential that English can offer (not least a “six-figure salary”!)

THEATRE TRIPS

Year 11 GCSE English Literature theatre trip to the National Theatre production of J.B. Priestley’s ‘An Inspector Calls’

Martha Williams writes: we were lucky enough to take the majority of our Year 11 students on a trip to see The National Theatre's touring production of ‘An Inspector Calls’ live on stage in Aylesbury in February this year. Our students represented the school with their impeccable behaviour and made the trip thoroughly enjoyable. It made for both excellent revision of the play as well as spectacular entertainment, well worth the journey! We hope to have more opportunities to provide live theatre trips for our students next year.

Y11 student review:

I thought that the costuming and especially set design were very good and accurate to the era, and that the way that the Birling household was designed worked well for the production. However, the choice to randomly set it in World War Two with gas masks and an (off-time) air raid siren confused me, so discussing the Titanic and there being no possibility of a war (in 1912) was quite confusing. The acting and cues could be questionable at times, especially with the character of Gerald, but I thought the actor who played the Inspector fit the role accurately. I did overall enjoy the play and the flaws were easy for me to overlook as I enjoy the text's plot and social message (in spite of my issues with Priestley's extramarital affairs and his anti-Irish sentiment). Being able to actually see the production live was definitely helpful for my revision, as it helped me to understand Priestley's original vision and production more, as An Inspector Calls was initially a play as opposed to a book. I enjoyed dissecting the play afterwards with Mr. Roberts, who was more critical than me, likely because of his background in acting as opposed to literature. I would overall rate my thoughts on the play as a 7/10, but I would likely rank the trip itself higher. J. Hipwell

Year 12 & 13 Drama and Y13 English Literature theatre trip: The Crucible

Y11 student review: in January of this year our A-Level English literature and drama students joined forces to watch the stylish new production of Miller's classic play, 'The Crucible' by The National Theatre, live streamed to The Bacon Theatre at Dean Close School in Cheltenham. In Drama, students must watch live theatre as part of their course and our Year 13 literature students studied 'The Crucible' for their coursework; the trip therefore provided the opportunity for our students to enjoy professional theatre as well as support their studies. It was also a wonderful chance to promote live-streamed theatre as this is an affordable, accessible and local alternative. Our English and drama departments make use of National Theatre at Home subscriptions in school to stream high quality productions to students across year groups as they encounter key texts such as Shakespeare plays.

This year The Debate Society began with a separate Junior and Senior club and they have since combined. The society regularly meets to discuss what topics students are interested in, to have informal discussions, but more recently we have focused on forming teams and arranging more formal debates. Topics vary widely from classic, established issues as well as more current controversies.

Some examples of debate topics from this year include:

Is Disney becoming too powerful/ influential?

Should school uniforms exist?

What has greater influence on criminality: nature or nurture?

Is etiquette outmoded?

Should we mix sport with activism?

Are minorities empowered by reclaiming offensive terms or is it damaging?

Controversies around transgender rights in sport.

Is the party over for the UK's two-party system?

Is the coronation worth the money or an insult to a nation in crisis?

We hope to see more students get involved in the society, as an active participant or as a supportive audience member. Our goal for next year is to organise a debate with another school's team - watch this space!

THE DEBATE SOCIETY – MISS WILLIAMS

NEW THIS YEAR

‘In The Sea There Are Crocodiles’ by Fabio Geda

Chris Cobb writes: this year saw the launch of a new Year 8 scheme of work created by my colleague Lizzie Chilman based on this amazing book, the story of Enaiatollah (Enaiat for short) Akbari, an Afghan Hazara boy who flees Afghanistan with his mother, while only ten years old, to escape Taliban intimidation, violence and threats to make him a slave. Once across the border in a hostel for migrants, his mother unexpectedly leaves Enaiat there alone to fend for himself.

Utterly confused, vulnerable and friendless, Enaiat looks for work, initially in the hostel, then as a street trader. With a little money and a desire to be educated and make a life for himself, he pays people-traffickers to get him to Iran, where he finds any work that will afford him food and shelter. An arduous trek across mountains brings him to Turkey, and from there he takes a small dinghy across to Greece and then on to Italy. His journey is perilous yet he survives, often only through the help of others.

As the story takes us through Enaiat’s journey across borders, the text itself navigates the indistinct border between fiction and non-fiction, the result of the writer’s many conversations with Enaiatollah. As Geda himself points out: ‘Together we painstakingly reconstructed his journey, looking at maps, consulting Google, trying to create a chronology for his fragmented memories. I have tried to be as true to his voice as possible, retelling the story exactly as he told it. But for all that, this book must be considered to be a work of fiction, since it is a recreation of Enaiatollah’s experience – a recreation that has allowed him to take possession of his own story.’

A part of the novel that resonated strongly with me was where Enaiat tells of the murder of his teacher by The Taliban while he was still a child back in his beloved village in the mountains of Afghanistan: over several days, a Taliban carrying a rifle twice enters the classroom and interrupts the lesson to demand that the school be closed, on “orders of Mullah Omar”. When the teacher quietly and bravely asserts that this is insufficient reason for stopping the education of the Hazara children, the Taliban man replies that the school is “against the will of God…school isn’t for the Hazara”, and accuses the teacher of teaching “things that God doesn’t want taught. Lies”. The teacher invites the Taliban to discuss this, but this is met with complete intransigence: “There’s no point.” He leaves, but returns three days later with an armed group of 20-30 Taliban, and shoots the teacher outside the school in front of the children, who had been made to assemble in a circle around him to witness the execution.

Such noble, brave resistance in the face of brutal intimidation. What words are there to recognise and honour that teacher, and others like him?

After the execution of the teacher and the closure of the school, Enaiat comments, “without school, life is ashes”. This opens students’ minds to the perspective of people in many countries around the world where children are not able to receive an education, and where they value it more than anything else.

This book is a hard-hitting, thought-provoking representation of the perspectives of refugees and asylum seekers, one through which we can enable students to empathise with those who are displaced or forced to leave their homeland and seek a better life free from fear of persecution and violence.

Geography – Niamh Patton

It has been another busy year in the geography department with various field trips, lessons and year 13 coursework.

Year 12 have been on a total of three field trips this year, looking at both physical and human fieldwork methods. At the start of the year, we took our (biggest ever!) year 12 cohort to Northleach, a place which they study for their Places topic. They put their human fieldwork techniques to practice. They all completed questionaries and a place profile survey; they even got a guided tour from Mrs Brooks!

Their next trip was to the Dorset Coastline, which is their case study for their coastal landscapes topic. Mrs Brooks, Miss Patton, Mr Biggs and Mrs Longhusrt, along with 39 year 12 students, set off on a cold, wet March morning, hoping for a little bit of sunshine on Chesil Beach, which was our first stop. Prior to going to Chesil Beach, students had come up with their own hypothesis and data collection techniques to undertake a 'mini' fieldwork task. Students collected data and we had managed to dodge the rain!

Our next stop was Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door, two famous places along the Jurassic Coast. Staff and students took the 1 mile long walk up a hill from Lulworth Cove to Durdle Door. Both students and staff were fascinated by the landform!

The next morning students did some more fieldwork and data collection along Swanage Beach. Then it was time to get the coach to Sandbanks, which is one of the most expensive places to live in the UK! Students enjoyed picking out which house they may like to purchase in the near future! It was then time to get the coach back to school, with most falling asleep on the coach after a fun two days on the Jurassic Coast. Students are now looking forward to going to Birmingham at the end of May, which is another case study for their places topic.

Year 10 have also had the opportunity to do some fieldwork as well. Unfortunately, the first trip was hit by rain and we had to call it in early! However, students still enjoyed their

morning in Gloucester undertaking human geography fieldwork. Students were assessing whether Gloucester offered a high-quality experience for visitors. Their next trip in June is to carry out rivers fieldwork in the Forest of Dean, where most students are really looking forward to getting into a river and doing some measuring.

In term 2, students in year 7 collected data on the microclimate of The Crypt School using various techniques and equipment. It was great to see students working together as a team.

Year 8 similarly completed fieldwork around the school to determine if the school had a good quality of environment (fortunately, most did determine that the school did!)

Over the year students have really enjoyed learning about the world around them. Year 7 have looked at weather and economic activities; Year 8 studied the impacts of an ageing population; Year 9 have been looking at how levels of development can make tectonic hazards worse; Year 10 have been busy with fieldwork practices, and Year 11 looked at the question of whether the world will run out of resources.

During lessons there have been various links to careers, which has opened students’ eyes to careers that link with geography. Year 12 and Year 13 had the opportunity to attend a talk held by the National Grid, which gave them a wider perspective on their local area and current developments that are taking place.

From Geography students: a big thank you to all staff who have made these trips happen and supported the school. The expertise of Mrs Brooks, Mr Biggs, Miss Patton, Mrs Longhurst and Miss Barnett never goes unnoticed, and we all cannot wait for more field trips next year!

Government and Politics – James Higgs

Our Government and Politics students have enjoyed another busy year following the political dramas unfold. At times it has been hard to keep track of it all, with Liz Truss being outlasted by a lettuce, and longstanding conventions being overturned. It’s fair to say that our 2020 textbooks are now pretty outdated! However, it also means that every lesson has been rooted in what is happening around us today.

The highlight of our department’s year was probably the 'International Relations Taster Day' at the University of Gloucestershire. Our year 12s had a sense of what university study would look like. Students received a lecture on the politics of the War on Terror, and discussed concepts like 'othering'. They then had a tour of the campus, and had an opportunity to talk to current students about their experiences. They then joined with other schools for a Mock UN Conference on tackling climate change. Students represented different nations and tried to come up with an agreement on tackling carbon emissions. They definitely threw themselves into this task, and they fell short of achieving +1.5 C increase; the arguments carried on in the minibus on the way back to school!

Another pleasing highlight was seeing our VI form students engaging with Richard Graham MP in the hall, with our students showing great astuteness and intelligence asking questions on a range on complex topics. Next year we will be taking both year 12 & 13s to Parliament for their biennial Westminster trip, which I’m sure will be as fulfilling as it was in 2022.

2022-23 has been another busy year for the history department. The year kicked off with celebrating Black History Month, which reiterated the idea that ‘black’ and ‘white’ history are intertwined in one united history. To this end, we have continued to develop our curriculum, particularly at KS3, trying to ensure our students are getting the most cutting-edge historical education and ability to critically engage with the modern world.

One of the highlights of the year was our GCSE trip to Berkeley Castle and the Jenner Museum, which helped students appreciate both the majesty & architecture of a Norman Castle, and the story behind the man who discovered vaccinations. Students had a tour around the castle, including the room where Edward II was gruesomely murdered (with all the legends surrounding this) and the defensive features which would have made it such an imposing building in the 11th Century.

At the Jenner Museum, students could explore the very place vaccination was first discovered, and the wider significance around this revolutionary event. More importantly, the students got to buy some germ-based souvenirs at the giftshop, where they cleaned up most of the merchandise!

Hidden Histories Club

Throughout this year we have also run a ‘Hidden Histories’ club, which has comprised of students from years 7 - 13. A special mention should be made for Ruth Humble, and Tom Garrett, 2 of our VI form students who have been mainstays. Tom even presented to the club, exploring the CIA’s various controversies during the Cold War! The aim of the club is to discuss the areas of history we don’t normally get to cover in the curriculum. We’ve had topics on everything from climbing Mt Everest, the 6th C Plague of Justinian, Medieval animals (including why some animals were arrested & put on trial). We have also had ‘evil or genius’ debates - where we have forced students to go one side or the

The Crypt School The Old Cryptians’ Club

History – James Higgs

other, which has led to some really lively conversations! We hope this club continues to grow into next year, and we welcome any students who want to get involved.

A final thank you to Mr James, who has helped spearhead the Hidden Histories club, as well as having a prominent role in developing resources in the VI form. Our year 12 students have really enjoyed the passion and expertise he has brought to their lessons.

Maths – Daniel Foster MATHS CHALLENGES

This is one of twenty-five questions in the Intermediate Maths Challenge on 10th of November, aimed at challenging the brightest students in key stage 4 (the solution is on P91). The UK Maths Trust runs these challenges, aimed at different age groups throughout the year with hundreds of thousands of students entered. They get the opportunity to win gold, silver and bronze awards and a very few of the best will get through to successor rounds.

We believe that if you are good enough, you’re old enough and enter some students from year 9 up for the VI form challenge, and some year 7s for the key stage 4 challenge.

Junior Maths Challenge in April

Last year’s junior maths challenge, aimed at years seven and eight happened after the Cryptian’s deadline. Because of a clash with year ten exams we could only enter 64 students, around half the number we would like. Nonetheless, we achieved more gold awards than any year since records began: 27% of entries compared to 8% nationwide (and silver was 42% compared to 17%). Only 7 students (11%) did not achieve an award, compared to 50% nationally.

Particular credit should go to Cole who got every question correct, the first time I have seen this. He qualified for the junior Olympiad in the next round for the top 0.4% of entries. The next 6% qualify for the junior kangaroo round, where we had 10 entries, more than any previous year, half of them in year 7: Callum Ajayi 8JC; Sophie Cornish 8JM; Alice Bartlett 8JC; Eeshaan Perla 8JC; Nirvaan Jain 8JC; Ryan Starling 7RR; Nadia Sowa 7JC; Tomasz Figarski 7WEH; Finlay Luffingham 7RR and Maddie Eggleton 7WEH.

Senior Maths Challenge in November

This is aimed at the VI form. The top ten percent nationally get a gold award, the next 20% Silver and the next 30% bronze: total 60%. 73% of our students won an award.

Best in school with a gold certificate was Thomas Usmar, who comfortably qualified for the first round of the British Mathematics Olympiad, available only to the top 1%. David Peet was very annoyed to have missed this by one mark but is amongst those who qualified for the kangaroo [next 10%].

Year 9 were the youngest cohort entered, but did well; six of the eight entered achieved awards, with one silver award and a remarkable gold by Cole who came fifth in the whole school and through to the kangaroo.

Olympiads and Senior Kangaroos

Six students qualified for a successor round: Thomas Usmar for the Olympiad and for the senior kangaroo: Cole, Daniel Forrest, Lewis Hutchinson, Freddie Jones, David Peet and Toby Tanner, with David, Freddie and Cole of year 9, amongst the 25 % nationally who achieved a merit award.

Intermediate Maths Challenge in February

This is our biggest challenge by far. 233 students sat the challenge with 132 (56%) achieving awards, above the national average of 50%. This is despite a disproportionate number of key stage three students sitting the test and disruptions due to a strike. Whilst below last year’s record high this is still the second most awards. The number of gold awards ties with our best year ever, 2006.

This test is aimed at years nine to eleven; we also enter the best in year seven and eight. Disruption from the strike meant only 102 students from years ten and eleven satthe paper; we wanted many more. They were replaced with year 7 and 8 students at short notice. It also meant some strong year 9 students were replaced by students from a weaker set. Nonetheless the numbers sitting the paper were comparable with last year.

Oliver Smith was best in school, with Hayden Hodgson a close second and there were strong performances from Annie Binns in year 7 and the students of 9JC who achieved more golds than the whole of year 10.

Kangaroos in March

The next follow up round was the International Kangaroo. Fewer than ten percent of entries nationwide are invited to this. Ten students from key stage 3 qualified: Megan Majaladi, Eeshan Perla, Cole, Callum Ajayi, Saket Tetali, Sia Dhiman, Nirvaan Jain, Ben Leung, Alice Round and Krystian Poreba - with Cole, Sia, Ben and Callum all achieving certificates of merit for coming in the top 25%. Seven key stage four students qualified: Hayden Hodgson, Abhijay Kumar, Oliver Smith, Prem Magdum, Chongyang Lu, Elijah Kowalewicz and Callum Davies, with Hayden receiving a certificate of merit.

9JC celebrate gold: from left to right Sia Dhiman, Callum Ajayi, Saket Tetali, Nirvaan Jain and Eeshaan Perla.

Photo courtesy Alice Round.

Junior Maths Challenge in April

In April 142 students from years 7 and 8 sat the Junior maths challenge. A record 110 of them achieved awards comfortably beating the previous best of 86. 25 won gold awards, smashing last year’s record of 17. 18% of our students won gold compared to 8% nationwide. Dr Lintott’s new key stage 3 lunchtime maths challenge club has paid dividends.

Best in school was Ryan Starling with 92% correct answers who qualified for the Olympiad aimed at the top 0.4% of entries. The next 6% qualify for the junior kangaroo round, where we have ten entries, matching last year’s record. Best in year 7 Louis Ni and second place Finley Lavis qualified along with, from year 8: Gabriella Matthews, Aron Moss, Lucas Scott and Theo Curran. Particularly notable are Nadia Sowa, Krystian Poreba, Maddie Eggleton and Finlay Luffingham, who, like Ryan, qualified for the second time.

Mathematical art club

Mrs Humphries and Mrs Davis started a mathematical art club this year. It was open to all year groups but 7RR were strong contributors. Activities included a Hallowe’en themed origami and Maya Kiciak’s reflected polygons.

Modern Foreign Languages – Hannah Quinn & department

The Modern Foreign Languages Department has been very busy this year organising a variety of activities to motivate and inspire Crypt students’ language learning.

European Language week

In September, as part of our celebrations of European Language week, the canteen offered a special European Menu with traditional foods from France, Germany and Spain. MFL teachers served food along with the canteen staff, and students were encouraged to order in either German, French or Spanish. As part of the celebrations, it was also inspiring to see some Year 9 and 10 students both teaching each other (and us) and learning from one another.

The Crypt School

The Old Cryptians’ Club

Students shared knowledge of languages including Romanian, Tamil, Dutch, Arabic, Thai, and Portuguese. Students also participated in a European countries-based quiz during tutor time.

Japanese student visit

In November we were delighted to welcome 40 students from Sugamo High School in Tokyo, Japan, to the school. Our students enjoyed listening to presentations about Japanese food, cultural events, sports, tourist destinations, pop groups and even anime from the Japanese students. They also took part in workshops on origami, calligraphy and Japanese New Year’s Eve games and even learnt some basic Japanese over lunch!

The Japanese students were so impressed by our students that we have been invited to visit their school in Tokyo any time!

In November we offered the Year 9 students the opportunity to participate in GCHQ’s National Language Competition. Teams of up to 4 pupils met at lunchtimes and worked together to tackle a variety of fun, immersive, language-themed challenges hosted on a virtual platform. Towards the end of November, we were delighted to be able to offer the Year 9 and 10 pupils a chance to practise their German skills at the Christmas Markets in Cologne once again. This was the first Crypt School trip abroad since Brexit and Covid! After a long coach journey, students enjoyed

The Crypt School

The Old Cryptians’ Club

shopping at the markets, Spaghetti Eis, a boat trip with St Nikolaus, lunch in a traditional Brauhaus and the water slides at Aqualand!

Continuing our Christmas festive activities, some Year 8, 9 and 10 students helped to write over 100 Christmas cards for distribution to elderly residents in Regensburg Bavaria

At the end of the winter term some of our Year 7 and 10 students made Weihnachtsherzen and

Weihnachtssterne decorations for their Christmas trees. And Year 9 had a great time at the German Christmas market in Birmingham.

GCHQ visit

On Friday 27th January, 2 linguists from the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) came to The Crypt to talk to our Year 9 students about the importance of languages for this organisation. The talk covered why GCHQ exists, how they do what they do, and why they especially look to recruit language graduates. The students then had a go at using their own language skills to crack a model GCHQ scenario in French, German or Spanish. There was also a chance to learn basic Arabic at the end of each session. Our students were fantastic as always, asking some very pertinent questions and solving the GCHQ scenario with relative ease! Summer and Harry have written their own review of the event for us:

Summer Ford Y9: This was an enjoyable and engaging experience for me that my peers and I will value for a great amount of time in the future. I found this to be a brilliant and educational time. I feel that it will help me to develop my French skills and allow me to use it in more reallife situations, for example when on holiday or if I’m talking to someone online. I am now seriously considering different career options using my French abilities. During this session, we engaged in activities to develop our French speaking skills. We had a fun activity to do in a real-life situation and towards the end learned basic Arabic.

Harry Zaslawski Y9: The GCHQ talk on Friday was very beneficial to me as it allowed me to have an insight into some of the job opportunities that I could get by taking a language for one of my GCSE options. The talk mainly focused on how translators can help in GCHQ, with them possessing the ability to intercept messages in other languages and save lives and prevent crimes. Towards the end of the presentation, we got to learn some basic Arabic, including how to introduce yourself and basic numbers. Overall, I found the talk very helpful to my understanding of what a language GCSE can do for my future and how learning languages can help so many people!

French Cuisine

In Februaryour Year 12 French class all researched,cooked and brought in a traditional French dish for the others to taste as part of the A-Level unit on French heritage. Mrs Quinn, Mrs Meers and the students enjoyed a feast of crepes, madeleines, macarons, pain au chocolat, quiche lorraine, cake salé provençal, brioche and a particularly smelly selection of French cheeses! We look forward to sampling more of their cooking in Year 13. Bon appétit à tout le monde!

To celebrate Valentine’s Day, the Y7 French students made a card for a teacher/family member to thank them for their support over the Year.

Also in February, our Y7-9 French students learnt about the festival of Mardi Gras, which included learning all about the tradition and making their own mask!

Year 7

In March we welcomed two visits from Onatti Productions Ltd who performed both a German and a French play for our students to enjoy. Some of the students were also offered the opportunity to participate up on the stage.

At the end of the Spring Term, the Year 7s learnt about the different Easter traditions in Germany, France and Spain and decorated eggs, as is customary in many European countries. Some of the students continued the tradition and used them as Easter decorations at home.

Throughout the year pupils have been awarded “Linguist of the month” status for their excellent effort in language lessons. These pupils included:

Amelia Renders, Holly Wilmhurst-Smith, Daniel Underwood, Reuben Lomax-Aspden, Alexia Rodriguez-Canals, Jasper Jones, Harrison Ward, Konadu Sarfo-Asante, Will Morley, Samuel Perkins, Freddie Hancock, Faye Grove, Zach Zygo, Tabitha Travis Billy Levi, Maya Giles, Calvin Klee, Lizbeth Watts, Jack Thompson, Harley Cannard, Alex Ursell, Klara Ptak, Isobel Eaton, Peter Sainsbury, Theo Hartland, Elliot Roberts

Year 8

Holly Tilbury, Leanne Grami, Nathan Burrel, Rayna Iheme-Madukairo, Lucy Smith, Hayden Lema, Emily Cornell, Barthelemy Pige, Benjamin Logan, Andrew Carter, Eesa Goga, Art Crewe, Xander Green, William Scantlebury, Bertie Travis, Ryan Stirling, William Massey, Sienna Goodman, Clara Collingwood

Year 9

Sia Dhiman, Sebastian Mikhalevskiy, Alfie Harman, Joshua Woolerton, William Welsh, Hannah Milner, Jake Breach, Bethan Brinicombe, Max Orton, Jake Hardwick, Theo Brunt, Leah Hancock, Nirvaan Jain, Olivia Williams, Rishi Iyer, Amira Macey-Michael, Anais Gibbs, Celeste Feld, Jake Herron, Connor MacWhirter, Jareer Patel, Alice Bartlett, Ameenah Vohra, Lewis May, Calum Woodhouse

Yea 10

Martha Campbell, Manasik Haggar, Nolan Fasasi, Bethan Payne, Harry Checketts, Benjamin Jackson, George Thomas, Harvey Fell, Lucy Hutchinson, Daniel Mattacola, Tianna Klaric, Isac Balog, Jocelyn Thomas, Hanah Palmer, Elijah Kowalewicz, Callum Davies, Michael Newman, Rebecca Watts, Horia Mihoc, James Arminio, Sally Dagger, Gabrielle House, Joseph Brown

Year 11

Samuel Beaumont, Kiara Dixon, Freddie Stevens, Jakub Rourke, Biyanka Lohorung, Prem Magdum, Albie Hastings, Elizabeth Tweneboa, Hayden Hodgson, Edy Cartita, Maddison Lee, Olivia Perkins, Shaun Herbst

Sixth Form

Archie Richards, Kimberley Lau-Stanley, Xante James, Joshua Smart, Rostom McNiven, Annabelle Faulkner, Thomas Boobyer, Jack Pryor, Jaime Spaull, Noah Cardew, Alex Beer, Lisa Contu, Declan Njung’e, Alex Ochiagha-Egbon

We are also delighted to announce that one of our Year 13 students, Rostom McNiven, has chosen to continue with his language studies and has received an offer to study Spanish and Italian at Cambridge University.

Music – Matthew LeMaistre

Another very exciting and successful year for the Crypt School Music Department! With COVID restrictions almost fully lifted, it has been a very amazing and exciting year for making music together, with both smaller chamber groups and large ensembles being back in full force.

The number of clubs and ensembles taking place this year has expanded: Chamber Ensemble and Young Voices rehearse on Monday, Acapella Choir on Tuesday, Choir Wednesday (and also Thursday morning tutor time!), Orchestra on Thursday, and Jazz Band on Friday. Folk Fever also takes place during break time, and newer clubs such as Samba, Guitar group and DJ Club have also been rehearsing, with excellent student participation.

The first large scale event of the year was our fantastic Autumn concert, opened by the Orchestra, playing the March and Coranto from ‘Britten’s Five Courtly Dances’, and then ‘Dumbledore’s Army’, arranged by Mr Hannaford Waddington. To follow this, there was a range of wonderful soloists and ensembles, including the exciting debut of the Year 7 and 8 Brass project, consisting of 10+ musicians who found a new passion for learning a brass instrument, tutored by esteemed musician and peripatetic teacher, Phil Storer. What an inspiration to all!

On the 5th December, we had Young Voices (year 7 and 8) go in to visit the Llanthony care home, to liven up spirits, singing some great Christmas hits! The next event in play, to top off the calendar year, was the annual Carol Service.

From the new year, the music making continued to thrive, and on the 30th January, we had our first ever Piano Showcase, which was highly successful, with over 30 pupils performing, thanks no doubt to the hard work and dedication of both the peripatetic teachers and of course the students.

In February, the School’s Production of The 39 Steps took place, and our newly formed jazz band contributed in providing a great pit band for this. Also in February, we were privileged to be invited back for another year of evensong, consisting of an all-Stanford programme, with works such as Magnificat and Nunc Dimitus; a fantastic opportunity for all those involved!

Coming into March, the GCSE and A Level recital evening took place on the 21st March, highlighting the hard work and dedication these students had put into learning and performing their pieces. Then on the 23rd March, G15 took place at Gloucester Cathedral, in which our Acapella choir performed an arrangement of ‘Deep in the Night’, by Jussi Chydenius. A great success, and everyone had fun performing the finale piece, ‘Sun’s Rays’ written by Holmleigh Park High School Students, which brings all the students from all schools performing in this event together to sing.

A week later, the Spring Concert was held, again opened by our amazing orchestra! This concert was once again a massive success, with so many great works being performed from a range of different genres. The performances included, among other impressive works, our prestigious choir, (now with around 70 members!) which took us through 400 years of great music, beginning with ‘Sing and we Chant it’, published in 1595, and going out with a bang, finishing with the immensely popular Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’!

On the 29th April, our jazz band had the opportunity to perform at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival where we played a set of pieces, consisting of Splanky, Lil’ Darlin, Killer Joe, Birdland, with Bandstand Boogie - which went down a treat!

Moving into summer, we will be returning to Gloucester Cathedral for the school’s annual Founders’ Day service. This should see our orchestra playing some great works, such as ‘Crown Imperial’, and ‘The Prince of Denmark’s March’, with Year 8 Charles Barrow playing the solo, and we should also have some great choral works, such as William Byrd’s Ave Verum. We will also be going to celebrate 400 years of the composer Stanford, with Stanford’s Jubilate. We will also be having our KS3 concert which I imagine will also be a remarkable success, and on the 11th July, our Jazz Band has been asked to perform in the pavilion to provide some music for the staff do. The whole of year 7 will be performing the delightful cantata “Jonah Man Jazz” written by Michael Hurd, old Cryptian, alongside the Y7-8 Brass project, Samba, soloists, Folk fever and a few musical surprises!

Over the course of the year, we have also seen a huge growth in the number of students learning, or wanting to learn an instrument, with our taster sessions helping to contribute to this. It is truly inspiring to see students learning a new instrument grow and develop their musical ability, guided by our wonderful peripatetic teachers.

New KS3 skills-based curriculum: Performance, listening and composition skills; everyone making progress on at least one instrument; learning to compose with music technology and listening to a wide range of musical genres. A truly challenging, diverse and inclusive curriculum which has been very well received by the students!

As musician in residence this year, I have enjoyed working in the music department at The Crypt School, learning a variety of skills even after my 7 years already studying as a student here. This year I have helped to support students both in lessons, and during extracurricular activities, which has been good for improving my communication skills, as

well as my confidence. Over the course of this year, I have enjoyed seeing students grow and develop their music ability, and it has been a fantastic opportunity to be able to help with that.

Overall, the Crypt Music department has continued to thrive once again, and the number of musical opportunities available for students at the crypt school is clear, and the interest to learn an instrument or take part in extracurricular activities proves that no matter who you are, you can find a new passion in music, or further your abilities here at The Crypt, and there is no doubt that this will continue into the next academic year. We have a very exciting musical future ahead at the Crypt School!

Personal Development

Mrs Medcroft writes: We were delighted to welcome our new cohorts to Personal Development lessons in Term 1 and were incredibly lucky to, yet again, have a diverse and dedicated staff to lead these lessons.

Over the academic year, within Personal Development, lessons have explored personal issues, relationships, and aspirations. Students have covered key issues facing them and the lessons at The Crypt School have stressed the importance of discussing topics such as physical and mental wellbeing, consent, relationships, and sexual orientation. An equally important focus for our students is their academic life: how to use study skills productively – whilst understanding how to deal with the pressures these can bring. The Crypt School also focuses on the students’ pathways towards the working world and this enables every student to reflect on potential careers, the skills required and the routes towards achieving their goals. Our aim is to allow students to feel safe and to feel informed. We encourage all to work productively and creatively, to build strong and positive relationships with others, and to contribute to their community. Our goal is to enable our students to flourish by gaining better control over their lives and resilience whilst helping them value themselves as individuals in a pluralistic society. Here is a selection of topics from our programme this year:

Year 7

Working with their teacher (Mr Roberts/Miss Lee), Year 7 have explored new school anxieties. These include peer pressure, dealing with change in friendships and organisation skills. They considered emotional management skills such as meditation, self soothing, and being empathetic.

Year 8

Working with their teachers (Miss Leask/Mr Hart/Mr Germaine/Mr Whittaker), Year 8 studied social media, its positives and its negatives, such as FOMO and cyberbullying. They revisited online safety. In addition, they discussed factors that can affect wellbeing;

they also revisited how to self-soothe and discussed the connection between mind and body. This included the effects of sugar, the importance of sleep, and the benefits of physical exercise.

Year 9

Working with Mr Hart, Year 9 focused on mental health – stress; anxiety; depression –before discussing body image, positive influences, eating disorders and self-esteem.

Year 10

Working with their teachers (Mr Windsor/ Mr Antonious), Year 10 concentrated on GCSE preparation such as study & revision skills. Help in school will be signposted to the classes.

Year 11

Working with Mr Salt, Year 11 focused on areas such as wellbeing, stress, depression and dealing with pressure. In addition, they started to explore post-16 pathways via Career Pilot Pathway Planner.

Year 12

Year 12, working with their teachers (Mrs Davis/Mr Germaine), discussed making the most out of Sixth form life, before moving on to exploring concepts of healthy & unhealthy relationships, the impact of negative experiences and consent. They will then discuss the impact of drugs & alcohol on risky decision making.

Year 13

Working with their teachers (Mr Germaine/ Mrs Medcroft), Year 13 focused on post 18 options such as personal statements for UCAS and Apprenticeships applications.

RS, Philosophy and Ethics – Dr Mark Young

It has been a year of change for the RS / Philosophy and Ethics department. Mr Wordingham left us for sunnier climes at the end of the last academic year, and Miss Lee joined us from September. She has made a huge impact on the department and her students, but sadly cannot stay with us - she is moving to Luxembourg in June. Luckily we have Mr Pinless joining us, and bringing a wealth of experience and enthusiasm for our subject with him.

There have been many changes in the curriculum as well. We aim to shift the short course RS GCSE back to Y9 from next year, when it was always sat before Covid pushed it into Y10. This has meant Y8s have been studying Christianity and Islam as well as Y9s, and both year groups are already half way through their GCSE content with just the applied themes (peace and conflict, relationships and families) left for their final year. It will be very interesting to see how the two year groups fare in their exams: we predict great things from both!

Y12 have been the first to study the AQA philosophy A level. They have studied epistemology and moral philosophy this year, with the metaphysics of God and mind left for Y13. They have also been very involved in our philosophy society, offering lunchtime presentations and debates on topics such as free will, scepticism and the definition of knowledge.

Dr Young and Mr Pinless look forward to seeing all these classes through to their exams, and consulting our students on any other changes that would make the qualifications more interesting to them. Anyone for a Buddhism GCSE?!

Philosophy Society

Dr Young gave a talk on aesthetics in philosophy society on Wednesday, arguing for a cognitivist theory of artistic value. ''Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' - that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.' Next week (18/1) Dr Young and Miss Lee will be debating the ethics of simulated killing. Is it immoral to enjoy violence in films or computer games? Can utilitarianism, deontology or virtue ethics help us answer this question? We invite students to suggest topics for future talks or debates, or (better yet!) to volunteer to give more themselves.

Physical Education – Ashley Bawden Rugby

In total we played a total of 101 games of rugby as a school this year and across the different year groups and 13 teams, winning 53% of all matches. It has been a very successful term; after so many matches it is difficult to pick out one or two highlights and we could not be prouder of all the teams and students who gave so much during the first two terms with rugby.

Year 7 Rugby

A really positive year from the Year 7 rugby players with plenty of students keen on competing and regularlygetting 2 strong teams participating. The A team played 10 games, winning 5 and drawing one. Even in the games that they lost, they were still competitive. Two highlights were the wins against Pates and Tommies where the boys played to another level. Top try scorer was Ollie Charlesworth and the team was well captained by Jimmy Glynn. Looking forward to seeing how they progress in year 8.

Year 10 Rugby – county cup final, Kingsholm

The much (delayed and) anticipated rugby final for the Y10 rugby team took place at Kingsholm stadium on a cold and crisp Wednesday 25th January. Huge thanks as ever go to the parents and travelling supporters for making an outstanding atmosphere inside the stadium. All involved should be extremely proud of their efforts in the lead up to and on the day of the final. Out-going rugby coach Mr Simmons, also a freelance journalist, has written a summary of events below:

Couldn’t have got much closer and, frankly, deserved better on the run of play but the U15 rugby squad came up short by the finest of margins against Sir Thomas Rich’s at Kingsholm in the County Cup Final.

Unsurprisingly, given the weight of the occasion and the tenacity of the opposition, it was a proper armwrestle. Defensively, the boys put in a colossal shift and dominated much of the game. They looked dangerous too in attack when they could find quick, front-foot ball and get to the edges. In the wider channels, Emmanuel D and Rhodri E were shivers in search of a spine.

No question, there were hard-earned opportunities to score; all that was lacking on the day was the composure to finish them. But these are exactly the kind of learnings that make good players better players and this a team - a proper team - that has no shortage of good, wholehearted players. As he’s done all season, Harry D led by outstanding example and, as they’ve done all season, the parents and supporters got right behind the team. A huge thanks to them for turning out. All in all, a memorable occasion and a day the boys will never forget in one of rugby’s great cathedrals.

Senior Rugby – NatWest Vase & South Africa

With the bulk of the 1st XV being Year 13 and some exceptional talent coming through in Year 12, the senior rugby season was set up for potentially our best for some time. Running three teams once again between the 1st XV, 2nd XV and U16s, numbers were great throughout which produced some of our best rugby, however a narrow defeat to Kings, Gloucester in the dying seconds of the game meant that the unbeaten run finished just before October half term.

From a NatWest Cup perspective, dominant performances against Wycliffe and Marling saw the 1st XV progress to the third round against eventual winners of the national tournament, Old Swinford Hospital. However, after two disappointing results, the 1st XV got their season back on track with outstanding performances against St Peters in horrendous conditions and against Pates to win 36-0. The 2nd XV and u16 sides also had a mixed run of results but the development of U17 fixtures in January allowed for new combinations to be formed and the group continued to put in remarkable performances to secure a draw with St Peters and beat Hartpury College comfortably to lead into the preparation for the summer tour to South Africa. We are taking 56 students to South Africa who will tour between Johannesburg and Cape Town, playing 4 fixtures (10 games) across the 10 day tour. We have no doubt that the group of touring students will once again be a credit to the school and take their performance on the pitch to new heights!

Congratulations to the following for their representation in the following:

Ollie Workman and Zac Mountford - U18 and U17 Gloucester Rugby Academy

Freddie Parry - U18 South West England Counties

Freddie Parry, Zak Howell, Jacob Price, Will Robinson, Wyatt Dunas, Johnny FenleyGloucestershire U18s

Seb Pascoe and Jacob Bullingham - Gloucestershire U17s

Netball

In total, the girls competed in 82 netball games, winning 47 and giving them a winning percentage of 56%! The girls’ fixture calendar certainly improved in terms of quality of opposition and also distance from Crypt this year. All teams were entered into the Sisters in Sport national competition. Our Y9 team had a brilliant cup run, getting them to the last 16 in Essex! Many other groups had brilliant results in the plate, travelling across the country to do so. Netball has certainly gone from strength to strength this year. Several students are now inspired to participate in clubs outside of school, many representing the County and Severn Stars.

Congratulations to the following for their county/ regional representation:

Kiara Dixon (capt), Beatrice Norwood, Sophie Cornish, Ella Crowley (Clara Collingwood training partner)-U18 Severn Stars Nova Academy

Florence Collins - U15 County Academy

Lily Snowdon, Isabella Curruthers, Megan Hart - U15 County Development

Clara Collingwood - U13 County Academy

Year 9 Netball – Bournemouth regionals

What a year it has been for the Y9 netball team! Our major highlight came in the form of the regional netball competition in Bournemouth. The girls finished in 1st place in the qualifier at Cheltenham Ladies’ College. There, they managed to defeat many strong netball sides including Cheltenham College, Cheltenham Ladies College and Denmark Road. Our trip to Bournemouth was a huge success. Miss Coleman and Miss Cantin had a fun-filled weekend planned full of netball, food and crazy golf. Many parents joined us for the event, and the girls played in some really competitive matches. We left knowing we could have perhaps produced some slightly better results, but overall, felt proud of the journey to that stage. This group of girls are incredibly talented. They have got a very bright future ahead of them, and in time, should be competing to be a part of the U16 version of the same event. Good luck girls, do me proud!

PGL Netball

On May 12th - May 14th, our Crypt netballers took to the Devonshire courts as part of the PGL netball residential. All 83 netballers competed against talented players from across the country. The site had a heated outdoor swimming pool and plenty of ‘queue and do’

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activities for the girls to access. The weather was stunning and the girls were in high spirits all weekend. On Saturday night, the girls attended a disco dressed as animals. The food was great and the students' attitudes, amazing. It was a super weekend all round.

Thank you to the following staff members and parents for giving up their time to support the trip: Miss Leask, Mrs William, Miss Patton, Mrs Jones, Miss Shaw, Ms Clutterbuck, Mrs Cantin (Miss Cantin’s mum) and Mrs Attwood.

All students left with some excellent results and happy memories made. Final results include:

Y10A - Silver Medal

Y9A - Gold Medal

Y9B - Bronze Medal

Y8A - Silver Medal

Y7A - Silver Medal

Maydent Netball

The U15A team competed in the May Dent challenge cup not so long ago. The competitive Y10 side had a great run of results, winning their pool. The girls had a very tough semi-final where they narrowly missed out on the final. Overall the girls finished the May Dent Challenge cup in 3rd place. This group of students have seriously improved since the start of the year. They are far more cohesive and competitive and we are really proud of them!

Girls’ Football

Girls’ football continues to go from strength to strength and it's fantastic to see the impact of the Lionesses with increased participation across the age groups. We also continued to compete and be successful in the ESFA tournaments and county cup competitions. Congratulations to the following for their representation in the following:

Beatrice Norwood, Eva Flitney, Erin Knight, Tabitha Travis, Tilly Farmer, Leanne Grami, Laura Cox - Forrest Green Emerging Talent Centre

Safia Neocleous - Swindon Town CFFE

Martha Campbell- Bristol City U21s

Martha Cambpell and Eva Flitney- U16 County Football

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U12

We have been very fortunate that our U12 girls love football. They have had a brilliant first season and qualified for the county cup finals where they went on to place 4th. A huge achievement and no doubt lots of success to follow next season. These girls have been a pleasure to teach: high energy, enthusiastic and always willing to learn.

U16

Our U16 team finished their last season as a group in high spirits. They were unlucky to get knocked out of the final 16 of the ESFA, unfortunately plagued by injuries. However, they picked themselves back up and won their County Cup competition. They were unbeaten all tournament and in an exciting final managed to steal a victory with a 1-0 win. It has been a joy to teach all of them over the last few years and we wish them every success in the future.

Boys’ Football

Year 7 Mass Participation

Building on the success and introduction of mass participation football last year, it was great to see the fixtures continue this year. With no teams formally selected, the concept of a mass participation game was that if students simply wanted to represent the school, then they just turned up and were split into equal teams. Some games were played against themselves and rotated around the different teams that another school would play depending on their numbers. Fixtures were played against, Severn Vale, Holmleigh Park, Gloucester Academy and Churchdown. No scores were kept and the only focus was to get as many students as possible involved and enjoy playing football. For one fixture against Holmleigh Park we had over 50 students attend and represent the school with students simply enjoying the beautiful game of football.

Year 8 District Final

Our year 8 football squad have had a brilliant season, culminating in a final against a very strong St Peter's team, who had heavily defeated us in the group stage. St Peter's scored almost immediately, and it would have been easy for our boys to have become disheartened and roll over. Instead, they stuck to their tasks with great efforts, despite hard challenges & gamesmanship from the opposition. At half time the score was 1-0,

and we had an opportunity to grow into the game. Unfortunately, St Peter's effectively used their 'long ball' tactics to go 2 in front, but again we steadied the ship and didn't lose heart. It was a real squad performance, with our subs coming on and contributing to the collective effort. Mr Higgs couldn't be prouder. High standards have been set for next year and lessons from the final have been learnt!

Senior Football

Senior football continues to grow and develop at the Crypt school. The boys were entered into the ESFA cup competition and made it through the 1st and 2nd round with convincing wins against Tommies and Marling before Christmas. Unfortunately, they then progressed and narrowly lost to St Peters in round 3. The game was anyone’s for the taking with both sides having good opportunities to score. Much like England, it wasn't our day and we couldn’t quitefinish our opportunities. The game ended 2-1, but agreat game nonetheless.

Building in confidence and more consistency with selection after Christmas, senior football progressed to the county cup competition. Dominant performances, saw them top the group after beating Newent 11-1, Chosen Hill 4-1 and Tommies 5-2, resulting in them playing Bradley Stoke in the quarter final which turned into one of their performances of the season. Great wide, attacked football from Woody Vinton and Noah Freckleton created endless opportunities and with Dan Roddis and Joe Braisby controlling everything in midfield, the boys were in complete control, eventually winning 5-1. The boys then progressed to the semi-final against Cotswold School. The semi-final unfortunately clashed with A Level PE moderation, meaning that a lot of the team were not at their best and after the highs of the quarter final were simply undone by long ball football, losing 3-1 to just miss out on the county cup final. A disappointing end to a season which had so much optimism and at times some outstanding football.

Congratulations to the following for their representation in the following:

Rory Davies - England U18 Cerebral Palsy Football

Ewan Champion - Cheltenham Town FC

Charlie Shore-Nye, Ezra Mills, Harrison Barnard, Teagan Dee, Jacob BrannanGloucester Elite Performance Centre

Table Tennis

With the support of external coach Graham Slack, a number of students have got involved with table tennis on a Tuesday lunchtime. Although the club is recreational, we try to challenge and support students to develop their skills in a competitive environment. Likewise, table tennis as a sport does not have as many opportunities as the mainstream sports so it was great to create an u16 team to compete in the local schools’ tournament. Nirvaan Jain and Harry Wheeler (Year 9) with Sam Beaumont and Abijhay Kumar (Year 11) made up the team who beat Tommies and Severn Vale to progress to the County Final. Unfortunately, a number of schools dropped out so the county final turned out to be a direct play off with Marling. Some great table tennis was played across a real competitive fixture with Crypt just coming out on top 17-14 (games won) to be crowned County Champions!

Handball

We have had some great opportunities to play handball competitively inside and outside of school this year. Huge congratulations to our Y10 students for their fabulous results at the district handball competition. The male and female U15 teams both made it through to the regional qualifying rounds. Sadly, as this clashed with Y10 mock examinations, we were unable to attend, but the students learnt a great deal! Many students from Crypt have been nominated for County Handball trials and have been successful. Congratulations to the individuals competing at this level.

Congratulations to the following students for their county/ regional representation:

Maddie Eggleton, Leanne Grami and Lannah Geoghegan - U14 County Handball (current regional winners, playing in the national final 20/05/23)

Thea Gooch - U16 South Regional Academy and pending Level 1 coach

Theo Parker - Senior Men's Handball squad member

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Cross Country Success

We thoroughly enjoyed the Cross Country fixture at Plock Court in November. The results produced were the best we have ever had! The first race completed was our minor boys (Y7). A brilliant race and a great way to start the event. Congratulations to Harrison Middlecote for crossing the line in first place. Extended congratulations to the minor boys team for winning overall! Our Y7 girls also were triumphant, with 3 athletes crossing the line in the top 10. Congratulations to the Y7 girls for coming 2nd overall. Similar to the Y7 girls, our Junior boys (Y8/9) managed to get 3 top 10 runners through. Congratulations to this group of students for winning overall. The next highlight came in the Junior girls’ race where Rosie Reynolds managed to win her race by 20 seconds. A phenomenal performance, and a student to watch in the future! Finally, our inter boys and girls (Y10/11): our boys’ team had just 4 competitors due to illness and injury, affecting their score. All 4 students were fantastic and made the school proud. Our strong inter girls had a great result, with Martha Campbell finishing in 2nd place!

Overall, combining the girls and boys results all together, Crypt were the school champions. This is a fantastic achievement. Well done to all students involved and congratulations to those that were selected to run in the district competition.

Cricket

As in any summer term, the early season weather gets the better of us and fixtures have to be cancelled. This year has been no exception. Across all age groups we have managed to complete only 9 games so far, with wins coming for the 2nd XI and U12Bs against Tommies, the U13s and U15s against St Edward’s, the U13s also beating Newent. We are hoping that the second half of the summer will be more fruitful in terms of getting matches played and maximising opportunities for students to represent the school.

Mass Participation Cricket

Cricket is growing at The Crypt School. Determined to expand the cricketing programme, we are developing mass participation festivals, which were piloted in 2022, to make cricket more accessible in 2023. Running alongside the performance programme, who play representative cricket, the festivals allow students in Year 7 & 8, who are not yet confident to play hardball, an opportunity to enjoy the nation's summer sport.

Alongside our 3 boys festivals, the school is holding 2 girls’ festivals; the first took place on 4th May. The Crypt Super 8s, is modelled on the The 100 format and is a shortened version, played on smaller pitches, to allow for plenty of boundaries, but more importantly, the opportunity for students to play cricket against local schools. Schools invited to the festivals include Stroud High School, Churchdown, Denmark Road, St Peter's and Quedgeley & Hardwicke CC, Newent, Severn Vale, Homleigh Park & Ribston Hall.

We are passionate about providing opportunities for our students to play a wide variety of sports and we are fortunate to have the space in school to host our mass participation festivals. It’s great to see these growing after our pilot last year, to include girls only festivals, which give our students the opportunity to play against their peers. Cricket has really grown in popularity, and we are creating links with local clubs and other schools to give our girls plenty of opportunity. We hope to be playing in the CGF Summer league’ next year.

Athletics

The main focus so far this year has been the schools’ cup. We take 4 full teams of students from years 7 to 10 to compete against other local schools hoping to progress to the regional rounds. Athletes have to compete in 2 events making selection for this event difficult. We took 60 athletes and were blessed with a lovely day. Athletes aim to gain 15 points for each of the events they compete in and below is a list of students who did that:

Team scores were as follows: Junior girls came 4th Inter girls came 5th Junior boys came 4th Inter boys came 2nd

We are hoping that the Inter boys team will now progress to the regional round, following their strong performance in the first round at the Prince of Wales stadium in Cheltenham.

Psychology – Miss Plummer

PSYCHOLOGY CAREERS FOR STUDENTS IN YEARS 10-13

In November, students of psychology and students interested in a career related to psychology were invited to join a virtual chat room at lunchtime to ask questions of Jamie Murray, a cognitive neuroscientist and Psychology Lecturer at the University of Glasgow, courtesy of “I’m a Scientist Get Me Out of Here”.

Jamie works with neuroimaging tools such as EEGs to study how we remember, how we learn, and how we focus during sports. Since moving to Glasgow, he has been looking at how we can use what we know from cognitive neuroscience to improve learning in the classroom. Below, you can see some of the questions that students asked, and Jamie’s answers:

Q - What did you want to be after you left school?

I joined the Royal Navy and also worked in administration before going to college.

Q - We are curious as to how competitive it was for you to become a cognitive neuroscientist?

Psychology can be very competitive once you begin applying for PhDs - the doctorate qualification. It largely

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comes down to lots of applicants and limited funding. However, volunteering to help researchers out during your undergraduate degree can be incredibly useful. My PhD supervisor was someone who I had been working with for a few years during my undergraduate degree.

Q - Have you come up with any new theories that have been widely accepted by the scientific community?

Yes! I had a theory about how we remember information from our past. Some memory researchers argue that when we try to remember events from our past, we either recollect the entire event or we fail to remember (all-or-none).

Other researchers argue that instead, memory has a signal strength, in that some memories for events are weak and some are very strong. But we never forget events once they are encoded. My research showed that memory for events is actually somewhere in the middle of these two accounts: memory can fail completely but when successful, varies in memory strength (some-or-none account of memory retrieval). We developed a new way of measuring memory precision to demonstrate this and it has largely been accepted. It helped that we had neuroimaging data to support our theory.

Q - Do you use your own theory in your own life?

Yeah, I don't get mad at myself when I forget anymore and I'm much more mindful of how good (and bad) my memory is.

Sciences

FameLab Academy – Miss Hall

Sarah John writes: Y9 have been taking part in FameLab Academy, a science communication competition. After a round of class heats, we held a School Final. Our 10 finalists performed to an audience of the entire year group, staff and some brilliant judges. Our brave finalists each delivered a 3 minute speech where they educated and excited us about STEM. The performances were fantastic! The topics ranged from Nuclear Fusion to Technology in Sport to The End of the Universe. Each performance was delivered expertly and blew us all away!

We would like to thank our judges, John and Emma from Kohler Mira and Scott from Versarien. They asked some excellent questions and had the toughest job of the day. Scoring was based on the "3C's": content, clarity and charisma. All of our finalists scored highly and picking a winner proved incredibly challenging. At last a decision was reached.

Massive congratulations to everyone, especially our two runners-up, Ammenah and Rishi with The Crypt School Winner 2023, James M!

The next stage was the Grand Final.

The FameLab Academy finalists attended the Gloucestershire Grand Final on Thursday. James M, delivered an outstanding presentation about The Expansion of The Universe. His speech took us on a journey through space and time and was thoroughly entertaining, engaging and educational. During the Q & A session, James really shone, taking every question in his stride. He confidently talked about what he would include if he had more time - dark matter.

Other Schools in Gloucestershire contributed presentations about supersonic aviation, coeliac disease and the gory tale of decomposition. The standard was incredibly high.

This is the first year The Crypt School has entered the competition and we can’t wait for next year already! We are so proud of James and all the Year 9 students who delivered presentations this year! Well done!

Biology – Ruth Carey

This academic year has been a fast-paced one, with students being engaged and working hard from day one! The department has welcomed two new members of staff as well as our new year 7 students who have made the step up to secondary science admirably!

Following on from last year, we have continued to build on and have a real focus on skills including practical skills. Practical work across all year groups hasgone ahead with enthusiasm. This has ranged from work on enzymes and modelling biological molecules, through to microbiology, dissections and ecological sampling.

This year saw 3 of our year 13 students entering the senior British Biology Olympiad in March, achieving between them one gold award, one highly commended and one commended. This is a national competition that challenges and stimulates students within the field of Biology and is a chance to expand their experience and talents. Well done to these students! We are running the Biology Challenge for our year 9 and 10 students this May, and hope to run the Intermediate Biology Olympiad for year 12 students in the summer.

We were lucky enough to have a guest lecturer in Biomedical Science give an online careers talk open to year 11 and 12 students. This was well attended and gave a real insight into career pathways and opportunities within this field.

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Chemistry – Claire Gee

Y13 CHEMISTRY – JANUARY 2023

On January 26th, virtually every Crypt Y13 Chemist took part in the The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Olympiad. This is an international competition, with a 2 hour written paper, and it is renowned for being very challenging. It contains questions on areas of chemistry that are topical in research or the news, and questions include content from the A level specifications and beyond. This year the questions included vaping and the chemical breakdown of harmless substances in heat to produce potentially toxic products; rocket fuels using liquid hydrogen; and electronegativity, since 2022 was the 90th anniversary of Linus Pauling's proposal of the concept of electronegativity for which he was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize.

Nearly 12,000 students from 950 schools took part, which was a new record. Bronze, Silver and Gold awards were available, and students had to score 14–23 marks for the Bronze award, 24–37 marks for the Silver award and 38 or more for the Gold award. The chemistry team were delighted with the students' results. They achieved an amazing 19 Bronze awards, an incredible 21 Silver awards and an outstanding 3 Gold awards. Excellent results on such a challenging written paper! We are very proud of all of them for taking part, being both positive, committed and resilient in the challenge, and successfully applying the analytical and evaluative skills we have taught them. A special mention to the 3 worthy Gold winners - Laura Davis, Joshua Pollard and David Peet. The experience will, no doubt, help them to use these skills to good effect in their forthcoming A level exams and we wish them every success in them and their future careers.

Y12 CHEMISTRY – JUNE 2023

We know that chemists always love a challenge and therefore we have entered all of our Y12 Chemists in the Cambridge University Chemistry Challenge in June, following the completion of their end of year exams. This competition aims to stretch and challenge students interested in chemistry, and will provide an excellent experience for anyone considering taking their studies further. The written paper is set by an experienced team of teachers and university chemists, and although it is designed to be accessible to Year 12 students, it will take them significantly beyond the syllabus and encourage them to think about science more conceptually and to be able to apply it to new and unfamiliar situations. These skills are invaluable for success at A Level and University, but more importantly, we hope that it will give them an insight into concepts beyond the A Level specification and that they enjoy the challenge.

Further Chemistry Enrichment Challenges Y9-12

Unfortunately, since COVID, some of the activities we used to enjoy have not been available and this has remained the case this year. The RSc Top of the Bench Competition (Y9-11) did not take place in our region this year, and the RSc Analytical Competition (Y12) was held remotely and we were not successful in the ballet to host this team event.

Physics – Sarah John

The Physics department continues to flourish, with four experienced, specialist teachers and a new dedicated Physics technician. This year, we have made many improvements to our curriculum, including improved use of Google Classroom for students of all years to access revision materials and lesson resources. We have launched our Physics library, with several copies of all of the books on our recommended reading list available for students to borrow from E1 and lab 5. We have grown our provision for students to develop their passion for STEM subjects outside of the classroom, launching even more extracurricular activities than last year.

F1 IN SCHOOLS

This year has been a busy one, with Mrs John and Mr Baldwin continuing to lead the project as the delayed 2021-22 and new 2022-23 seasons overlap. On the 12th January, our Year 13 F1 in Schools team, Andromeda Racing, headed off to their first ever live national competition at Birmingham NEC. After setting up their pit display to showcase their project, the team gave a 10 minute verbal presentation to a panel of judges and were judged on their Engineering Portfolio, Enterprise Portfolio and brand identity. They also had the opportunity to visit the Autosport show which was taking place at the same time and watch stunt drivers and different classes of racing cars in action.

Racing was the highlight of the first day, and George did the team proud, scoring the second shortest reaction time of the competition. This left the team in 9th place overnight. The second day’s racing was even better, pushing Andromeda Racing into 6th place. As the live footage on YouTube showed, our team were confident, professional and knowledgeable in their team interviews and live racing feeds. The students were disappointed to go away without an award but as an inexperienced team, with new teachers in charge, this was our first opportunity to see the standard of the competition and to network with teams from other schools. Well done to Timothy, Andrew, George, Josh and Will!

Preparations then started quickly for the 20222023 season, with Regional Finals in May. Some of our Year 13 students stayed on, with a new cohort of Year 12 students

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Together, they formed two teams, Cassini Racing and Antares Motorsport. Expertise has been handed on to the new recruits, with students learning how to use the CAD programmes and the CNC machine to cut their cars. Regional Finals fell in the middle of the Year 12 exam window, leading to high workloads and some last-minute preparations for both teams, but everything came together just in time. Competition was stiff, with strong teams in the Professional Class from a range of local schools. Both of our cars were very strong, placing in the top four on the leaderboard after the day’s racing. This is testament to the fantastic designs and solid manufacturing from our engineers. Antares Motorsport won the award for fastest car, as well as placing second overall, earning a place at the National Finals in June 2023. They have learned valuable lessons about the improvements needed to the various elements of their project, and we look forward to seeing them compete live through the F1 in Schools Youtube channel.

Andrew (Year 13):

“The project involved seeking resources from sponsors, including funding, materials, and technical expertise. We had to learn how to use software to design the car, such as Fusion 360 and Autodesk CFD, and manufacture the cars with 3D printers and CNC routing. We also had to sand, spray paint, and decorate the cars. We had to follow the iterative design process to produce and test our designs, making adjustments as needed. Participating in the project taught me how to use a wide range of softwares, such as Fusion 360 and Autodesk CFD, as well as how to use a number of different machines, such as 3D printers and CNC routers. Not to mention that the project helped me develop my teamwork skills and taught me how to think like an engineer. My experience at the national finals was very positive, and I am glad that I was able to take part. It was an opportunity to network with other teams, to learn about how they approached the project; it provided ideas that we could borrow for next year, such as methods and materials used to produce cars; and it was a chance to do something out of the ordinary with friends.”

LEGO ROBOTICS

Twenty Year 12 students have taken part in Lego Robotics as part of their enrichment programme this year. The students have worked with Lego Mindstorms EV3 robots to build and programme them to compete in a series of Commonwealth Games themed challenges, including the 400m race, basketball (very challenging!), rugby sevens and hurdles. The teams learned valuable skills, including communication, teamwork, design, manufacture, testing and coding.

Lego Robotics Challenge - Years 7 and 8

Lego Robotics goes from strength to strength! The year started with around 40 students from years 7 and 8 attending the lunchtime club and our most committed team of Year 8 students have been preparing to represent the school at the Regional Finals at Renishaw on 20th April 2023

The team of six students designed, built and coded two robots to compete in a series of complex challenges. As well as learning about the manufacturing and coding processes, they learned a lot about clear communication, teamwork, respect and responsibility. They also delivered a presentation about their project to a panel of engineers. At the Regional Finals, The Crypt team won the Speed and Control Challenge with the fastest time. They also scored the most points across all four events and therefore became regional champions. At the time of writing, they are hard at work preparing for the National Finals at the Big Bang Fair at Birmingham NEC in June 2023.

GE AEROSPACE – RETHINK EVENTS

This year, the old GirlsGetSET programme has been replaced by a new, inclusive project called RETHINK. This aims to encourage wider participation in STEM subjects by students from groups who are often underrepresented.

GE Aerospace have invited us to event days for most year groups, from Y7 to Y12. Students were nominated to attend by their Science and DT teachers, and they have had the opportunity to hear from engineers working at the company about their careers, as well as working in teams to complete a project and present their solutions to the whole group.

Year 12 Event

On Friday 3rd February, 31 of our year 12 students visited GE Aerospace in Bishops Cleeve for their day of STEM events. The aim of the RETHINK programme is to encourage more students to consider a career in STEM, whilst providing opportunities to develop employability skills.

The students formed four teams to work on a 'Mission to Mars' project. Sub-groups within each team were set up to research different areas, including personnel, location for the Mars colony, how to obtain oxygen, food and water and how to fund the mission. Another group worked on programming a robot to perform the tasks needed on Mars. Over lunch, students had a presentation from the Head of Engineering, who talked about the varied roles he has performed throughout his career and why he became an engineer. The day ended with team presentations. This was a daunting task for most students, and they really valued the opportunity to practise their presentation skills and develop their confidence.

Year 8 Event (Amelia, Year 8)

“During our visit to GE Aerospace we took part in lots of fun science activities including circuits, creating marble runs and building towers made of spaghetti and marshmallows. We learnt about different apprenticeship opportunities in GE Aerospace and how to get into them.

I have always been interested in sciences so I really enjoyed the trip and it has definitely helped with my future career choices.”

Year 12 Careers Talk

Ex-Cryptians Jess and Ben also visited the school to talk to our Sixth Form students about career opportunities at GE Aerospace. Both Jess and Ben were inspired to apply for apprenticeships there after listening to the same talk when they were in The Crypt Sixth Form, so it’s lovely to see them back encouraging the next generation!

FLYING START CHALLENGE – NATIONAL FINALS – SARAH JOHN

Three teams of our year nine students have been taking part in the Flying Start Challenge in recent months. This has involved a learning day delivered by STEM ambassadors from Safran landing systems, followed by a design and construction period where students were using their DT skills to build a glider with a limited budget. All three teams took part in the regional final, which involved engineering activities, a poster presentation and a fly-off of their gliders. All three Crypt teams gave an excellent account of themselves and they were all close to qualifying for the next stage. One team, who chose the name MAARC Airlines went a little further and finished in third place overall, with their glider achieving the longest throw of the day.

With the National finals approaching, MAARC airlines began their preparations and showed great diligence in building a replica of their winning design but with a modified wing to see if they could fly even further. Although their attempt failed and they ended up going back to their original design, they did succeed in printing their own T-shirts to prepare for the final.

The final of the competition was held at Bristol University and here, MAARC airlines met with great success. They were close to winning most of their engineering challenges, which included bridge building, designing a cargo boat and a rubber band powered car. Their glider also achieved the third longest distance of the day. Overall, MAARC were awarded second place amongst the 22 best teams from the challenge nationally, which was a fantastic achievement. They were presented with a cheque for £500 for the school.

The Crypt School

The Old Cryptians’ Club

PHYSICS OLYMPIAD

This year has been by far the best year that Crypt physics students have ever had whilst taking part in the British Physics Olympiad. The competition is a series of examinations and practical projects that are designed to be extremely challenging to even the very best physics students in the country.

The highest level of competition is the BPhO Round 1 for year 13. In previous years, Crypt students have only ever achieved one silver medal on one occasion but this year, the medal list is highly impressive: 5 bronze, 3 silver and a gold award. This examination is not for the faint-hearted and the resilience shown by all of these students is outstanding. The results from years 12 and 11 have also been our strongest and show that we have a wealth of highly able physics students here at Crypt school.

BPhO Round 1 for year 13

The Year 12 Senior Olympiad Challenge

Year 11 Intermediate Olympiad Challenge

The Crypt School The Old Cryptians’ Club

WOMEN IN STEM MENTORING WITH KOHLER MIRA

This year we have continued to work alongside Kohler Mira to offer Women in STEM mentoring to two young women in years 10 and 11. Manasik and Abi were selected for the programme from a strong field of applicants, after producing excellent written applications. They have met monthly with their mentor, John, who is an engineer at the company. He has shared some projects he is working on and asked the girls to share some of their project work. He has also supported them to learn more about the range of roles available within engineering, and possible careers routes to take. The girls have attended two visit days to Kohler Mira, where they have seen first hand the work that is done there, as well as meeting women working in the industry. We are very grateful to Kohler Mira for their continued support of our students.

Manasik (Year 10):

“The mentoring program that I took part in with Kohler Mira involved monthly meetings with my mentor in which we had discussions about projects that he was working on as well as careers that I was interested in. We also took part in two on-site visits where we were able to spend a day at the Cheltenham site and gain an experience of what it is like to work as an engineer. I was able to meet lots of new people and make new friends as well as partake in team building activities such as a shower tear down task and some programming challenges. We were able to have a go at some computer aided design and also have a look at the 3D printers. My favourite activity was programming a robot to pick up an item and transport it from one place to another. What was also particularly great was having a chance to speak to females in the engineering field and gain an insight into what it is actually like for them. The program as a whole was a chance for me to experience first-hand what being an engineer involves as well as talking to someone who is able to help inform me about conscious career choices! I would definitely recommend this program to any young girls like myself who are maybe a bit unsure what they want to do in the future but have an interest in STEM subjects as I have taken away some valuable information from the program.”

Y7 AND 8 MAGNETISM STEM ROADSHOW

In November, we were lucky to have a STEM Roadshow in the school hall, presented by BAE Systems, in association with the RAF and Royal Navy. All of our Year 7 and 8 students were invited to attend this lively, interactive and informative event, focused on the theme of magnetism. This supported our KS3 curriculum perfectly, and also allowed students to see where study of Physics could take them in the future, with links to current engineering projects that BAE Systems, the RAF and Royal Navy are working on.

School Library and Literacy – Bernadette Warner

October 6th 2022 - National Poetry Day

To mark this occasion, a small group of students gathered on the balcony to share their own writing and to read the poems which had most touched them. Some verses moved Mrs Warner to tears!

October 14th 2022 - Cheltenham Literature Festival

We took 15 Year 10 and 9 students to an event at the Cheltenham Literature Festival. Lucy Strange, award winning author of “The Ghost of Gosforth”, spoke about Gothic writing. She focused on the significance of setting, language, plot and explored the differences between Gothic and horror. The students talked afterwards about how useful her techniques would be when it came to producing their GCSE creative writing. One said, “I hope I remember this when I’m sitting in front of my fiction paper.”

On the way home that night, as you can see, the moon was strangely appropriate…

November - Accelerated Reader

Emmanuel in 7RR levelled out Accelerated Reader only 2 and a half months after launching into it. He had read 19 books and over 2 million words!

November - Poem of the Month

Writing on the theme of Memories, Gabriella (8JC) won with the following:

Summer holidays

The term’s conclusion proposes six weeks of fun, Lazy mornings, vacations and adventures

Tinged with sadness of a school year done.

Early morning rising for a flight to the sun; Packing, rushing a taxi to the airport, Speeding through customs so dad gets his breakfast bun.

Another hotel room, restaurant and pool. Breakfast continental, dinner with fish, Excursions, tours, rain traps us in the mall.

Days meeting extended family to reacquaint; Glee and smile for good time’s sake

“Oh, haven’t they gone yet?” is mum's complaint.

Misty September mornings signal holiday’s close. Rushed shopping visits to buy new shoes. Last summer barbecues in autumn shadows.

Now in school daydreaming of last week’s sun, Reading English, music and studying maths, Armoured with memories of summer holiday fun.

November - WhoDunIt

Lizbeth in 7RR led the first WhoDunIt meeting on the Library balcony. It was impressive to hear such lively discussion, challenges and debate.

December 2022

At the start of December, we had the highest Accelerated Reader achievements ever on the system for this point in the academic year, including several who had made their way onto the Word Millionaire Club board:

December 2022 - Poem of the Month

This month’s winner, Evie-Joy (7WEH), wrote:

Light:

Light is the symbol of freedom and hope, Light shows the love that people don’t. Light shows that, you really do care, About the war and hate, hiding everywhere. If you picture, war in your mind, what do you see, Not sunshine or people laughing happily, You see darkness and hate, mud and bombs, Not light and bright and happy songs.

Light is the symbol of the love that hides, Behind, everyone’s heart and eyes. Not many people see it, Appreciate it, Or feel it, But I believe everyone has it inside, It might hide behind your tears, It might shield behind your hate, It might be squashed and imprisoned by your fears, But I believe, everyone has light.

January 2023 - Poem of the Month winner was Nathen (7JC)

New Beginnings

A new day dawns, the sun rises high, Bringing with it hope and a bright new sky; A new chance to live, to love, to learn, To shed the past and let our spirits yearn.

The Morning dew sparkles like diamonds on green, A fresh start for nature, a pristine new scene. The birds sing a joyful melody, Their sweet voices a symphony.

A new start is always within reach; An opportunity to improve and teach; To leave behind what once was and move ahead, To break the chains of the past and be led.

We are not defined by our mistakes. In the present a new life awaits; An open road, a path to tread; With each new step, our future is fed.

The world is vast, with so much to see; New places to explore, new things to be; So let us embrace the unknown With open hearts and spirits grown.

For in this new day, this new start, We hold the key to our own heart. Let us live and learn with grace; Embrace the new world with a smile on our face.

January 2023 - National Library Shelfie Day

After a post on social media, parents and carers sent in their ideas for what students should read before they leave school at 15. Here are some of the recommendations:

'A Kind of Spark' Elle McNicoll, 'Orbiting Jupiter' Gary D Schmidt, 'The Book Thief' Markus Zusak, 'Long Way Down' Jason Reynolds, 'Abela' Berlie Doherty, 'A Monster Calls’ Patrick Ness, 'Ghost Boys' Jewell Parker Rhodes. ‘The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks’ Rebecca Skloot, ‘Wuthering Heights’ - any older than 18 and you're in danger of seeing what dreadful people they all are, and being unable to have any sympathy at all!

More positively, ‘More Than This’ by Patrick Ness - covers the big questions about life, death, life after death, love, intimacy, sex, friendship. All in a teenfriendly way. Has the best scene of real intimacy and love I've ever read in a YA book. Great, positive stuff. ‘Loveless’ by Alice Oseman is one that I would recommend pupils read before they leave at 18 because it gives a picture of life at university which is a more realistic one, in the sense that one will experience loneliness, friendship changes and identities in a sense of flux. These experiences are portrayed sensitively and with warmth in this story. ‘Everyday’ by David Levithan - sympathetic and credible insight into a wide variety of personal circumstances, as well as an enjoyable 'dystopian' love story.

February 2023 - Year 9 character competition

Year 9 students created favourite book characters.

First prize went to Maya with her warrior cat, Hollyleaf!

Second prize to Lestie for Jude from The Folk of the Air series.

Third prize was for Cruella (on a wooden fork!) by Ashley..

Special mention to Fergus for Mrs Hall from Homework on Pluto.

February 2023 - Lockabox

Students who gain 2 100% results in a row on Accelerated Reader are allowed to try and break the code on the library lockabox. Our first success came from Reuben who won a mystery book, some sweets and a book token.

February 2023 - National Storytelling Week

Students met in the “new library” to share extracts from their own writing. Outstanding contributions were made by Lillibeth, Chris (Y11), Connor (Y8) and Ruby, Ella and Lizbeth (Y7).

February 2023 – Sixth Form Book Group

One Thursday lunchtime, 6 students met with Susanne (parent of Year 7 student) who is experienced in publication and working with senior students, to discuss “Burn” by Patrick Ness. Thoughtful contributions were made by all and the next book group was planned for the end of March.

March 2023 - Year 10 character competition

Winners of this round of the character competitions were Isla and Bea for their figures of Violey Beauregarde (check out her chewing blue mouth) and an umpa limpa!

March 2023 - Author Visit

On March 7th, author Christopher Edge came to speak with Years 7 and 8 about his new book, Escape Room. He took the students through a virtual escape room. By solving clues, we moved through, amongst other extraordinary places, an ancient burial ground, a Mayan Temple and space, eventually regaining our freedom. As far as we know, everyone made it out. If you're still missing anyone, please let us know

Later in the day, Christopher Edge worked with a smaller group of Year 9s who have shown particular talent for creative writing. By exploring and unpicking the opening of several classic and contemporary novels, they were able to see the need to make their writing engaging from the very first sentence. Mr Edge has pre-claimed 50% of any earnings these students make from their future writing…

March 2023 - Poem of the Month

Our winner, for the second time, was Evie-Joy (7WEH). Special mention goes to Ruby (7RR) for her happy piece about new beginnings, full of evocative vocabulary choices.

NATURE

by Evie-Joy

When the cool night breeze blows the grass, And the Cuckoo sings its song; When the water in the stream flows by, And the trees glow in the sun; It feels as if the whole world is waking-up To fight a war that can’t be won.

The war breaks the mountains, The war melts the sea, The war people just walk past, And just don’t seem to see. All the animals play their part All of them except one, The one who thinks he’s the exception, The one who drinks the sea, The one who kills the Tasmanian tiger And the baiji-white-dolphin. Really, can nobody see?!

All the animals fight the war, All of them sing the song, The only one who doesn’t fight Is the one who killed the sun. The hedgehogs battle the frost, The blackbirds battle to sing . The baby cubs are battling, Fighting to be free. The polar bears’ homes are melting, So are the penguins’ and seals’. The orangutans’ trees are falling. When the sun comes up to wake us, And the day has just begun, The whole world rises around us, To fight in a war that can’t be won. Only 5,000 tigers in the wild; The Javan rhinos are down to only 60, Why did we kill the ivory-billed-woodpecker? And who took the last Spix’s-Micaw?

Come on everybody, Have a sense of humanity! Does nobody have any sanity!?

All the animals fight the war, All of them sing the song. But they still get less,

And then there will be none.

Next time you are snuggled cosy in bed, Think just think in your head,

Think about the polar bears, Think about the seals, Think about the rhinos, the tigers , Come on this shouldn’t be real!

Tomorrow when the animals wake-up And the bird comes out to sing its song. Remember please just remember, They're all fighting the war that’ll never be won. Unless you help, will you try? Do you even care?

Animals die fighting the war that will never be won.

March 2023 - Shakespeare Week

Students were invited to either illustrate a favourite Shakespearean speech or to recite one of 8 lines. The winner was Lizbeth (Y7) with her poster of this very famous piece from “Romeo and Juliet”.

March 2023 - Poem of the Month

Tricks by Ruby (7RR)

All in the dark, My eyes defy me. Shadows creep up and Swallow my glee.

Shivers twist and turn through my core, Spooky figures knock on the door. Someone is playing horrific tricks. Suddenly a scream escapes my lips!

A drowning song pierces my ears

Calling me, becoming me. My mind unleashes all my fears. Chest tight, I try to flee.

From behind

Something grips my arm.

I’m hypnotised

Will I come to harm?

I fall to the floor

To the cold hardness

Closing my eyes

Slipping into darkness.

April 2023 - Readathon

Many members of Years 7 and 8 spent March being sponsored for reading books in aid of Read for Good, a local charity which provides books and storyteller visits for young people who are forced to spend long periods of time in hospital. These students raised almost £1000. With a small additional payment left from last year’s collection, the grand total reached over £1300! Well done to all who took part.

April 2023 - new furniture!

Thanks to a very generous grant from the hard-working and supportive CSPTSA , the New Library has new, bright and comfortable furniture. The students have been appreciative, especially of the upholstery on the seats and backs.

Word of the Week - all year

Every week, we put a “new” word and its definition/s into the Daily News and on display in the top corridor. If students use this word in any school work that week, or find the word in any book they borrow from a library or the EPlatform, they can claim an EPraise merit and sweet from Mrs warner in the library or Room 42.

At the time of writing, the word is Forlorn

~ aloneand unhappy

~ left alone and uncared for Past highlights include: hullabaloo, anachronism and zeal.

May 2023 - Poem of the Month

Our winner was Simeon Evans (Y12) with the following poem which plays with language: Whether

I sit back and wonder whether I’m good enough, Whether anything will go right for me in this slow and dragging life?

I sit back and say to myself, who are we, and what are we doing? Relax, what is this all for, if not for wondering and weathering?

I see the weather and think of whether it sees me too, And if it does, does it look at me as fondly as I at it? Maybe it does, but I wonder whether it even cares?

I look all around and wonder whether people deserve what they have, And how they treat it makes me wonder whether I should take it away, and if I have the power to do so, But I don’t, and I need not wonder whether what they have is well-deserved.

We live on a wondrous world, packed with people plundering and plummeting the health of it all,

Yet we don’t do a thing but aggravate and agitate, and why? We all sit around and wonder whether what we’re wondering is worth it, Whether the world is worth saving, Whether we’re wasting our worthwhile life on a worthless waste?

Wonder not, for whether it is or it isn’t doesn’t need to make us worry, We will find a way, and we will carry on wondering whether what we’re wondering is worth it,

But we won’t need wonder or worry much longer, As we’re worrying and wondering whether, While our world withers and wastes away.

May 2023 - QR chase

With thanks to Caroline Roche, Librarian of Eltham College, London, a recent addition to the New Library is a QR sheet where students can connect to the adverts for books which have been made into films.

May 2023 - Lockabox

Sofia (Y7) managed to break the code for the Lockabox after having achieved three 100% scores in a row for Accelerated Reader quizzes. She won a book, book token and some sweets. Well done, Sofia.

Upcoming events in the Library:

 National Writers’ Day

 Reading Together Day

 Young Librarian training

 Y10 library visits.

 WhoDunIt? continues weekly, as does the Dominoes Club.

 Sixth Form Book Group has continued to meet. The next one will be May 25th when our senior students will be discussing Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

 yotoCarnegie shadowing group (KS4)

Literacy, Teaching & Learning – Catherine Brooks

Throughout 2023 we have continued to develop our teaching practice in order to ensure that all students make excellent progress. In particular, the focus this academic year has been on challenging every student in all lessons. Teachers have received training on how to embed challenging tasks in all lessons as well as taking part in opportunities to discuss research and readings relating to current practice in this area. They have benefited from the expertise from a small group of staff who have regularly shared their ideas and experiences.

In terms 1 and 4, Challenge Weeks were held where teachers ensured that different forms of challenge were incorporated into lessons. For the first week, teachers worked on including challenging tasks throughout lessons – not just as an extension for some students to complete.

Students enjoyed trying to identify which part of the lesson extended their thinking and so challenged them in their learning. It was rewarding to see plenty of ePraise points being awarded across all year groups in the school.

In March, the focus for Challenge Week was on students talking in full sentences and elaborating/explaining their responses in detail. The ability to speak clearly and concisely in order to communicate ideas and understanding is a key skill for students to develop as part of their preparation for Higher Education and employment. Students were challenged to speak about a specific topic in the style of ‘Just a Minute’ or to discuss contentious ideas in a structured manner.

Literacy is fundamental to success both in school and later life. This year, departments have been extending the range of texts that students are reading as part of their studies. To complement the work in lessons, departments have also put together Academic Reading Lists which suggest a wide range of books that students could read in order to extend their knowledge beyond the taught curriculum.

Mrs Warner continues to work tirelessly in the library promoting reading and literacy competitions. The library has moved into the old Staffroom at the end of the top corridor. This provides a bright, light space where students have room to browse for books as well as discussing their favourite reads. A new opportunity this year is the creation of a Sixth Form Book group which enables Sixth Form students to read and discuss some more mature texts.

Throughout the year, students have been participating in Literacy Activities during Tutor Times. Whether completing reading quizzes, having reminders about the correct use of punctuation or exploring vocabulary, this has become a regular feature of our weekly routines. Mr Cobb, Mr Bridges and Mrs Brooks have enjoyed coming up with creative ways to help everyone develop these vital skills.

As the end of year exams approach, it is hoped that all the hard work on both challenge and literacy results in excellent results for students taking internal and external GCSE and A Level exams.

FURTHER EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITY

Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme – Alison Peake

The 2022-23 Crypt DofE programme year is well underway as I write with an amazing 99 Y9s doing Bronze award, 30 Y10s doing Silver award and 23 Y12s doing Gold award. This is a 23% increase on numbers since last year and needed yet another increase in staff support to manage. My thanks to the new members of staff who have got involved with running DofE clubs and helping on the expedition weekends.

Lunchtime clubs have been running once a fortnight for each cohort and the staff involved with that have been helping the participants choose their volunteering, physical and skills activities and then monitoring their progress. Each of these should be done for about an hour a week over a period of three/six or twelve months depending on the award they are doing. The activities our students do for these is amazing and very varied. Many are already well on their way to completing these sections.

The focus since Christmas has been on the expedition section. All three cohorts had in-school training days in March with Live Life Adventure (LLA) our trusted activity provider, where they covered team building, first aid, emergencies, campcraft and menu planning.

These have been followed up in April with canoe and navigation skills training.

All the Silver canoers completed the Paddlesport Start award on the River Avon at Twyning and the Silver walkers completed a navigation challenge around Twyning and Tewkesbury.

Having all chosen to canoe again this year, the Gold teams completed their first journey in April paddling from Eckington to Twyning learning how to navigate locks and weirs.

Expedition training commenced in May with the Y10 canoeists heading off to the River Wye to complete their Silver DofE training and travel from Hay-on-Wye to Hereford for their practice expedition. The sun shone, then it rained, they paddled and capsized, they cooked on gas trangias for the first time and generally had fun. By the end of the three days they had realised that canoeing is not as easy as it seemed but they all learned a lot! They completed the planning for their qualifying expedition later in June and are now reflecting on what they did or did not pack and how they can make their next trip even more enjoyable

The Y10 walkers set off at the same time from nearby Hay Bluff and despite the rain and the thunderstorms they coped admirably with three days in the Brecon Beacons. One team made it to the top of Sugar Loaf near Abergavenny where they were spotted by our Bursar on a family day out!

Luckily the sun was out on their last day and all arrived safely back with smiles of achievement on their faces. Our intrepid climbers have decided to return to the Brecons for their qualifying expedition in June whilst the other two teams, who preferred the lower terrain, are planning routes in the Forest of Dean where they should

The Crypt School

The Old Cryptians’ Club

be able to camp with the canoers on their last night and finish at the same point in Monmouth.

Next to head off were the Y12s doing their Gold practice expedition in canoes on the River Wye from Hereford to Monmouth so that they can tackle the Symonds Yat rapids ahead of their summer expedition. The forecast was favourable for a warm paddle working out how far they can go in a day and what roles they all play in their teams.

Last of all our biggest cohort of 99 (!) Y9s doing Bronze award headed off from the top of Birdlip Hill for their final weekend of training. Half camped at Cranham on the Scout campsite and the other half at Cowley on the GirlGuiding campsite. They were blessed with sunshine all day but were a bit caught out by how chilly it was in the campsite overnight. More layers needed next time! They spent Saturday with their instructors learning how to read maps and navigate pathways, kissing gates and herds of cows. Saturday evening they cooked their meals on camp stoves, enjoyed free time in the open air improvising cricket games and stargazing. For the first time we even had fairy lights on one tent!

On Sunday they were set a route to follow with their instructors checkpointing them at agreed locations. Some teams relished the challenge and others took a little longer to get the hang of it, but they all made it safely back to the pick-up point. They have all learned a few lessons about what they do and do not need to carry and how much food they really did need to eat!

The Crypt School

The Old Cryptians’ Club

All cohorts have their qualifying expeditions scheduled in or after Term 6.

 The Y9 Bronze walkers will be split in half again. 8 teams will start at Far Peak campsite and follow circular routes camping overnight at Denfurlong campsite. 8 more teams will start at Denfurlong campsite and follow different routes camping overnight at Far Peak campsite. The plan is they all pass through one or two common checkpoints so the Crypt teachers helping out get to see them all!

 The Y10 Silver canoers are paddling from Hereford to Monmouth on the River Wye bypassing the rapids at Symonds Yat.

 The Y10 Silver walkers are going their separate ways. One team are heading back to the Brecon Beacons to conquer Fan-Y-Big whilst the other two teams are following routes from the Chepstow area up through the Forest of Dean to finish with the canoers at Monmouth.

After the huge success of last year’s Gold trip up to Scotland, this year’s Y12 Gold qualifying expedition is heading back up to Scotland. Two teams plan to paddle the Great Glen Canoe Trail from Fort William to Inverness using the Caledonian Canal for the majority of the journey in between the Lochs. The third team have asked for an even greater challenge and want to use the rivers rather than the canal so they will encounter rapids and faster moving water. Working closely again with LLA, using my scouting experience as a camp cook and thanks to five parents volunteering their time to help drive the school minibuses we’ll be heading off for a 9 day trip - with travel days, acclimatisation open water training and a rest day before the actual coast to coast expedition - which we are all very much looking forward to. They have even persuaded me to canoe and wild camp on the shores of Loch Shiel! Watch out for the photos and updates on our social media #CryptDofE.

Meanwhile here are a few of the wonderful pictures taken last year:

The Crypt School

The Old Cryptians’ Club

For me, as DofE Manager, it has yet again been a very rewarding but busy year. The number enrolling grows year on year as does the amount of admin! Having such large groups and so many different training days and expeditions to fit in has meant DofE seems to happen every weekend. Luckily I‘m now able to share that workload with a few trusted team members who I hope will take over when I retire next year. It’s been a tight turn around for kit and when the weather is unkind we end up drying tents wherever we can! Finally, on Friday 19th May I had the great privilege of being invited to Buckingham Palace again to attend a Gold Award Presentation garden party with five more Cryptian Gold DofE Award recipients and their families - Archie Taylor who left the school in 2021 and four of our current Year 13s Arthur Rudkin-McLaren, Caedmon RayCollins, Joe Stott and Tom Garrett. We had a wonderful afternoon listening to speeches by the new Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Edward, and

The Crypt School

The Old Cryptians’ Club

various celebrity DofE ambassadors; wandering around the beautiful palace gardens and enjoying tea on the lawn listening to the military bands. It was amazing to see so many young people being congratulated for sticking with it and completing what is, as Prince Edward called it, "a life changing award". They all dwarfed me in the photos but I felt immensely proud of all that they had achieved.

To date we now have sixteen Gold award recipients with a good few more due to complete their awards once their A level exams are over. I am very grateful to the CSPTA for funding a Gold DofE Award honours board which will soon be installed in the school hall.

So next time you are in school do have a look and see who has persevered through twelve to eighteen months of volunteering; regular physical activity; learning new skills; taking part in a residential experience with complete strangers and completing the most challenging expeditions of their lives (so far!). They have all been amazing, resilient, resourceful young people who have shown they really are Youth Without Limits!

Many thanks as ever to all the parents who support their children doing the award and the staff that support DofE within school - from the Headmaster as DofE Licence holder; the Deputy Headmaster as External Visits Co-ordinator; to the teachers and support staff who work as DofE Leaders and assessors; to those that help with the admin, act as emergency contacts or even just promote the award to the students - their help is hugely appreciated and advertised on their doors with DofE signs! DofE at The Crypt School could not operate so successfully without this amazing team!

OUTSTANDING STUDENT ACHIEVEMENTS – SPECIAL MENTIONS

Mr Stanlake writes: An individual success I would like to share with you is that of Poppy Brenton in year 11. Poppy has competed in Spartan racing, an endurance race which is a combination of cross country running and negotiating obstacles. In recent competitions Poppy represented Great Britain in the 2022 Spartan European Championships. A gruelling 21.4km course with 2050ft of Elevation gained through forest, rivers, rocky trails

The Crypt School

The Old Cryptians’ Club

and heathland, gaining a hard-earned 2nd place in her age group. More recently, Poppy gained a third place in the British championships. The school is delighted with Poppy’s performance and we wish her good luck in future events.

Congratulations also to Tianna Klaric in Year 10 who has been extremely busy in her training and competitions for Taekwondo. Tianna spent 11 days in Korea recently, training with the top Taekwondo high schools and universities. She also had the chance to train with the best in the world in the sport. After returning to the UK her focus turned to the Spanish Open. Last weekend, she competed in Alicante where she won Gold following several tough fights against high-ranking international athletes. Tianna is a rising star in the sport, and we are very proud to support her here at the Crypt.

Earlier in the academic year, Joe Stott represented the South West region at the Inter-Regional trampoline, DMT (double mini trampoline) & tumbling championships in Sheffield. He competed in both trampolining & DMT. In April, he competed in the English trampoline & DMT Qualifier event in Kent.

CLUBS NOT INCLUDED WITHIN SUBJECT REPORTS

Girls’ gym club – Mrs Quinn

Girls Gym Club Years 7-9 has been going from strength to strength - literally - with Mrs Quinn! The girls are always up for trying anything and have been working in particular at their squat, press-up, pull-up and deadlift technique. This week we introduced kettlebell swings and rope climbs, which are still a work in progress, but I'm sure the girls will come back wanting more next week! Well done to all involved.

WhoDunit club – Mrs Warner

The Year 7 WhoDunIt Club held its first meeting in November. Led by Lizbeth, the students were presented with a crime and the events leading up to it; they then had to figure out who had done it before being given the solution. Their contributions were lively, fun and thoughtful.

Clay club – Mrs Medcroft

The Clay Club had the first fire through in November, ready to glaze & retire the following week. Christmas decorations soon to be in their new home!

Stage Crew club

We were overjoyed to welcome so many students into the new Stage Crew Club this year. We explored a variety of backstage roles such as lighting, sound and stage management. Students are being trained up to assist backstage during our next production The 39 Steps! In Drama Club students worked hard bringing a new original play to life written by the very talented Emily McLellan!

Chess club

This year has been an exciting one in the Chess Club, with lots of competitions and exciting matches taking place each week. Early in the year, we held the House chess tournament, where each house played each other house in turn and students compete in teams of six players. The students took this challenge very seriously and the atmosphere was thick in the room during all of the house matches. At the end of the round robin, Henley were the clear winners.

We have also been having termly leagues in chess club, with a separate league for key stage three students if they prefer. Undoubtedly though, the main event of the year has been the School Championship, where the winner will receive the chess cup at speech day next academic year. This year was the closest that we have ever had with the three

finalists (Hugo Adams, Jake Rudden and Iason Vasouras-Dilkes) each winning and losing two matches and leading to a tie at the end of the final. The tie was decided by a round of speed chess matches that eventually saw Iason retain the chess cup for a second year.

Journalism club – Mr Cobb

The Scrypt is the school’s student magazine, written and produced by students, for students. A dedicated team of young writers, editors, designers and artists work on it in Journalism Club every Tuesday lunchtime.

This year, articles have been published about the passing of Queen Elizabeth II and the prospects for the new Carolean era.

The magazine is a vehicle for students to develop their writing, design and editing skills. However, it also provides an opportunity for business experience as students need to advertise the magazine and decide how much to charge per copy to cover costs, as well as creating a small ‘profit’ which goes to a charity of the students’ choice.

The Crypt School

The Old Cryptians’ Club

The Monarchy: Scrypt Survey Results

The Scrypt recently conducted a survey of students' opinions on the monarchy. The results might surprise you: out of 134 students who responded, 78.4% said that the monarchy should not be abolished; instead it should remain as it is. 86.6% of the school watched at least some of the funeral of the late Queen Elizabeth II, while only 13.4% didn’t watch it at all. A lot of people said that they didn’t mind the monarchy as long as they modernise and reflect current values in society such as equality and social mobility. Good luck with that, Your Majesty!

Y12 Medical Society – Henry Bowen

Many of our students in Year 12 aspire to become doctors, or to work in the wider healthcare community. These students have attended MedSoc all year, running at lunchtimes, with the following goals: to educate students about life working in healthcare, to get their thinking caps on about real healthcare scenarios, and to maximise students' chances of success at being admitted to study medicine or related subjects at university.

Many sessions were problem-based (which represents the way many medical students are taught up and down the country), where students were able to play the role of the doctor when confronted with patients experiencing a variety of symptoms. Other sessions were guest talks from members of the Crypt community, who are at various stages of their healthcare careers. For example, MedSoc heard from Dr Jacob Lange, an Old Cryptian who was recently qualified as a doctor and is working through his Foundation year rotations, but we also heard from Dr Dan Bawden, an Emergency Medicine and Trauma consultant, whose career has taken him from the HEMS unit above the skies of London, to running an A&E department in rural Cornwall.

Other sessions focused around allowing students to explore healthcare related degrees and apprenticeships, as well as looking at the procedures for admissions into medicine, including preparing for the fiendish admissions tests! Many students now have a clear picture for their futures, and we wish them the very best on their healthcare journey!

Natural World Club – Mr Passmore

Ruth Carey writes: The Natural World Club has been run this year by Mr Passmore. They began the year discussing biodiversity and researching the lives of Giant African Land Snails (GALS). Their natural habitat, food preferences and likely predators were considered, in order to create an information board to support the Crypt’s resident GALS, Pablo. In the run up to Easter, they considered the life cycle of some of Britain's more native species, as well as the chicken. Bantam eggs were incubated, providing the opportunity for the whole school to come and see the little chicks.

The club provides an environment for nature enthusiasts to come together and chat about their passion, while taking on projects to expand their education beyond the biological curriculum.

Science and Astronomy Club – Sarah John

This year the Science and Astronomy Club has had a great time exploring different themes. We started the year working on a forensics study and became the Crypt Crime Scene Investigation team. This involved studying fingerprints, undertaking food tests, DNA sampling, ink chromatography and handwriting analysis.

The next term saw us diversify into space exploration. We researched the space race, investigated exoplanets, identified objects in the solar system, created stellar sat-navs and even made our own bottle rockets. Launch day allowed a few successful launches in the snow. The designs were fantastic and we clearly have some future spacecraft engineers in our midst.

The most recent theme is real life witchcraft and wizardry. We have been having a great time using science to make things appear / disappear, change colour, levitate and grow.

Science and Astronomy club continues Thursday lunchtimes in E1. Read the student testimonials below:

Fergus B. Y9:

Science and Astronomy Club is great because it can be random! Arrive and you can expect exploding rockets, exploding balloons, cake mixture on fire and nearly anything else. There are also quieter sessions, such as constellation maps and the Space Race timeline that’s now in E4. Come on Thursdays to the sort of club that deserves a neon sign outside the door.

Anabelle.D. Y8

I find Science Club amazing because it is an exciting and unexpected experience to join. It has anything and everything fun includes somewhere within the topics. Our current topic is the “Is There Magic and Witchcraft in The Real World?” topic, where we test different experiments to try and find the answer to this question. I think its a great way to spend my Thursday lunchtime and I’m sure that anyone with a love for science would enjoy it too.

TRIPS NOT INCLUDED IN SUBJECT REPORTS

Year 10 visit to the University of Bath

On Friday 27 January 2023, Year 10 visited the University of Bath to gain an insight into life at university and to allow them to start thinking about their long-term educational steps. Having a tour of the university campus, in groups of 12, by Bath Ambassadors (current undergraduate and postgraduate students) allowed them to explore the facilities offered by universities: the teaching rooms, sports and leisure facilities as well as the many shops and cafes on campus. It also allowed our students to ask some honest questions of the Ambassadors.

Students then had a talk of why to study at university, challenging their initial perceptions of university life and hurdles that many students think are unjumpable. As well as the financial benefits a university degree brings, it also allows students to develop wider key skills that will allow them to be successful in the workplace. After lunch the Bath Ambassadors held a Q&A session, which saw our students ask some challenging questions which resulted in honest answers. Questions ranged from finance to social life from fears of starting university to the range of societies available and sporting opportunities that arise.

Mrs Coughlin, our Exams Officer, who accompanied the group commented 'The visit was really insightful and an ideal opportunity for our students to put down the first layer of building blocks to achieve their potential. The campus university had a friendly feel to it.'

Mr Biggs, Deputy Head and Director of Sixth Form said 'The day was aspirational. The activities that our students took part in allowed them to understand the need to work hard and achieve the best they can, whilst understanding the competitive nature of Higher Education.'

A Year 10 student commented 'It really changed my perspective on going to university and showed me how much I’d enjoy the education and the lifestyle.'

Another Year 10 added 'The more I think about university, the more excited I am for the future'.

Ski trip 2023 – Vermont and New York

(Contributions from all trip staff members – final paragraph by Mr Hart) After 3 years of preparation, we finally set off for the 2023 Ski Trip to Jay Peak in Vermont. The trip started on a cold and damp Sunday morning with the parents of 97 students anxiously waving farewell as they and 10 staff set off for Heathrow for 7-hour plane journey to Boston. We then had a 5-hour transfer to Jay Peak Resort and arrived at 10.00 p.m. local time 3.00 a.m. UK time. I think it is fair to say that everyone was keen to go straight to bed.

We started our first full day in Jay Peak sorting the students into their ski groups; many of the students (and staff) had not skied on snow before so the main focus was building confidence. Four more days of skiing followed, with students gaining confidence and enjoying developing their skills. It was wonderful to watch students’ determination and resilience - some really gave it their all.

There were fun awards each day – students were able to vote for ‘Doughnut of the Day’ given to the funniest fall / sound / skiing display and the winner had to wear a very big fluffy bunny hat over their ski helmet all day - I can’t possibly say who won each day!

The resort had a fantastic water park on site, which our students were able to enjoy for two events, and one afternoon when the weather turned very wet, and we were able to watch lightening over the mountains – spectacular! Many students also had a go at Ice Skating, there were some who were cautious whilst others threw caution to the wind and treated spectators to some interesting moves!

We had a really fun Where’s Wally evening – students were treated to some fun games involving potatoes, straws and sweets, and Mr Hart’s silent disco dancing - students had to guess what he was dancing too! If only you could see the videos! Lots of loud singing and a bit of a Conga line followed.

Then it was time to leave Jay Peak and embark on the long drive to New York – stopping off in Boston for food. We arrived in New York at 10.00 p.m. – after driving through central New York. I think it was fair to say that students were excited to be there!

On our first day many students visited the 9/11 Museum, which was a sobering experience, particularly for several of the staff who remember the event very clearly. Students who didn’t go to the museum walked to Brooklyn Bridge. We all then walked to the Staten Island Ferry where students could take picture of the Statue of Liberty, hopped on the coach again and went to a large outlet centre, where many students took great delight in buying presents for their family … or for themselves! Quite a few pairs of new trainers were proudly worn the next day! That evening we made our way across Times Square for dinner at the Hard Rock Café and then went to the top of the Rockefeller Centre to see the lights of New York at night. The main word as we reached the top was ‘wow’! It was quite a challenge keeping 96 students all together to walk through Times Square at night.

The next day involved a lot of walking! We packed our cases, put them all in a storage room at the hotel and set off on our way, starting in Times Square where students had a little time to look at the wonderful billboards and also do a little more shopping! We visited Grand Central Station to view this impressive train station, then headed to Central Park and were delighted to find ourselves walking through the Annual Easter Parade and saw some wonderful Easter bonnets and some colourful characters! We spent some time in Central Park, in T shirts - it was a beautiful day - and had some lunch, but then it was time to walk back to the hotel, collect our bags and head for the airport for a night flight. As we arrived at Gatwick we were met with torrential rain … typical! We arrived back at The Crypt

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3 minutes ahead of the 12 noon pick up time to some tearful parents who had missed their loved ones.

Speaking with many of the students, it was clear that they were all so positive about the amazing memories they created on this trip and how much their skiing progressed. None of this was possible without the hard work of Mr Bawden getting everything ready for the trip. Also 10 members of staff gave up over a week of their holidays to ensure the students had an amazing time. So can I personally thank: Mr Higgs, Miss Cantin, Miss Leask, Miss Patton, Mrs Wales, Mrs Williams, Mrs I'Anson, Mr Roberts and Mr Hewson Barsellotti.

FURTHER SCHOOL EVENTS & VISITS

Remembrance Service: 11th November 2022

The service was a moving and ethereal interlude in our otherwise busy lives, taking us out of ourselves in a peaceful but solemn atmosphere filled with beautiful music and rousing words of reflection and gratitude.

After the choir sung the stirring ‘They shall not Learn War’, Pastor Matt Gamston, from Trinity Baptist Church, Gloucester, gave a moving address on the origins of the words, from the prophet Isaiah: ‘they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks’. It was thought-provoking not least because of the context of war in Europe, in Ukraine, as well as many other regions of our planet hurt and scarred by conflict; very poignant also, because Isaiah’s vision of peace, where people do not ‘learn war any more’ might seem hopelessly utopic and beyond reach when one watches news of horrors, destruction, torture and terror visited on civilians and enemy soldiers alike in war-torn cities. Our moments of silence were partly given to them, in solidarity with their desperate desire for peace

The Crypt School The Old Cryptians’ Club

Local teacher, Cathedral guide and author David Evans visited school this week and presented Mr Stanlake with a copy of The Ancient Schools of Gloucester, of which we are one!

This new book written by David analyses the development of education in our city from the Norman Conquest to the Industrial Revolution. It features the early history of three schools still in existence today – the Crypt, King’s and Sir Thomas Rich’s – and also tells the story of numerous other schools that are no longer with us. Crypt features in 6 of the 17 chapters. The book can be purchased by visiting St Mary de Crypt Church (in Southgate Street) or Gloucester Cathedral Shop and is also available on Amazon.

Parliament Week – Mrs Warner

In November, to mark Parliament Week, local MP Richard Graham came to speak with sixth form students about Parliamentary Procedure and Roles. As he is involved with the five million pound School of Business at Gloucester University, is key in the redevelopment of Gloucester Railway Station, campaigns for extending the maximum penalty for stalking, and is working to abolish visa fees for Commonwealth servicemen and women, and for increased protection for online gamblers, we were privileged that he found time to visit The Crypt School at fairly short notice. He explained his duties are divided into three main areas: law making and scrutiny, dealing with crises, and working with the community. He told us about his personal experience of the House of Commons, his hope that Rishi Sunak has

The Crypt School The Old Cryptians’ Club

David Evans – The Ancient Schools of Gloucester – Mrs Wasley

the wisdom, experience and calmness to steer the country through to the next election, and his friendship with Jeremy Hunt.

Several students asked astute questions which Richard answered in interesting detail, also giving them plenty of time to express their own opinions. Mr Graham was surprised that no one questioned him about a certain MP's sojourn in the jungle!

Professor Chris Lintott – Sky at Night Event

Sarah John writes: we were incredibly lucky to welcome Professor Chris Lintott to the school on 10th May, to lead two sessions for our students who are interested in Astronomy and Science. Professor Lintott is a professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford, where he also leads the Citizen Science programme. You may recognise him from presenting the BBC series, The Sky at Night.

He was inspired to pursue a career in Astrophysics by a guest speaker who visited his school, as well as using his school’s telescope with friends.

It was lovely to welcome him in to inspire the next generation of scientists. Professor Lintott gave a talk on his career and research to students from all years at lunchtime, followed by an interactive session with our older students in the afternoon.

We thank Professor Lintott for his time and hope that he will return to the school in the future.

Professor Chris Whitty

In January we were extremely fortunate to welcome Professor Sir Chris Whitty into school to speak to students who were interested in a career in Medicine. During his session ‘Careers in medicine: reflections from the Chief Medical Officer’ we listened to his journey into medicine and the various roles he has had, including reflections from the last few years as England’s Chief Medical Officer. Students had plenty of time to ask questions. This proved to be incredibly interesting and very useful for those students who have medicine interviews soon. A fantastic opportunity for our students!

STAFF FOCUS 2022-23

New staff not mentioned within subject reports

Oliver Antonious

I grew up in Cheltenham and now live there with my fiancée and two young children.

Having studied for a BSc (Hons) Food Technology at the Manchester Metropolitan University, where I did a placement for Kellogg’s in Wrexham, North Wales as a Food Safety Resource, I then went on to do a PGCE in Design and Technology.

For almost 20 years, I have volunteered for the emergency services and really enjoy giving something back to the community. The role is varied and changes from shift to shift. I do two 8-hour shifts per month as well as attending monthly training sessions.

I was inspired to teach by my GCSE/ A-Level Teacher of Food Technology. She was inspirational and really passionate about her subject, and also cared about her students. I am still in touch with her today.

I really like our school motto: 'to flourish in all that they do', and feel we do embody this by being passionate about providing students with the very best education. In Design and Technology, seeing students applying iterative design processes has been a particular stand-out experience for me and I look forward to many more years here.

Lizzie Chilman

I joined the Crypt School in September 2022 after completing my PGCE at the University of Bristol. Before teaching, I studied English with Drama at the University of Birmingham and completed a Post-Graduate Diploma in Law afterwards. Whilst studying for my Law Diploma, I worked for some tutoring companies as a result of a national drive during the pandemic to help students who had faced disruption in their learning. I thoroughly enjoyed my time as a tutor and this virtual tutoring re-ignited my love for literature and started my path to teaching. I have really enjoyed my time at Crypt thus far, teaching brilliant pieces of literature and engaging in interesting debates and discussions about current world issues.

The Crypt has been a fantastic place to work in my first year of teaching with supportive, friendly staff and resilient and hard-working pupils. I look forward to the next school year and what my time here brings!

Sharmila Door

Sharmila Door was appointed as our new teacher of art last August.

Sharmila studied graphic art and design before going into the retail sector; she has also worked at Denmark Road, as their art and technology technician. She brings to The Crypt, and to the art department, a huge wealth of experience which will help support the students in their creative learning journeys, and has already supported the art department in developing even further. She is also a keen runner, regularly completing 10k and marathon distances!

Charlotte Gates

I studied Biology at the University of Bath, where I particularly enjoyed learning about plant biotechnology. I undertook a year’s professional placement with a chemical company, trialling new pesticides to try and improve crop yield; I even got to drive a combine harvester which was super fun! After university, I switched from plants to DNA and worked as a forensic DNA analyst for a few years. The work was exciting, and I spent my last year working in the Metropolitan police headquarters, dealing with high-profile cases and getting to grips with new DNA processing robots.

I left forensics and taught A-Level Biology in East London for 3 years before moving to the west country. Teaching is an incredible and dynamic profession; Crypt students are a joy to teach. A memorable moment so far has been the year-7 residential trip to Wales, including extremely muddy obstacle courses!

As musician in residence this year, I have enjoyed working in the music department at The Crypt School, learning a variety of skills even after my 7 years already studying as a student here. This year I have helped to support students both in lessons, and during extracurricular activities, which has been good for improving my communication skills, as well as my confidence. Over the course of this year, I have enjoyed seeing students grow and develop their music ability, and it has been a fantastic opportunity to be able to help with that.

Claire Perkins

I started working at The Crypt in June 2022, taking on the role of Attendance Officer for years 7 to 11.

Prior to this role my life has been varied and interesting. I worked for many years in both Cheltenham and London as an accountant, primarily focusing on Solicitors’ accounts and audits. Love brought me back to Gloucester and later, having started a family, I decided to retrain in childcare and child development. I ran my own childminding business and then became a primary teaching assistant. Further development led to the role of Higher Teaching Assistant and I was proud to teach music across all years from reception to year 6. My current role is a meld of both aspects, the office skills and administrative part mixed with working alongside pupils to achieve the best outcomes for them.

Outside of work I am a scout leader, I love singing and the theatre and enjoy reading. I am also working on my golfing abilities and enjoying the peace that can be found on a golf course.

Originally from just outside Glasgow, I completed my MA in Business Studies in 2020 from the University of Aberdeen and moved to Herefordshire to work as a House Parent at Lucton Boarding School for a year before undertaking my PGCE at the University of Worcester in 2021/22. When I first saw the Crypt School job come up, I instantly wanted to find out more and apply for the business teacher role. This was my best decision as I have been welcomed into a supportive school environment and met so many lovely colleagues and pupils who have

Matthew Le Maistre

Laura Shaw

made settling into Gloucester and my first year of teaching so easy and enjoyable. I have been able to get involved out of the department as well with extra-curricular clubs like Duke of Edinburgh and netball club, fixtures and trips, and being involved as a Year 12 tutor and working with an excellent tutor team and Head of Year. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at Crypt so far and am very much looking forward to what next academic year will bring.

Kirsty Szekerez

I am originally from Sheffield and moved to Gloucester in 2009 and definitely call it home now.

I previously worked for the NHS whilst living "up north" in a role that meant I did administration roles in the entire hospital. It was lovely to know mostly all the staff and have varied days. I was sad to leave but my partner’s work led us to Gloucestershire. Once we had moved to Gloucester we decided we would start a family, so we settled in Churchdown and I became a stay at home mum. I have a daughter aged 11 and a son aged 9. I also have a daughter aged 22 (from a previous relationship) but she still lives in Sheffield. Included in our family is Bramble, our gorgeous 14yr old German Shorthaired Pointer; a very old lady but she still thinks she’s a pup!

I love to travel and I have visited some beautiful countries and aim to do lots more. I read an awful lot! My Instagram feed is filled with the books I have read and I take part in the annual Goodreads challenge each year. I also love to cook and bake.

My stand out day up to now was definitely when Sir Chris Whitty visited the school. I love working at The Crypt School; everyone has been so welcoming and helpful. I have been made to feel like one of the team since day one and I already feel like I have been there and known everyone forever. It is such a fantastic work environment and I have already been offered more work alongside my reception role and will be exam invigilating over this coming exam period.

Leavers not mentioned in subject

reports

Samuel Armitstead

Nick Dyer writes: Sam joined us in September 2021 from a school in Paris to lead the economics and business studies department and has flourished ever since. He has proved equally adept at teaching GCSE business studies, as he has Year 13 economics. He has also been a great VI Form tutor and rugby coach; indeed, his work with the historically underachieving Y10 rugby team last year was little short of a triumph, taking them to the semi-finals of the county cup (as I recall).

Sam has been busy this year, teaching the whole of Y13 ballroom dancing, in preparation for their leaver's event in June - that will certainly be a sight to behold!

A man of many talents then and someone who is also a caring and considerate colleague, teacher and tutor - he will be greatly missed.

Sam writes: Becoming a part of the Crypt School has been an incredible experience. I have come to realise that this is an academic institution which succeeds in creating an outstanding learning experience for students and staff. Being a part of such an

environment has been an immense source of pride for me. But it is the people that make this experience so special. None more so than the year 10 rugby team who in coming together to create such a powerful bond, created a team spirit and an iron will that led them to many dramatic successes. I will cherish these memories forever.

I am very sad to say goodbye to all members of the Crypt. In meeting old Cryptians, I have developed an understanding for the importance of being a part of this community. I have realised more of a connection with a staff that is full of warm and ebullient personalities. And once I was more accepted, I have found the students to be the most charming and resilient of all those that I have ever worked with. Thank you to all those of you who have made my experience as incredible as it has been. I wish you all the very best in your onward journey. “Go again!”

Rebecca Cantin

Nick Dyer writes: Becky joined the School in September 2018, as we welcomed our first coeducational cohort into school. She was appointed as our first Head of Girls' Sport to ensure that the School's provision for girls' PE and games was on par with that offered to the boys - she has more than fulfilled that brief in those five intervening years. We can now boast a girls' sports programme that is second to none in the county and the range of sporting opportunities offered to our girls in all years groups is now quite staggering. It is also astonishing, and despite having far fewer girls in each year group than many of the schools we compete with in sport, that invariably Crypt girl's teams come up on top, particularly in netball and football for example. Becky’s experience as a national level netball player was a key factor in this superb and effective team leadership.

Becky was also appointed to work closely with key colleagues, such as Paulina Bright, to make sure that the girls who joined the School in 2018 and since, felt welcomed and settled into our school life - I hope everyone will agree that aim has been most successfully achieved.

As Head of Year 12, Becky worked hard to ensure that all new students to the sixth form, as well as those progressing from Y11 into Y12, settled quickly and flourished in our environment - today we have over 330 in the Sixth Form, a testimony to the work of Becky and others of course such as Robert Biggs, Matthew Bevan and Meghan Hayes

Within the PE department, Becky has of course worked hard teaching across the age range and has helped lead and organise many trips and visits, giving students from across the School opportunities to be part of something very special, such as the recent ski trip to America. She also brought the prestigious NOVA Netball Academy to The Crypt School, giving girls from across the County the opportunity to develop their netball skills in a professional environment.

Above all, Becky has been a dedicated and utterly professional colleague; friendly and supportive of others and she will be greatly missed by all.

We wish her every success and happiness in the future and know that she will keep in touch with us through sporting fixtures and social events no doubt

Ruth Carey

Nick Dyer writes: Ruth joined us as head of biology, from an international school in Spain - we interviewed her via zoom as I recall and offered her the role straight away. Ruth has impressed ever since, as an outstanding classroom teacher, sixth form tutor and of course as head of department. Ruth

is immensely popular amongst her students and tutees, always placing their needs at the forefront of her teaching and pastoral work. She has also proved a caring colleague and she will be sorely missed by her biology and science colleagues, the sixth form team, wider staff and by her students.

We are very sorry that she is going, but we wish her every success and happiness in the future and do hope that she keeps in touch.

Felicity Hemsley

Felicity left in November 2022 after acting as school secretary, performing a plethora of duties that contributed enormously to the smooth running of the entire school.

Hazel Wasley writes: Fliss had a warm and friendly welcome for staff, pupils, parents and visitors every morning on reception. Her calm, generous and friendly manner was always an asset to the running of the school office. She went above and beyond with the cycling courses and the logistics of the delivery, collection and storage of students’ bikes - a task not to be underestimated! She was an excellent baker, and is still a keen supporter of the various school events, and of her former colleagues. Thank you Fliss!

Rebecca Hughes

Matthew LeMaistre writes: it was sad to see Rebecca leave us this year, after all the great work she has put into the music department, being a key part to the music education of the lower years, helping them to develop their musical skills. She was also great in showing up and helping with the extracurricular activities, including setting up our samba band, which we and the students taking part hope will be carried forward into the next year and many more to come.

Over the couple of years Mrs Hughes has been with us, she has definitely made a significant impact on the department, and we wish her the best for the future.

Jessica Edwards

Julian Whittaker writes: this year, we were lucky enough to be joined by two Musicians in Residence! After joining us in the Sixth form to take Music A level, Jessica remained with us as Musician in Residence for Terms 1-3. She quickly became involved with the A capella Choir (preparing them for the Autumn Concert and Carol service), supporting lessons and helping younger singers in the choir. Jessica worked with Matthew Le Maistre to help organise concerts and services and generally run the music department. We are very grateful for her work in the music department and wish her well for the future.

Sally I’Anson

Nick Dyer writes: Sally joined the School as Head of Drama in September 2021, and has excelled in that role ever since. She leaves a wonderful legacy to her successor, not only in the strength of the drama department, but in the positive impact that her work has had on so many of our students. Sally has combined her work in drama with teaching English, being a form tutor and staging school productions, such as the recent 39 Steps. A busy juggling act for anyone - but Sally has managed it brilliantly.

She will be sorely missed by us all, and I'm sure everyone will join with me in thanking her for everything she has so richly contributed to our school life, and in wishing for her every success and happiness in the future.

Abirami Kumar

James Rice writes: This year, the computer science department said farewell to Mrs Kumar who brought a lot to the department and she will be missed. She successfully qualified and attended the Southwest final in the Cyberfirst girls’ competition where our girls performed admirably and we hope to attend again next year and make it to the grand final! Watch out for this at the start of next September.

Abi Kumar writes: My time with Crypt has been unique, and I’ve genuinely enjoyed every minute of it, even the tough times! One thing that has always been constant is the support I’ve received from you all and the friendships I’ve built, which I hope will last. My drive has always been my students, who inspired me in many ways and motivated me to adapt to their needs.

Alex Morgan

Hannah Quinn writes: Sadly Miss Morgan will be leaving the Crypt after 2 years in the MFL Department. Joining as Maternity Cover for Mrs Quinn, Alex soon wowed us with her enthusiasm, commitment and new ideas to inspire students and so it came as no surprise that she was asked to remain on a permanent basis when Mr Quinlan left. She is a great teacher, tutor and colleague who will be much missed by both colleagues and students alike. She leaves us to move closer to friends and family in Cambridge and we wish her every success with her future career.

Nick Dyer writes: Niamh has taught geography at the school since joining us as an ECT; in fact Niamh also undertook some of her training with us prior to her appointment. Since then, Niamh has proved to be a very strong teacher of geography, supporting her students to develop not only their knowledge and understanding of geography, but also developing in them a real love of the subject.

Beyond the classroom, Niamh has attended numerous geography field trips and residentials, supported the work of the PE/games department and recently accompanied the ski trip to the USA.

Niamh has also been a supportive and caring tutor and much valued colleague; we shall all miss her greatly. We hope that she will return to teaching at some point in the future, but wish her the very best as she embarks on a new chapter in her life.

Niamh Patton

Daniela Rodriguez

Nick Dyer writes: Dani was appointed to the role of Head of English in January 2018 and has excelled in that post ever since. Of course, first and foremost Dani is an outstanding classroom practitioner, always enthusing her students with her love of literature and of the English language. As HoD, she has presided over much improved academic outcomes at both GCSE and at A Level and has worked tremendously hard on her department's programmes of study and accompanying scheme of work. It's really great to see more of our students progressing onto both A Level and university English courses.

Dani is a kind and caring tutor, supporting her students to achieve their very best, whilst helping them through the inevitable ups and downs of their young lives. Dani has also been at the forefront of our work on inclusion, leading the multicultural society for some time, enabling a safe space for students from across our school to discuss important and difficult topics with sensitivity and care.

Dani leaves a very strong legacy of success and improvement to her successor and I'm sure everyone will join with me in wishing Dani the very best for the future; we all hope that she will keep in touch with us at Crypt and that she will thrive in her new career.

Charlotte Sturge

Nick Dyer writes: Charlotte has taught at the School for over twenty six years and is first and foremost, an outstanding classroom practitioner. Her students have always made outstanding academic progress under Charlotte's care, due to her dedication in ensuring that every one of her lessons placed the progress of her students at the very centre of their learning experience. Furthermore, students always enjoy her lessons and feel both challenged and supported in equal measureand it's no mean feat to achieve that.

Over her time at Crypt, Charlotte has contributed hugely to the development of the School's science faculty in a wide variety of roles - as KS3 science coordinator, a stint as the Lead Science Teacher for Gloucestershire, as head of biology and as head of science. Her work in those latter two roles, helped support the rapid development of both the biology department and of science teaching in general; today, the School can boast an outstanding science offer, thanks to the work and dedication to excellence of Charlotte and that of her science teaching and support colleagues alike.

In 2013, Charlotte became a key member of the School's SLT as an assistant headteacher and Director of Teaching School; in 2015, she became the School's Director of Studies, contributing greatly to the work of the School's senior team. Through her work in the SLT, Charlotte played a significant role in developing our educational offer in areas such as the curriculum, teaching and learning and assessment, and in our work with local primary schools for example. Over recent years, Charlotte has led our GCSE year groups as Head of Upper School, with particular responsibility for the pastoral wellbeing and academic progress of Year 11. It's no surprise then, that our Progress 8 scores over recent years have been so impressive and retention from Y11 into Y12 so high. In each of her senior roles, Charlotte always placed the best interests of the students and of staff at the very centre of her work.

For many of us at Crypt though, Charlotte has always been a wonderful, supportive and caring colleague and friend. For those with very long memories, Charlotte's performance as Nancy in the School production of Oliver, will long be cherished!

I am sure you will all join with me in both thanking Charlotte for her outstanding contribution to the life and work of the School, and in wishing her every success and happiness in the future. She will be sorely missed by her students and by her colleagues alike, and we do hope that she will keep in touch with us all.

Richard Salt

In his role as Deputy Head - Pastoral, Richard has contributed so much to the wellbeing and care of our students over the years. He has had a strategic oversight of all aspects of pastoral care, including student behaviour, tutor programmes, and co-ordinating the Heads of Year to ensure that our students’ welfare and needs are well catered for. Richard has served as the Designated Safeguarding Lead, guiding students and staff through child protection issues, building a shared school culture where safeguarding is at the heart of all that we do Richard has enhanced opportunities to enable Student Voice to inform and guide us as staff to develop our understanding of student perspectives and what is important to them.

Richard has also served as the Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator, helping ensure we maintain our ethos of being an inclusive School. This has involved supporting students with specific needs and directing best teaching practice that is personalised to these students. He completed the National SENCO Award at Masters level to help guide our School in this respect.

Tutor time activities are an incredibly important part of students’ experience at The Crypt, building their awareness of the world and their engagement with it, as well as preparing to flourish in their roles as citizens of that world in their lives to come. His humanitarian values and deep interest in students’ personal development made him an inspirational teacher of History, and enabled him to construct tutor time programmes that enriched students’ cultural capital, citizenship, knowledge of careers, and their participation in national or global events of importance such as holocaust memorial day, LGBTQ+ and Black Lives Matter.

With all that he did and offered -always with a calm, generous and approachable mannerit is very difficult to replace someone like Richard. He has been our dedicated backstop, always there, always taking on huge responsibilities but never letting this dent his cheerful demeanour; never too busy to offer friendly words of advice and support. His ability to unite staff and students around principles of kindness and open-mindedness is a rare quality. His generosity of spirit and dedication will be greatly missed by students and staff alike.

Bernadette Warner

Nick Dyer writes: Berni joined the School in October 2018 and has been a greatly valued, respected and supportive colleague ever since. Berni, as we all know, has been an outstanding librarian, promoting reading to all our year groups, and has always acted as a strong advocate for the centrality in school of books and of literacy. She has always promoted reading books as a means to educate our students and as a mechanism which allows our students to switch off from the worries and anxieties of their daily lives and be transported to different worlds, cultures, periods in time, the future and through that to learn, develop, grow and have fun.

Before becoming Librarian, Berni worked as an English teacher in The Crypt's English department for three years. When she then took on the library role, her colleagues in the English department always appreciated the special connection they had with her, and the devoted support she offered in so many ways, for example by supporting the accelerated reader programme. She has also supervised Year 13 in their study periods and often acted as an informal counsellor to many across the School.

She is a wonderful colleague and I know that she will miss our rich school life; she will be greatly missed by everyone in school. We wish her much happiness in the future, and hope that she will keep in touch with us all.

CHARITY EVENTS NOT MENTIONED ELSEWHERE

Fundraising Fridays

On 14st October, a non-uniform day raised over £1400 in donations for the Cobalt Medical Charity. Wow!

Staff were busy baking the night before and then spending their money buying cake at break on Friday. Over £240 raised for Macmillan Cancer Support. We have some very talented bakers!

Shoebox appeal – Mr Croft

In November this year, The Crypt School again took part in the Teams4U Christmas shoebox appeal. The school community have sent in excess of 100 shoeboxes in previous years to help children and families in need in Romania, Belarus and other countries and we wanted to be involved again.

Students and their families contributed by wrapping a shoebox and lid separately and then packing it with toys, stationery, and practical items. The teams4u provided a guide with ideas of things to put in the box and how to prepare it. Many parents used a link in the guide to download a packing label and donation slip (to cover transportation costs). These gifts really make a difference to the lives of those who receive them.

Movember – Mr Stanlake

In November, we saw an array of different moustaches and beards at various stages of development! All in a good cause: the senior rugby squad joined ‘Movember’ to raise money and awareness to make a difference in mental health and suicide prevention, prostate cancer and testicular cancer. They raised well over £500 towards this worthwhile cause.

Tree planting – Mrs Wasley

Thank you to the Old Cryptians for organising the trees and parents and students for their hard work. We are looking forward to more beautiful trees along the drive. The weather was perfect as were the refreshments at the community café! Special thanks to our Y7 volunteers Sam Perkins, Luke Goscombe and Rafferty Ludlow-Maisey.

Gloucestershire Bundles

We supported Gloucestershire Bundles with their Toiletries Collection for May. Gloucestershire Bundles is a charity providing emergency packs of toiletries, clothing and equipment to pregnant women and families with children up to the age of 16, who find themselves in crisis situations.

Holly Gazzard Trust

Well done to Raikes who raised £115.60 from their cake sale for the Hollie Gazzard Trust. As you can see, some very impressive baking was seen and ingested!

A pity to eat such works of art!

We also raised over £1000 for the Trust through a non-uniform day in May!

Gloucester Foodbank Harvest Appeal – Mr Hart

In October, Andy Hart organised The Crypt’s contribution to the Gloucester Food Bank Harvest Appeal. Students were encouraged to bring in a range of items for the foodbank such as tinned meat, tinned Spaghetti, biscuits, long-life milk and toothbrushes.

The Crush Hall table was piled high with contributions over the week, with students taking a competitive approach and putting their foodstuffs into house crates to score points for their house while also taking the opportunity to make a real difference to people in Gloucester struggling with the cost of living.

Christmas Jumper Day – 8th December – Mr Biggs

The Year 13 Student Executive organised some Christmas plans for students in school. One of these was supporting National Christmas Jumper Day on Thursday 8th December.

Students in Years 713 wore normal uniform on the day but were encouraged to also wear a Christmas jumper under their Blazers. Each student participating was asked to donate to Save the Children and/ or bring in a food item and leave it on the Crush Hall table for the Poet’s Pantry, a local charity based in Podsmead that works to combat food poverty in our local community.

Turkey-Syria Earthquake Appeal

On the 6th February, two earthquakes killed over 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria. Hundreds of thousands of people were also injured and displaced. The School held a non-uniform day and raised donations amounting to well over £2200 to contribute to the DEC’s work to help alleviate people’s suffering in the after-effects of the earthquake

Maths Solution

The Crypt School The Old Cryptians’ Club

SECTION 2 - THE OLD CRYPTIANS’ CLUB

Founded 1901

President – Simon Smith (1982-89)

Editor - Adam Ashby (1973-78)

Website

http://www.oldcryptians.org/

PRESIDENTIAL REFLECTIONS

It’s Easter Sunday as I write this. By nature, a time of hope and new beginnings. I’ve also just mown the lawn for the first time this year, which always gives a sense that spring has truly arrived. I probably didn’t share that same sense of hope when I wrote in the Cryptian a year ago just before taking on the role of President. We’d had a year filled with quite a bit of soul searching about our future, not least set against the launch of the 1539 Foundation and working out our competing or complementing purpose. I said “I don’t pretend that the next year is going to be easy, but it’s going to be necessary if we are going to reshape the Club to be able to better face the future”. Not the best closing sentence (and I’ve just removed a typo), but English was never my strongest subject.

That said, the sentiments were not that far off. We’ve continued to have some tough but absolutely necessary and rewarding debates on the committee about how we should reshape and operate for the future. And more importantly, how we ensure that we have the right skills around the committee to support us in our direction of travel. More on that in a bit.

The highlight of my year so far was being able to get our Annual Dinner back to being annual. We welcomed 78 guests into the school hall at the end of March for what was a much welcome opportunity to re-connect after the disruption of recent years. We were also very fortunate to welcome Ian Dench (1975-82) as our guest speaker. Ian was the lead guitarist and song-writer for local band EMF, who went on to carve out a successful career in the music industry, continuing his song-writing for the likes of Beyonce, Shakira and the Prodigy to name but a few. Ian also brough his electric guitar with him to weave into his speech, which made for a unique and memorable end to the evening. My thanks to Lacey Bradley and Wyatt Dundas (Head Boy and Head Girl) for their perfect introduction for Ian and to Mr. Stanlake for managing to weave multiple EMF song-titles into his earlier remarks!

It was also great to see many non-members at our dinner – a sign that our efforts on social media and other channels had paid off. In addition, we had 15 at the dinner who had started at the school after the year 2000. In 2019 we had 2. We had 13 people who joined the school in the year 1970, thanks to the sterling efforts of Steve Mace, who deftly reignited his role as primary dinner organiser after the recent hiatus. An additional causes for optimism was a 6% increase in our membership over the course of the year.

At our AGM, we said farewell to Richard Briggs from our Committee. Richard’s efforts have been tireless across so many facets of the Club’s work in the past ten years as a committee member and much more besides and before. He was instrumental in bringing us into the digital age, supporting the Pembroke and Founder’s Day Dinners for many years, leading on efforts to digitally archive our club’s history and on successful membership drives. He will remain on the Centenary Bursary Fund Committee, so he’s not disappearing entirely, but I thank him again on behalf of all the Committee for all his efforts and achievements. We also welcomed our first female committee Member, Catherine Shore (04-06).

I was voted by the Committee to remain as President for another year. It is true to say that in serving a one-year term, you just start settling into the role and then it’s time to hand over. I hope during this second year we can reach out and further enhance the skills and diversity of our committee and membership, broadening our online and digital activity, so that we can be a Club that serves former Crypt pupils of any age. If you want to help us along that journey, you can find me at president@oldcryptians.org or @oldcryptians on Instagram.

FROM THE HEADMASTER

Dear Committee Members and Old Cryptians, I am very sorry indeed that I have not been able to attend your recent meetings, or indeed the AGM and your annual meal; however, I have followed the progress of the OC Club and am delighted that the annual dinner has happened again, especially as it is was held at the School.

Your continued support of the School, of its students, staff and indeed of each other is greatly appreciated; and my thanks for everything that you richly contribute to the life of the OC Club, and to the School. In particular, the OC Centenary Bursary Fund lunch is always a highlight for me and each year the Fund benefits many of our students, helping support their ambitions in a wide variety of areas.

The School continues to progress, both in its academic work and in the support and opportunities for personal development that our young people receive. Staff continue to give generously of their time to the work and life of the School, enabling each cohort of students to leave the School having experienced a wonderful education here at Crypt, providing them with the qualifications, skills and personal qualities which enable them to go on to make a success of their adult lives. I'm sure OCs will be proud indeed of their old school, and of its current students and staff.

I do hope that you all enjoyed the Annual Dinner and I look forward to seeing many of you soon.

With every best wish,

Nick Dyer Headmaster

ARTICLES

Ian Dench – EMF

When I was at Crypt in the 1980’s there was one name that kept cropping up when people talked about music. Not the classical music we were forced to do in music lessons, or the school song, but, you know, the proper rock and pop music we were all listening to. That name was Ian Dench and the band was “Apple Mosaic”. I have a distant memory of seeing them perform, but it wasn’t until I’d left school and was studying in Sheffield that I heard about a new band from back home called “EMF”. They’d released a single called “Unbelievable”, which in 1990, was playing everywhere. The guitarist in the band happened to be Ian Dench. Now, formerly of Apple Mosaic

Fast-forward thirty years and its 2020. A big anniversary for that famous track and I’m in the Gloucester Guildhall reminiscing with some fans who were at the venue back in 1990 when EMF recorded the video for the single. As part of that, I’d arranged to interview Ian over zoom as he was living in London. One of the joys of my job as a BBC journalist is that you get to meet and talk to some of the people who shaped the world around you as you were growing up. This was one of those moments and Ian was a delight to interview.

At the time they shot the video at the Guildhall in 1990, Ian said they were just excited to be there. “We didn’t know how successful Unbelievable was going to become. It was just our first single, it was meant to be a taster single to get things started and that video went on to become this huge thing. Every time I saw it, I was like ‘It’s the Guildhall, the arts centre in my little home town of Gloucester being shown in MTV in America’. When we went on tour one of our first gigs was at the Guildhall so it was a special place”.

EMF performed on and off in the intervening years but Ian had become hugely successful away from the band. He’d won an Ivor Novello award for co-writing Beyonce’s “Beautiful Liar” and had two Grammy award nominations. But you can never really escape EMF. Shortly after Ian had done the interview, EMF announced that they’d be getting back together for a small tour. Ian rang me up and asked if I’d be interested in going to one of their rehearsals for a piece for the BBC. He didn’t have to ask me twice so we met the band in a studio near Reading. What a great experience that was - getting to interview James and Ian (Derry was joining them later in the tour) about their time in Gloucester and forming a band that played a defining role in the 90s. James is now a music technology teacher in a secondary school in the north, but he’s not lost his EMF roots at all. And this was, I’d worked out, the fifth reunion of the band!

“I’m glad you’re keeping count”, James laughed, “I guess that’s why it feels like EMF is an unfinished story. We’re just carrying on.”

And with time comes a different perspective on who they and the band are.

“I think we’ve got nothing to prove,” Ian said. “We know who we are, we’re a bit older, we’re doing it for the fans and for ourselves and it just feels great. Its better like that than having all the pressure of record companies, and chart positions.”

“It’s a nice feeling now when you walk on stage,” added James. “I was a bit apprehensive when we did the 30th anniversary shows but within 30 seconds of us starting the set everyone sang along to all the songs. What a wonderful thing to still be able to do.”

And many of the fans came back for more. On the recent tour, the band recognised many of the faces singing back at them from all those years ago.

“Our music is still part of their lives and when they start singing to every word it’s like, this has really impacted people. It’s as much part of their lives as it is ours.” said Ian.

There was one question I had to ask James and Ian as they were sitting together and that was “Who was better EMF or Apple Mosaic?”

OK, it was a cheeky question but James was straight in an answer. “Oh, without doubt Apple Mosaic!” Ian laughed out loud but James said “When Ian’s sat down writing guitar parts I go ‘It sounds like Apple Mosaic’!”

Ian was very gracious but told James he was obviously glad they’d met and EMF become what it did. He also reminded James of his band, Faces of Glory. The band that Apple Mosaic had beat in a battle of the bands at Churchdown village hall!

There are many, many great stories but I think one that sticks in my mind is one Ian told in the school hall at this year’s Old Cryptians’ dinner. When I was president, there’s always a challenge to get a guest speaker and Ian was lovely enough to accept my offer. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, my dinner didn’t happen, but we kept the booking for this year. Ian was a fabulous dinner guest and speaker but did something special, which perhaps wasn’t a surprise. He brought his guitar to illustrate his talk. So much better than a PowerPoint Ian told a story of the well-loved Nigel Coombes, English teacher tomany of us, who loaned him some of his jazz and blues albums. This will come as no surprise to any of us who know Nigel. Ian said this led him on a path to discover the blues and played a few bars for us. It was then at a five schools disco in the canteen at Crypt in the 70’s that Ian walked in in his flares with a penchant for a bit of disco and he heard a piece of music that changed his life. Pretty Vacant by the Sex Pistols, which Ian then played for us in the school hall. To my knowledge, this is the first time that has happened live!

The rest is history, but if it wasn’t for Mr Coombes and that now fateful Five School’s Disco, who knows what might have been?!

The day after the dinner, I was hosting an event back at the Guildhall celebrating the success of Tom Berkeley from Gloucester who had just won an Oscar for his short film; “An Irish Goodbye” Tom was flying back in from LA with his co-writer for a special screening of the film followed by a Q&A with me. As we arrived, we were ushered into the dressing room underneath the stage and I was keen to see the Oscar. I took a photo with it and then realised I should send it to Ian. In the background, a poster for EMF’s gig at the Guildhall back in 2012! The band and the venue still inextricably linked!

You can catch up with all of the news about EMF at emf-theband.com and see more of the interviews on Steve’s YouTube channel - just search for “Steve Knibbs BBC”

The Anthony Iles Endowment Fund

The Anthony Isles Endowment Fund looks after a legacy left for the benefit of the Crypt School.

Anthony Iles grew up in Gloucester, close to the school and after studying at the Crypt eventually worked in America where he had a successful career in the aeronautics industry. You can find out more about him here on the Crypt School website.

https://www.cryptschool.org/development-and-fundraising/the-anthony-iles-endowment-fund

The fund currently stands at around £1.3 million and is managed by a professional investment management firm overseen by the Fund Trustees. The role of the Trustees is to oversee the investment manager, balancing the need to retain the inflation adjusted principle donated to the school against assessing the needs and requests from the school for funds to invest in capital projects and other initiatives to benefit the school as a whole.

We recently agreed to release a sum of money to refurbish some of the upstairs classrooms in the school that are in fairly desperate need of repair.

Whilst the Fund is not directly associated with the Old Cryptians’ Club nor the Old Cryptians’ Club Centenary Bursary Fund 2001 we are very supportive of it and are happy to provide any additional information.

Simon Smith

Steve Knibbs

D.G.W. ‘Bill’ Williams - Headmaster [1920-1950]

I am grateful to Charlie Hannaford for the invitation to write a portrait of ‘Bill’ to accompany the latest section [1943-1944] of his splendid history of the Second World War and the role of Old Cryptians who served in that most destructive of combats.

The move to Podsmead took place in September 1943. The transfer from Friar’s Orchard, 80 years ago, at the height of the Second World War, was organised and led by the headmaster, D.G. Williams.

Perhaps this affords the Crypt School Foundation the opportunity to consider naming the School Hall – the D.G.W. Williams Hall - in recognition of the headmaster’s immeasurable service to the Crypt School during the years of his headship 1920-1950.

I must be among a handful of Old Cryptians who have survived long enough to have been students during the latter years of ‘Bill’s’ remarkable headship. I plan to begin with some personal memories and then to proceed to an assessment of the broad range of the headmaster’s achievements.

** ‘Bill’ was the name by which the boys always referred to him.

Some personal recollections [1947-1950]

I made my first acquaintance of the headmaster in the early autumn of 1947 when I commenced my career at The Crypt. I was yet another former pupil of Calton Road Primary School – and an early beneficiary of the 1944 Education Act.

The headmaster ambled down the unfinished school hall midst clouds of cement dust and climbed up onto the small platform that served as the base for his delivery of morning assembly. After a short greeting the headmaster – I was later to discover was not a practising Christian – read as I was became accustomed to experience at many assemblies - the collect for the day.

My recollection of my headmaster that has stood the test of time is of a gentleman who was of the generation of my late grandfather. His Oxonian M.A. gown was very faded and in part in ribbons, his shoes were broken down at the heels and unpolished - and to cap it all when travelling to and from school he wore an old faded coat and a very tatty trilby hat. However all this belied the true personality, beliefs and leadership that ‘Bill’ provided during his remarkable years of headship. He was natural leader, classical scholar, philosopher and later in life an existentialist poet.

I was fortunate to be taught by ‘Bill’. Firstly, when in 3A he was our Latin teacher and we were introduced to translation via the myths of Ancient Rome. I recall, for example, his wonderful rendition on the Minotaur.

Later on our revered headmaster emerged out of retirement to cover for staff illness when we were in the Sixth Form and studying for an ‘O’ level in Latin. At our first lesson with him, at once, he announced with a mischievous grin that his presence represented the return of the ‘ancien regime’. For young aspirant historians in the small group his choice of words was exciting.

We so enjoyed our sessions with ‘Bill’ as he could be diverted easily and ever willing to share his vast knowledge on philosophical topics. My good friend, Alec Eason, in time a professor in law at Kingston University in Canada, was very adept in asking ‘Bill’ leading questions. For example, on one occasion he prompted ‘Bill’ to digress on existentialism. ‘Bill’ did so with his customary subtle grin assuring us all that we would not be on his wave length. Happy days!

My final recollection of ‘Bill’ was on the day of his retirement in July 1950. He strolled down the hall arm in arm with Bill Keeble- a colleague since 1923 - to rapturous applause and cheering from an excited full house of Cryptians. He made a short address as ever adorned by a sample of his inimitable humour.

An Assessment of the Headship of D.G.W.

David Gwynne Williams was born in Carmarthen in 1886, the son of Reverend John Alexander Williams; he began his education at Llandovery College, and from there he won an Open Scholarship in Classics to Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

Predictably he took a coveted First Class Degree in 1909. He came to The Crypt in 1920 from the prestigious Bradford Grammar School where he had been Senior Classics master.

The success of any school will be dependent always on the skilful leadership of the headmaster and his skill in his recruitment of teachers of highquality. D.G.W. was a shrewd judge of applicants for teaching posts at the school. Several prime appointments were soon made. These became the doyens of the staff room and in time were to become ‘giants’ in the school through their wonderful curricular and extra-curricular inputs to the life of the school. Nine were to serve 30 or more years and of this group two were to serve forty years or more. All this is indicative of their respect and confidence in the leadership of the headmaster.

Each of these outstanding teachers deserve a full account of their work, however, space does not permit such an approval. In the first decade of the headship such legendaries as J.T. Whiteley [1921-1962], E.R. Maude [19211957], S.P. Ball [1924-1944], H.N. Siggee [1925-1956], W.N. Morgan-Brown [1929-1949] and last but not least, W.H. Keeble [1920-1950] joined the illustrious staff room.

The headmaster was believed to have justified the appointment of the former P.T.I. - ‘Bill’ Keeble – as Director of Physical Education on the grounds that he would alter the appearance of ’flat chested boys so that they would bear comparison with the ‘strapping girls of Denmark Road High School.’

In the 1930s several major appointments were to follow – each in turn to become pillars of the school and the OCC. These were: A.C. Paget

[1930-1968], A.l.C. Smith [1930-1967], A.W. Walton [ 1931-1970], W.H. Hook [1931-1947] and H.E. Dawes [1931-1967].

As Charles Lepper so aptly described the school in his splendid The Crypt School [1989] this was a Golden Age in the story of The Crypt and central to that achievement was the impact of D.G.W.

Like all successful headmasters the management of change is central to their style of operation. D.GW. was soon at work with the introduction of essential curricular reforms. Classics remained central to the teaching/learning process but the headmaster ensured that greater emphasis was placed on mathematics, science, modern languages, history, geography and the creative arts. In addition, he appointed specialist heads of department to oversee the implementation of the work within their departments.

The range of scholastic success during headship of D.G.W. is quite remarkable. More than sixty scholarships and/or exhibitions were awarded by Oxbridge Colleges and in addition a countless number of first class degrees were won by the students in the Sixth Form. In 1939 there were no more than 350 boys on roll and the sixth form was small in number. Much credit must go to the headmaster who set the ethos and climate for such scholastic success. D.G.W. was personally responsible for the tutoring of the most able classicists and the success rate of his students for Oxbridge is simply astonishing.

Extra curricular

His energy extended, too, beyond the classroom. In 1923 the introduction of rugby football was made in place of association football. The headmaster came from a famous Welsh rugby playing school - Llandovery College. He had played wing-three-quarter for his school and for Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

A.C. Paget (1921-28) and in time a legend in the staff room for over thirty years, a brilliant teacher of mathematics and superb games coach, recalled that a ‘Demonstration Rugby Match’ was arranged. The headmaster played in this game and as A.C.P. added ‘during the game the Head was brought down by a terrific flying tackle. I think that convinced everyone present that we would enjoy rugby.’

Shortly afterwards the OCRFC was formed in 1925. From this stable emerged three internationals – Grahame Parker, Charlie Hannaford and Peter Butler - whilst three won ‘Blues’ and countless other players represented Gloucester RFC and the Gloucestershire RFU and/or the Western Counties.

Standards and authority

No narrative about the career of D.G.W. would be complete without reference to his system for the implementation and retention of high standards conduct within the school. Miscreants were placed in the weekly detention or the monthly detention that was held on Saturday mornings at the school. The head also used corporal punishment – in popular parlance – ‘the Dabs’. The head was the sole administrator of this punishment with one stroke of the cane on the palm of the hand or more if the offence merited it.

The headmaster also made a clear statement, for example, in 1934 about his wide span of authority stretching beyond the school gates. He wrote to all parents thus that during term-time ‘boys may not attend any dance without obtaining the permission of the Headmaster in advance nor during term-time boys may not attend any cinema except on a Saturday.’

Clearly the headmaster was fearful of the potential ‘bad influence’ of the emergent ‘Golden Plated Palaces’ such as the Plaza in Eastgate Street that might divert his students from an appropriate moral set of values.

However there was a philanthropic side to D.G.W. This is so well illustrated by an account given to me by my old friend, John Crowe [1936-42]. John died in 2019, at the age of 96. He wrote a memoir shortly prior to his death. He told me that his father died when he was seven years old and life was difficult for his widowed mother.

To the rescue came D.G.W. who wrote to Mrs Crowe in 1936 when John reached the scholarship age of 11 years informing her that there would be none of the customary fees and other charges during his years at the Crypt.

John told me that without this help he would never have gone to the Crypt School. He proceeded to become Treasurer of I.C.I. John also remarked that ‘The Crypt not only gave me an excellent formal education but also gave me a set of values which have stood me in good stead throughout my life.’

John became a generous benefactor to the school and OCC. He was a past president of the OCC and a Hon Life Member. His name adorns now the Business Studies Rooms. There were several other students who benefitted like John from the foresight and compassion of their headmaster. As ever headmasters and teachers can never be sure of the stimulation they give to aspirant young persons who have passed through their hands. The impact of D.G.W. on the lives of countless generations of Cryptians is immeasurable.

Conclusion

In conclusion there are two other major changes in the story of the Crypt that must ever be associated with D.G.W. These are his key role in moving the school in 1943 to its fourth home at Podsmead. The pressures on him in achieving this feat during the height of the war and into unfinished buildings were immense. He was not helped by the critics of the move – those set in their traditionalist mould of thinking. For D.G.W. this move presented fresh opportunities for the school - as he said ‘now set in green fields with light and space and not too far from the centre of Gloucester.’

The Education Act [1944] posed a major challenge to the headmaster. The Act provided free secondary education for all children above the age of eleven. In addition there could be no fee-payers under the age of eleven. Thus the Junior School had to be phased out. The headmaster led the school through these dramatic changes including his opposition to any move to remove the selective status of the school. At the end of the day D.G.W. was central to the organization of the school along selective lines and fully maintained by the local authority and central government. This gave the Crypt a fresh start and was so instrumental in its success for the rest of the century and beyond.

Recognition

By any yardstick or criteria the achievements of D.G.W. are remarkable. Beyond his incredible 30 years of service and leadership in the most demanding office of headmaster, D.G.W. created the modern version of the highly successful Crypt School. His legacy stands on a pinnacle and beyond revision.

The Old Cryptians Club Dinner in 1950 was the last as Headmaster for D.G.W. George Baker (1888-1904), a Senior Past President and School Governor on this occasion spoke

for all Cryptians when he said ‘no Headmaster of the Crypt School stood higher or shone with greater lustre than that of D.G. Williams.’

In 1950 on his retirement his professional colleagues made presentations to the Headmaster and a card that was so reflective in their united appreciation and affection for their leader and friend. [Insert copy of signed card 4.13]

I believe that there is now a strong case for giving D.G.W. - a long overdue public memorial at the school – by naming the School Hall – ‘D.G. Williams Hall’. I urge that the 1539 Crypt School Foundation and OCC give due consideration to my plea.

Howard Allen [1947-55].

A Former Editor of the Cryptian.

Postscript

We must not overlook D.G.W.’s brilliant creation of the School Song in Latin in 1926. This was set to music by a former Organist of Gloucester Cathedral, C. Lee-Williams. The Song, with its refrain ’Vivat , Schola Cryptiensis - Vivat in Perpetuum’ has been sung at virtually every Old Cryptian gathering ever since.

Tree planting for the queens jubilee

On Saturday 19th November, a group of pupils, parents, staff and Old Cryptians met to plant the 30 trees we received as part of the The Queen's Green Canopy

The day before, the school ground staff had marked out two rows 5 metres apart and 5 metres between planned plantings.

We quickly organised into planting teams; one to place the cane, one to split the soil and one to plant the sapling - a production line!

We were sent 15 silver birch, 8 mountain ash (rowan) and 7 wild cherry. We planted the rowan and cherry nearest the drive as they will be shorter and provide plenty of colour through the year. The row at the back being all silver birch which will provide plenty of height and grow quite quickly.

The trees should grow with little or no maintenance, but we'll keep an eye on them and remove any competing weeds in the first year and to make sure they remain as growing trees rather than potential grazing for the wildlife. If anyone would like a biology and geography project, it would be good to plot each tree (what3words perhaps?) and monitor and record its height through the years. Perhaps we could even have a sponsor a tree opportunity.

The Crypt School The Old Cryptians’ Club

Very special thanks to Bob and Lesley Smith, Pankas Agarwal, Lystra Maisey and Raffie Ludlow-Maisey, Luke, Michelle, Andrew, Linda and Dave Goscombe (great family effort), Nick and Sam Perkins, Steve Knibbs and Adam Ashby for making the time to help the project.

Adam Ashby (1973-78)

Charity

Charities are in our faces: dogs, cats, bears, children at home and abroad, food bank, earthquake victims, war refugees, the blind, medical research – an apparently endless list of woe, deprivation, need and poverty seeking help. Then of course we also live with charities - the Crypt itself, the Bursary Fund, DeCrypt, churches, hospitals, scouts, youth clubs, lifeboats…They all have an agreed charitable purpose which one way or another involves support and helpfulness to individuals, animals, institutions, buildings indeed virtually anything although there can be an emphasis on suffering and the needy. Whether you are aware of it or not, all this is carried out within the prescriptions of the Charity Commission and Company Law.

The numbers involved are substantial: over 400,000 registered charities in the UK and very many more unregistered. An employed workforce of over 1 million and an estimated 5 million volunteer supporters; annual income ranging from tiny sums to hundreds of millions of £s, and in 2017, it was estimated that nearly one third of the population had benefitted from or were using their services. It could well be more now. Church collections and Poppy Day appeals are familiar to everyone but there are now many other bodies out there seeking your support.

I have played some small part in charities, particularly so at a time when current modes of charity operation were in their infancy and the unexpected detail and the issues then involved are of an interest I think worth sharing.

At Oxford I had had some small interactions with the Quakers who were in the process of getting Oxfam off the ground and the United Nations Refugee organisation but these were more intellectual curiosity about their motivation than any real understanding of the reality of the their ambitious targets. That the totality of the university itself was a product of charity even as an historian never crossed my mind.

My first real life encounter was as a newly recruited and very minor cog in a vast industrial organisation in the early 1960s. I was introduced to the administration of a charity which compensated all those who had worked in research on a novel chemical substance called Alpha Naphthylamine, important as a precursor dyestuff for cloth, which by hindsight also proved to be a virulent carcinogen. The research work had been carried out in the laboratories of the Dyestuffs Division of ICI, then the largest chemical manufacturer in the UK. Dyestuffs sounds archaic now but then was at a scientific forefront of the chemistry which was leading to pharmaceutical drugs and indeed the nascent Astra Zeneca had just been separated by ICI from the dyestuffs research. This had been edge of knowledge research, unknowingly hazardous with large numbers of the scientists and laboratory staff developing acute bladder cancer leading, then, to death. The charity was in the context of the time a generous endeavour to compensate their families but many carried on working and I was in the privileged but uncomfortable position of working alongside some of them.

Some years later in the 1980s, I was working in an international pharmaceutical research company, the Wellcome Foundation that was headquartered in London but with factories across both England and Scotland as well as round the world. It was wholly owned by a

charity, the Wellcome Trust, then not rich but which now is the largest funder of medical research in Europe. The Foundation was the commercial arm, the profits from which funded the Trust. (The Foundation Board table now sits in the school Crush Hall.) This was a time when the industrial and financial policies of Margaret Thatcher were closing down old industries and ailing firms acrossthe country with little or no provision for support or alternative employment. The inevitable corollary was massive unemployment especially for young people. This outraged my Chairman, (later Sir) Alfred Shepperd who passionately believed that a successful enterprise could only function effectively in a healthy society. He persuaded the Wellcome Trust and the Foundation Board to set up a fund of £1m (now in 2023 perhaps £3.5m) to intervene in the endemic youth employment scene in the UK and in some way alleviate the hardship. The job of actually spending it was added to my portfolio - with the criterion, not unreasonably, that I had to spend it productively.

But what was productive? At that time there was little or no experience of identifying needs which could be productively turned into some sort of wealth creation and jobs. The traditional charities endeavoured to ameliorate poverty and ill health by contributing cash but this was an emollient not a cure. Larger funds engaged in construction projects aimed at improving the environment with an expectation that this would be of community benefit – the Prince’s Trust feeling its way with the Westway Project, converting the space under a new motorway in North London to amenity and office space, was an example. Organisations like Business in the Community and Fullemploy had ideas but little successful experience. Large sums were already being poured into projects with charitable intent but closer scrutiny showed that whatever the motivation, the outcome in identifiable benefit terms was like pouring water on to sand - it then disappeared without discernible change.

Now there are whole university programmes available on managing charitable enterprises but then there was nothing so we were starting from scratch. We set ourselves the target of injecting cash and expertise in a way that produced a multiplier effect and to do this, we needed to draw on all the disciplines of Wellcome’s employees. We set up two parallel targets for our streams of investment. One was to find and support young entrepreneurs and, in particular those with a disadvantaged background. So this was about injecting supportive skills and knowledge and possibly small amounts of cash. The second was identifying local or national initiatives stymied usually from the lack of an initial injection of cash or expertise to get them off the ground.

We fumbled around pretty unsuccessfully for nearly nine months before we began to find our feet and, in that time, endured mounting criticism at our seeming inability to give away money. At the front of our project (unexpectedly) emerged a Personnel (HR now) Officer who proved to have an incredible ability to identify and match successfully the potential in commercial and social projects involving the most unlikely combinations of people. She found these by plunging into the morass of people and ideas struggling to rise out of abject poverty and deprivation often drug related and sometimes more dangerous than in our innocence we realised from our own industrial comfort zone. The combinations she identified we then assessed and if we agreed that they had potential, then carefully resourced with tailored legal andfinancial assistance and on occasion drafting in managers as a training forum: managing small community projects in often hostile, certainly alien and even lawless environments required the development of a set of commercial, entrepreneurial and team building skills which were ideal for numbers of our overseas postings particularly to third world territories. We worked to the principle that the projects we took forward had to be self-sustaining in their own right: charity was ephemeral but a solid bottom line was for an enduring reality. Dozens of small enterprises were thus

nourished to the point of managerial and financial independence in almost every conceivable sector of activity.

Our other stream of activity is more easily describable, so what were some examples of our successes? We only got to these by carefully examining all the learning from our disasters of which initially there were too many. Actually, the near and actual disasters were fascinating and complex studies in themselves but would take inordinately long to set down and even then would have to be vetted for libel. Suffice to say that we found that the artistic scene was dangerous but anything to do with fashion – lethal!

On the positive side, we invented the concept of the inner city garden centre – literally the fruit of astute observation and deduction by one of our marketeers of the numbers of plants brought into the office. The Camden Garden Centre was the first of its kind in the inner city and the concept was seized by multiples of entrepreneurs who then exploited what until then had been regarded as a contradiction in terms. Immensely profitable, not only did the Camden Centre generate funds for other projects, it also took on apprentice gardeners.

We invented the loan guarantee for small businesses by which the start up cash for the business came as a loan from an otherwise reluctant bank because we guaranteed its repayment within a set period to enable the fledgling business to get on its feet. Our assessments of risk proved right because although I can remember some hairy moments, in the end I do not recollect any instance that we had to produce the cash. By hindsight, I think we were very lucky.

One early success arose from our own research doctors pointing us in the direction of an NHS team who had identified a way of providing essential support to overworked nurses by inventing and defining the role of a nursing assistant. There it had stalled in the bureaucracy. We were impressed by the work and funded the trials and then the evaluation of the role of Care Assistant in the NHS, a revolution in clinical practice at the time and generating very large numbers of jobs.

We, with one other organisation, funded Julia Middleton to enable the start of the Common Purpose Movement, a network of links between professionals, developing leaders who can work across boundaries between specialisms, sectors, beliefs and continents. Increasingly significant now, it has well over 100,000 alumni. This decision was born out of a discussion Julia and I had on a train journey together back from a conference, a quite usual way of first hearing of a project.

With Prince Charles, we subsumed his existing small Disability organisation into a wider one built round a charismatic and inspired activist on disability, Susan Scott Parker who fiercely guarded her independence from any organising body. Tricky to say the least because we had to start from nothing, putting together a Board of representatives from major industries, forming a legal entity authorised by the Charities Commission, begging for office space for our staff whilst Charles publicised our fund raising. The resulting organisation successfully captured all that Susan had to offer and, as the Employers Forum on Disability, rapidly attracted most major employers in the UK as well as many niche organisation. Our impact on the understanding of how to recruit and employ people with disabilities was profound and recognised at the most senior levels. We worked closely with government and John Major as Prime Minister fronted one of our launches. My own move to the Inspectorate of Constabulary caused the Home Office to declare a conflict of interest and my potential successor Eddie George, then the Governor of the Bank of England and a keen supporter, was vetoed by the Treasury for the same reasons but the Chief Executive

of Macdonalds (Europe) was keen to pick up the reins. Now called the Business Disability Forum, it covers some eight million people worldwide.

The Learning from Experience Trust was another fascinating project. The Trust was founded by the first Vice Chancellor of Lancaster University, (Sir) Charles Carter supported by Professor Norman Evan. Concerned that the closure of the mining industry in particular was leaving many highly skilled underground workers who were without any formal qualification jobless, they set up a process to record the working experiences of these men and translate them into academic credits which in turn could be used for university entry. The first tranche emerged from university with first class engineering degrees and the process was extended to other similar groups of those with high levels of experience but few or no relevant qualifications in a wide range of professions and skills. By a long process of direct consultation with Vice Chancellors, conferences and research articles, the APEL process (Accreditation of Prior Learning) was eventually accepted by all UK universities (with the exception of Oxford and Cambridge) and as a clarification of status in some scientific professions. I took over as Chairman from Charles Carter and with a Board that included politicians like Shirley Williams and the vice Chancellors of the Universities of Westminster, Sussex, Kent and SOAS, and with offices provided by Anglia, Goldsmiths and then Birkbeck, we continued to research and develop new applications until national changes in funding such projects meant we could no longer continue. APEL remains in place as a ladder for the unqualified but experience rich to secure university entrance.

A somewhat chancy meeting with a local authority persuaded us to fund a full scale survey of the newly disused limestone quarries near to Dartford which in turn enabled the vision and construction of the vast Bluewater shopping centre which remains enormously successful.

One unanticipated product of our successes was involvement in a series of government or industry led projects. For example, with (Lord) Kenneth Baker as Minister of Education, founding one of the first City Technology Colleges next to the large Wellcome manufacturing site at Dartford; setting up the Chemical Industry Education Centre at the University of York; operating on the London Business School Enterprise Board; part funding the start up of the very successful Scottish Business in the Community; and helping to develop national schemes now long superseded or forgotten like Education Business Partnerships, Head Start in Business, Responsible Care, TECs and Investors in People, all of which at the time delivered benefit against our targets. For me personally, being able to be part of initiating and developing these fascinating projects as a part of my job was enormously satisfying.

In retirement, things change and to an extent dangerously so because working as a volunteer, one is no longer protected by employment law. Charities in pursuit of their purposes can be quite ruthless in the way they go about things and exploit people justifying it as all for the greater good. Non-executive directorships sound prestigious but one is entirely dependent on the executive for the accurate information to govern and that unfortunately is often far from the case. That applies across all companies as well as charities and the steady catalogue in the newspapers of disasters on that front only underline the danger. Usually it is ineptitude rather than deception but it is the nonexecutive Director who is held to account. Having said that, it still remains very satisfying to contribute analysis and experience to a variety of causes. If you get the opportunity, seize it but make sure you know the rules first!.

Peter Hobbs (1949-57)

Budding bestsellers – Paul James and Matt Cass

One of the things I decided I would do when I stood down as a councillor was to write up the story of Gloucester’s regeneration over the last 25 to 30 years. I wanted to do that so it is there for the record, so those in charge now and in the future can learn from what we got right and what didn’t go so well – and because, in my view, with all the twists and turns and the characters involved it’s actually quite a compelling story.

The Covid lockdown gave me an opportunity to start on it a bit earlier than I’d planned. Lots of people, it seems, used lockdown to write books. 200,000 a year are now published in the UK and Amazon lists nearly 33 million books from around the world – so it’s a crowded market! Online self-publishing platforms make getting a book into print easier and less risky than it was previously. Three years on, I’m still working on it – although I am now very close to the finishing line. I knew it would take some time, but I hadn’t fully appreciated how long it would need to put all of the jigsaw pieces together. A lot of it I was involved with directly, but there’s also plenty where I was either on the fringes or that pre-dated my time as Leader or Cabinet Member for Regeneration, so I’ve researched online, at Gloucestershire’s Heritage Hub and by interviewing well over 100 people.

One thing leads to another. When I was having a pint with my good friend and Crypt School contemporary Matt Cass and told him about what I was doing, he said he’d like to write a book too. I told him he had the contents for one already written – his daily tonguein-cheek Facebook ‘Lockdown Diary’ posts, based on a ‘Zombie Apocalypse’, which had amused his friends and followers and helped to bring some light relief to a trying time. Matt quickly turned this into a book, which is available on Amazon and has sold around the world. Well, some of his friends who live abroad have bought a copy! Matt donated the proceeds from his book, and a bit more on top, to NHS Charities.

Matt had another idea. It was inspired by the story of the Battle of Imjin River in the Korean War and the role the Gloucestershire Regiment played in holding back the Chinese advance. There is a $5 million memorial to the Glosters in South Korea, near to where the battle took place. In May 2014, the memorial was unveiled by the then Mayor of Gloucester, Old Cryptian Chris Chatterton, and his Korean counterpart. It caused Matt to reflect on the impact Gloucester has had around the world and the interesting facts and stories about the city that most people who live here just don’t know. Another link between The Crypt and the Korean War is that I remember during my time at the school when General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley was Guest of Honour at Speech Day. Farrar-Hockley provided inspiring leadership during the Battle of Imjin River, spent two years as a prisoner of war and was mentioned in dispatches. At the time, I hadn’t really appreciated who he was, but I now realise he was a real hero.

I’m no historian (I haven’t even got GCSE History), but as Leader of Gloucester City Council for over 12 years and a councillor for 24, I was exposed to more information about the city than most. Matt’s idea was for a book about 100 of the most interesting bits of information about the city that we could come up with. It didn’t take long to think of 100 and the challenge was what to leave out! We settled on calling it ‘100 Facts, Myths and Legends About Gloucester’. We managed to get it done in around three months and it is now available on Amazon and for sale at Gloucester Cathedral, the Museum of Gloucester,

Without wishing to give too much away, it does contain a fair few Crypt School references – from the perhaps obvious ones of Henley and Whitefield to Sir Robin Day and a more recent link with the children’s programme, ‘Paw Patrol’.

At the time of writing, Matt and I have published a Cotswolds edition of the same format. It took a bit more research, but was helped by the fact I now work for Cotswold District Council, heading up their Economic Development function. Crypt School links were a bit harder to find for this one!

I still haven’t finished my book about the city’s regeneration, but that will definitely mention some Old Cryptians, like my former councillor colleagues Andrew Gravells, Martyn White and the late Colin Organ, the now retired Head of Leisure Steve Elway, ex-Marketing Gloucester Chief Executive Jason Smith, quantity surveyor Steve Tandy and architects Jeff Roberts and Stephen Limbrick.

People in the business tell me that, unless you’re Jeffrey Archer, J K Rowling or Prince Harry, you shouldn’t expect to make much money from writing a book. But there is a real sense of achievement in seeing your own words in print and on the shelves in local shops. I’ll be pleased when the marathon of writing my book on the regeneration of the city is over. I’ve still got a few ideas in the bank for what might come next, but I don’t think I’ll embark on a subject that needs quite so much research again any time soon!

Paul James.

Here is a link to the Amazon page for ‘100 Facts, Myths and Legends About Gloucester’: https://amzn.eu/d/3vpS5cl, ‘100 Facts, Myths and Legends About the Cotswolds’ https://amzn.eu/d/foKVTeV and for ‘Zombie Apocalypse – A Covid 19 Lockdown Diary’: https://amzn.eu/d/6hsck2K

WW2 – Reflections from 1943-1944

Eighty years on from WWII. Some reflections on the Crypt School and Old Cryptians

In 1943, pupils and staff returned from their holidays for the last Spring and Summer Terms at Friars’ Orchard, behind St Mary de Crypt and between Southgate Street and Brunswick Road, in the centre of Gloucester. They continued to follow the progress of the war in the USSR, North Africa, the Far East and the Pacific, in the newspapers and on wireless radio. The six-month Battle of Stalingrad on the river Volga, deep in Russia during the bitter winter, was the bloodiest battle in the history of warfare. The Germans suffered over 350,000 casualties whilst the Russians lost over a million. In February 1943, after being besieged for two months, the German forces surrendered and 100,000 became prisoners of war, of which only 5,000 returned. It was clear that Adolf Hitler’s reckless gamble had failed. Once again, he blamed his generals, allies and the Luftwaffe for its failure to carry out Hermann Goering’s overoptimistic promise to supply the trapped Sixth Army. This

The Folk of Gloucester, The Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum, The House of the Tailor of Gloucester and Discover DeCrypt.

crushing defeat was a huge psychological blow and Hitler and indeed did Goering, retreated from public life.

The success of the combined USA and British amphibious landings in Morocco and Algeria, as well as the advancing Eighth Army, after the victory at El Alamein in October 1942, led to the French colonies joining the Free French forces of General de Gaulle. Hitler responded by taking control of Vichy France and forcing them to allocate over half a million citizens to join the two million POW’s working in Germany. As a result, many joined the Resistance movement. At the major strategic conference at Casablanca in January 1943 the Allied Joint Chiefs of Staff were deeply divided on many issues. However, President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill managed to agree on some major decisions, which would dictate the progress of the war effort for 1943-1944. The U-boats were rampant in the Atlantic and Churchill insisted that a cross-Channel invasion in 1943 was unrealistic and a premature assault could prove a catastrophe. The invasion of Sicily was given the go ahead which would keep the troops in action. The invasion, much favoured by the Americans, was delayed until the Spring of 1944. Joseph Stalin had been promised by the USA that this would happen in 1943 and he was furious. There was a real fear that Stalin might be tempted to make a deal with Adolf Hitler, as he had done in 1939. The result was the controversial ‘unconditional surrender’ statement made by Roosevelt. However, it was accepted that more shipping and resources should be directed to the Pacific theatre and the war with Japan. Hitler refused to withdraw troops from Tunisia and on May 7th, after the Americans and British had surrounded Tunis, the Axis forces, starved of resources surrendered. Over 225,000 prisoners including the experienced Africa Korps were taken. This delay meant that the amphibious landings on Sicily did not take place until July.

After Stalingrad, the Germans were forced to withdraw from the Caucuses, thus ending the dream of Hitler to capture the oilfields. However, he refused to withdraw over 200,000 troops from the Crimea to strengthen the eastern defences. They would become prisoners in April 1944. The Russians advanced 150 miles westwards towards Kiev on the river Dnieper in the Ukraine, but the heavy rains brought a halt in the spring. Now nearly three million Axis forces with 2,500 tanks, including the latest Tiger tanks, were facing the Red Army of five and a half million troops, with many more T-34 tanks. What the Germans had not appreciated was that the huge industrial military complex beyond the Urals was outproducing them. Also, by this time the Lend-Lease supplies from America, especially jeeps and trucks, were arriving via the Arctic convoys, Persia and Vladivostok in large numbers. Hitler, desperate for a victory, planned a summer offensive in which the German forces were to envelope a million Russian forces in the Kursk salient, with a pincer movement from the north and south. However, the plans were deciphered at Bletchley Park where a soviet spy, one of the ‘Cambridge Five’, passed them on to Stalin. The Russians had time to prepare defensives in depth. They constructed 3,000 miles of trenches and laid vast minefields. The Russians struck first by bombing the airfields and on July 5th,1943 a huge artillery barrage opened-up. The battle developed into the biggest tank battle in history. It also saw a huge aerial battle which drained the resources of the Luftwaffe, struggling to find the fuel and trained pilots to combat the relentless day and night bombing in the west. The German offensive failed when unexpected tank reinforcements appeared in an effective counterattack. The Germans lost 50,000 men, however, the Russians lost 170,000, and many more tanks, but they were more easily replaced. Another gamble by Hitler had failed and now there were problems in Italy. Hitler again refused to retreat in order behind the river Dniester. He issued a series of ‘stand or die’ orders. However, Kiev was captured in November and the Germans were forced back in the south, but progress was stalled in winter. As they did, they carried out a scorched earth policy. By then they had rounded-up the populations, mainly women, and sent them as forced labourers to Germany whilst the Jews had been eliminated. Leningrad was finally liberated in January 1944 after a siege of 800 days, in which one million died, mainly

civilians, of hunger and disease. By the spring of 1944, there had been a further million German casualties in the east. At the Tehran Conference in November, Stalin agreed to initiate plans for a major offensive in the summer to support the cross-Channel invasion. In North Africa preparations were being made for the invasion of Sicily on July 10th.The film ‘Operation Mincemeat’ describes the extraordinary deception plan which had been set in motion in April. The aim was to convince the Germans that the next amphibious landings were to take place in Greece and Sardinia not in Sicily. The Americans and the Eighth Army surprised the enemy and the 50,000 men made steady progress. Charles Hill (192329) was in charge of a landing craft. Two weeks into the conflict Benito Mussolini was forced to resign by his Chiefs of Staff and King Victor Emmanuel and was imprisoned. By now Hitler ordered more elite divisions from the Russian front to protect his southern front. At the end of the Summer Term of 1943, Cryptians were saying their farewells, and some would embark on their training in the armed services. Rex Thomas (1935-43) was Head Prefect, Captain of the 1st XV and 1st XI as well as the Editor of ‘The Cryptian’, a unique achievement. He joined the Royal Navy as did David Bethell (1939-43) who was posted to the Pacific. The Crypt School had a great reputation for mathematics and science, with outstanding teachers, who produced excellent results at all levels in these challenging times. Douglas Brewer (1935-43), brother of Derek in Italy, was awarded the Townsend Scholarship and would become Professor of Physics at Sussex University. John Hearle (1933-43) was awarded an Exhibition to study at Cambridge and became a Professor of Physics at Manchester University. Fritz Bauchwitz (1940-43), later Bowers, and his brothers Hans (1940-44) and Klaus (1940-47) were members of a German-Jewish family who were refugees from Nazi Germany. He was awarded a Scholarship to study Physics at Cambridge. The technical skills necessary for aircrews meant that a high proportion of grammar-school boys joined the RAF. Ray Williams (1936-43) and Gerald Pates (193943), two distinguished Cryptians, served as ‘Bevin Boys’, who were selected by ballot to work in the coalmines.

After four years of disruption at Friars’ Orchard, the Crypt School was preparing to move from the bustling centre of Gloucester to the undeveloped fields of Podsmead. On reflection it was extraordinary that during the lowest points of the war, the construction of the Technical College on the school grounds went ahead and was opened in 1942. The Foundation Stone of the new school had been laid in 1939, 400 years after its origin in 1539. One of the most poignant acts was to remove the brass plaque which commemorated those Cryptians who had fallen in the First World War. There was a great deal of activity during the summer holidays, as school equipment and furniture had to be moved to the new, but uncompleted premises. Ribston Hall Girls School, based in Park Road, now took over the vacated Crypt buildings.

In Sicily, at the end of a five-week campaign during which 400,000 troops landed, victory was achieved on August 17th. Over 300,000 Italians were captured but unfortunately, 30,000 elite German troops escaped across to Italy. The armistice was signed by the Italians on September 8th and Italy was out of the war. A major aim of the Allied strategy had been achieved. Much of the Italian Navy, including 50 major warships and 55 submarines fled to Malta. The Germans now occupied Italy. There were 50 divisions tied down in Italy, Greece and Yugoslavia. Over a million Italians were sent to Germany as forced labourers where they were brutally treated. Others were used to construct the formidable Gustav Line, across the rugged Appennine mountain chain, south of Rome. On the following day, the Americans carried out amphibious landings at Salerno, south of Naples. Lt Commander Frederick Baker 1916-20), who had commanded a Tank Landing Craft in North Africa and Sicily was also involved at Salerno. However, they were pinned down on the beaches but after a week, over whelming numbers told as eventually 170,000 troops and 200 tanks landed. As British troops advanced from their landings further south, Naples was declared an ‘open city’ and the Germans withdrew north to the Gustav Line.

The Crypt School

The Old Cryptians’ Club

The delay in the Sicilian landings and the rapid response of Hitler meant that the optimistic aim of capturing Rome in 1943 was dashed as winter approached. However, other aims had been achieved. The Mediterranean was under the control of the Royal Navy, which meant that the Suez Canal could be used to circumvent the extended Cape of Good Hope route. This released vital merchant shipping and escort ships which were needed in the Pacific. The airfields in southern Italy were now in the range of Austria, the Balkans and most importantly, the oilfields of Romania. Flying Officer John Murphy (1931-40) was active in these raids and was killed in July 1944. Another underlying objective was to give support to Stalin by tying-down German divisions in Italy, which might otherwise be diverted to the USSR. After these defeats in the USSR, North Africa and Italy, Hitler’s physical and mental health deteriorated, and he relied more and more on amphetamines and opiates. These defeats meant that if the Allies could stay united then victory was inevitable.

In September 1943, the 370 Cryptians that moved into the new buildings were a mixture of those who had moved from Friars’ Orchard and the new entrants. They and the staff would have been following events in Italy with great interest. One of these was David Terry (1943-54) who joined the Junior School, aged eight. In a fascinating article in ‘The Cryptian’ in 2022, he mentioned that the fees for the Crypt school was five guineas whist those for St Thomas Rich’s, were five pounds. Three ex-Presidents of the Old Cryptians Club recorded their impressions. Reg Hunt (1943-50) and Staff (1961-62) joined the senior school, aged eleven and recalls: “I arrived by bicycle from Tredworth and was impressed by the long concrete drive, the packed bicycle sheds and the huge playground.” The vast majority cycled and with rationing still in place, this generation of Cryptians were very fit. There was no problem with obesity then! John Goodridge (1940-50) recalls: “The new school buildings were not complete because of the resulting shortage of builders and materials during the war.” Michael Pugh (1940-44) remembers: “When I got there, I was shocked as we could see that the place was half-finished.” The first intake listened to the growing list of those killed, at morning assembly and observed old boys returning on leave in their uniforms to see their former masters and the new school. This generation of pupils who arrived in these disruptive years under the outstanding leadership of the headmaster D.G.Williams (1920-50) would produce fifty scholarships and places at Oxbridge.

In 1942, there was huge concern about the heavy and increasing losses in the mid- Atlantic ‘Gap’ where wolf-packs of German U-boats operated. Growing numbers were on the rampage and the loss of ships and their cargoes increased, which meant that there were serious food and petrol shortages in the UK. The major problem was that the U-boats could not be detected on the surface by sonar, and they operated at night at greater speed. The fate of the convoy to which Signalman Henry Chamberlayne (1928-37) was attached is typical of the perilous situation at the time. From December 26th until the 28th, the convoy was under continual attack by eventually nineteen U-boats. His ship was torpedoed, and he was lost, aged twenty-two. However, a number of major events would radically alter the situation. By January 1943, coded messages sent by the U-boats via the new Enigma machine, known as Ultra, was finally cracked at Bletchley Park and new ‘computers’ were in place which greatly speeded up their encryption. Joe Wiltshire (1930-38) gained a Scholarship and a Double-First at Cambridge. He worked on radar research for the Admiralty which transformed the detection of U-boats. The Royal Navy and the RAF had been engaged in a bitter inter-service rivalry throughout 1942. Repeated requests for longrange bombers to combat the U-boat threat in the ‘Gap’ were turned down. The top priority was given to Bomber Command, led by the pugnacious Air Marshal Harris, who was supported by Churchill. Experienced escort commanders had demonstrated that when long-range bombers, fitted with radars were used, such as the American B-24 Liberator, U-boats were forced to dive. This made them slower and vulnerable to sonar detection by the growing number of escort ships and attack by improved ‘hedgehog’ depth-charges.

Robert Clarkson (1932-9) and John Allen (1937-40) were close friends and joined the Royal Navy and served in this conflict as officers. After Casablanca these bombers were released in numbers and by May 1943 the situation dramatically changed. Forty-one Uboats with experienced crews were sunk by the new strategy. Admiral Doenitz was forced to concede that the four-year ‘Battle for the Atlantic’ was lost and he withdrew his fleet due to the unsustainable losses. In total, 3,000 Allied ships were sunk, and 30,000 sailors perished. Sgt Derek Turner (1933-39) trained in Rhodesia as a navigator. His Wellington was part of a day-light raid in February 1943. The aim was to lay mines in the Bay of Biscay to impede the U-boat operations. He was only twenty-one and died with all his crew. Sgt William Cryer (1933-37) was the brother of Pilot Officer Eric Cryer (1921-30) who was killed in a flying accident in 1942. William was based in Nigeria with a Sunderland flying boat squadron. Their job was to patrol the West African coastal shipping lanes in search of submarines. In December 1943, his plane crashed into the sea and all the crew were killed. At Casablanca, it was also agreed that the USAAF and RAF would intensify the day and night bombing of cities and their industrial targets. Churchill was adamant that this was the only way to support the USSR in its death struggle in the east. By the end of July 1943, there had been forty major attacks where over 350, four-engine bombers, such as the Lancaster went on their gruelling flights. The Battle of the Ruhr started in March, but it soon became a heavily defended area and losses mounted. In July 1943, the RAF bombed Hamburg with incendiary bombs and 40,000 civilians were killed in the inferno. The clear intention was the de-housing of the workers. This was heralded as a great result. However, there was growing concern about this strategy. It was pointed out that in fifty consecutive days of the Blitz, the same number were killed. ‘Bomber’ Harris was convinced, mistakenly, that bombing alone would bring Germany to its knees. Despite widespread damage, the industrial capacity and morale of the population showed remarkable resilience. What was not realised that the appointment of Albert Speer as Minister of Armaments had increased war production in 1943 despite the bombing campaign. He totally transformed and rationalised the production of steel and war armaments especially tanks. After the heavy losses at Stalingrad, Hitler’s Head of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels called for ‘Total War’. More men were called up and women were conscripted to work in the armaments factories. The number of prisoners of war and forced labourers from occupied territories, sent to work in the factories and on the land in Germany, increased dramatically. It is estimated that 10 million men and women, a quarter of the work force toiled, often in appalling conditions. These were essential to maintain the military economy. Eventually austerity was finally accepted, and factories no longer produced items for domestic use.

The Battle of Berlin lasted from August to March 1944. Sgt Arthur Smith (1934-39) was part of the Pathfinder group as an air-gunner. They went ahead and identified the targets with flares which improved the effectiveness of the following bombers. In a major raid on Berlin in November 1943, the most dangerous and feared mission, his plane was shot down by a night-fighter with the loss of all the crew. Flying Officer Teddy Maidstone (193439) was a navigator in a Lancaster and was killed in January 1944 on a raid to Berlin. Sgt Ronald Brunsdon (1934-39) was a navigator in a Lancaster with the Pathfinders. He was killed in a raid on the Ruhr in September 1944. The USAAF in England grew in numbers. They continued to be convinced that their B-27 ‘Flying Fortress’, with their much-vaunted bomb-aimer system, would be more effective against specific military targets, by flying in daylight. However, this device proved much less successful than predicted in the cloud and smoke above their targets. They also had no air-cover from Allied fighters over Germany. The formation flying also provided much less protection from the flak and the German fighters than anticipated. By now a million young and older Germans were occupied in manning the flak and search light batteries. The constant day and night bombing severely limited the total production of armaments, but it came at a price. In the summer and autumn of 1943, the American and RAF losses increased, and morale was

low. One in five of the bomber crew were not expected to survive 30 missions. However, there was still no shortage of volunteers.

After the steady series of defeats on land and sea and the increase in bombing raids, Hitler assured the sceptics that his ‘wonder weapons’ would turn the tide. By the summer of 1943, aerial photography revealed the rocket research centre on the Baltic coast at Peenemunde. It was here that the V- 1 or ‘Doodlebug’ and the V-2 rockets were tested. The V-1 consisted of a pilotless jet engine plane with short wings and a speed of 350 mph and carried an 850 kg bomb. In August, the RAF bombed the site and delayed the production programme, which was moved to underground factories built and operated by slave labour in Germany. Flying Officer Peter Thompson (1934-37) participated in one of these raids. The next month his plane was hit by flak over Hanover, but he remained at the controls whilst three of his crew baled-out and became prisoners of war. He was killed with three other crew members.

In Italy, the Gustav Line was protected by mountains and three rivers whilst the winding roads were mined and covered by experienced troops. The winter rains arrived early and were constant, which created appalling muddy, disease-ridden trench like conditions for the Americans in the west and the British in the east. A major stumbling block was the area around the main road controlled by the town of Monte Cassino and the mountain above, where the ancient Benedictine Abbey, founded in 529 AD, was situated. A series of desperate assaults to break the line failed. The tensions between the American and British High commands increased further. The Americans had decided that the Italian campaign was a side show to the cross-Channel landings. Churchill’s claim that Italy would was the ‘soft underbelly’ of the Axis, proved to be incorrect. In January 1944, in an attempt, to break the deadlock, the Americans, reluctantly, made amphibious landings behind the Gustav Line at Anzio, which took the Germans by surprise. However, they responded quickly by shelling the beachhead day and night for weeks. An added problem was that the drained Pontine marshes were flooded, and malaria became an issue as trench warfare during the winter months ensued. The advance towards Rome, only fifty miles away, was bogged down for four months. In all, 7,000 Americans were killed and 36,000 wounded. Disease, frostbite and battle fatigue, a growing issue, accounted for over 45,000 casualties. Trooper Iain May (1932-37) was a member of the elite Reconnaissance Corps, which was attached to the Royal Armoured Corps. He died of disease, as did many others, in January 1944. The situation was desperate, and a highly controversial decision was taken to bomb the Abbey at Monte Cassino in February. However, it only provided the fanatical defenders the rubble which gave them cover. Captains Robert Catesby and Grahame Parker (1921-32) landed in Sicily, and both were awarded the MBE for their efforts in the Italian campaign. Captain Howard Meadows (1933-41), Derek Brewer (1935-41), both in the infantry, and John Rigby (1930-36) in a tank regiment as well as many other Cryptians fought in this campaign. Major R.C. ‘Ronnie’ Easterbrook, Staff (1937-39 and 1945-52), was a linguist and an Intelligence Officer. Lt Eric Rodway was awarded the Military Cross for ‘courage and leadership’ as a troop commander with the Royal Tank Regiment. Flt Sgt Kenneth Trevelyan (1934-40) piloted a fighter-bomber in North Africa, Sicily and Italy. He was shot down in October 1943. Flt Sgt John Ellery (1934-39) served in North Africa and supported the Anzio beach head but was killed in February 1944. Flying Officer Harry Wilkes (192937) DFM was in North Africa and was active above the landings in Sicily. He was killed in 1944 in a flying accident as an instructor.

The war in Burma, now Myanmar, was limited by the monsoon season from July to October. However, the main issue was the fact that south-east Asia was always at the bottom of the list of priorities. This was the reason the British and Imperial forces under the highly competent and respected General Slim, were designated ‘The Forgotten Army’. After the fighting retreat from Rangoon, now Yangon, in 1942 to the Indian border, the

Japanese set up a puppet Indian government and a National Army. There were also conflicting Allied strategies at play which caused problems. The Americans gave great support to the Nationalist Chinese leader, Chiang Kai-shek in their struggle with the Japanese. They flew supplies over the mountain range called ‘The Hump’ and started to construct the Burma Road into China. The British major aim was to regain their Imperial possessions in Burma, Malaya and Singapore. In April 1943, an Allied offensive down the Burma coast was undertaken but was forced to retreat. A new strategy was employed. It was decided to create a ‘long range penetration force’ to go behind enemy lines and disrupt Japanese supplies. Thus, was formed the Chindits who would be supported by air drops. The jungle conditions were appalling, and they took heavy casualties. Although initially they had little success, they created great propaganda opportunities and boosted morale. Once again, the monsoon season interrupted the campaigns.

In January 1944, another offensive took place which included large numbers of Indian and West African troops. Howard Merrett (1928-30) was a Regimental Sergeant Major with an African regiment. This time the Chindits caused havoc. Lt Ernest Hackett (1923-31), a Cambridge Exhibitioner in Classics, was killed with the Chindits, whilst Lt Tom Stock (193240), an Exhibitioner in English Literature at Oxford, was captured and imprisoned in Rangoon and survived the war. Captain Perrin-Dixon was in the Service Corps and was involved with supplying the isolated Chindits. As a result of this success the Japanese speeded up the construction of the Thailand-Burma railroad using the prisoners as slave labour, as depicted in the film ‘The Bridge over the River Kwai’. In March 1944, the Japanese forces took a major gamble. Although at the limit of their supplies, they decided to cross the border into Assam and seize the vital supply base at Imphal, with the help of the dissident Indian National Army. The aim was to use this victory to ‘March on India’ and encourage the discontented Indians, following the devastating famine in Bengal in 1943. Whatever support there was for Mahatma Gandhi and his campaign for the Imperialist British to ‘Quit India’, the majority did not want to replace it with Imperialist Japan. The brutal and decisive battles at Imphal and Kohima ended in victory in August. It was the first time the Japanese had been defeated by Imperial forces, which included the 1st Battalion of the Gloucestershire Regiment. Captain E.B. Camus was in the Royal Army Medical Corps and was injured in this conflict.

In Italy, four major battles, during a six-month gruelling winter stalemate along the Gustav Line, had led to heavy casualties on both sides, but the Allies failed to make a breakthrough. Eventually overwhelming forces were ready and a huge week-long offensive in May, led to the capture of Monte Cassino by Polish forces. On May 22nd, a breakout from the Anzio beachhead forced the Germans to leave Rome as an ‘open city’. The Americans had the chance to trap many Germans, but General Clarke decided to go for the glory of liberating Rome, which he did on June 4th. However, his success was soon overshadowed by events in Normandy as D-Day was activated on June 6th. The Germans retreated in good order 150 miles to the equally formidable Gothic Line, constructed by Italian forced labour. Now the aim of the Italian front was to keep German forces away from the Normandy landings.

The planning of the cross-Channel landings in France, known as Operation Overlord, started after the Casablanca Conference in January 1943. Since 1942, American factories were producing ever more quantities of planes, tanks, jeeps and artillery pieces. After the victory against the U-boats in the Spring of 1943, these armaments, supplies, fuel and troops crossed the Atlantic in safety in the new mass produced ‘Liberty-ships’. An early decision was that the amphibious landings should take place in Normandy. The more direct route was to the Calais region north of the river Seine. However, this part of the ‘Atlantic Wall’ was the most heavily fortified. Field Marshall Rommel was placed in charge of these defences in November 1943 and was not impressed. He greatly increased the number of mined obstacles and flooded large areas. After the failure to capture the well defended

harbour at Dieppe in 1942, it was decided to build prefabricated concrete floating harbours. Two of these Mulberry harbours were built in secret on the south coast and were to be towed across the Channel. The Wagon Works in Gloucester was involved in providing key components. Reconnaissance and photographic missions of the coastline brought back vital information to the planners. Flying Officer Graham Machin (1930-34) was a fighter pilot in an early American Mustang and was killed in such a mission in November 1943. In DecemberGeneral Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Allied Commander whilst General Montgomery was in charge of the ground forces.

Since the autumn of 1943, the south of England was alive with American, British and Canadian forces. Robinswood barracks was one of many bases for the Americans, who became prominent in Gloucester city centre shops, pubs, cinemas and dances at the Guildhall and the Cadena Café. On their return in the Spring Term 1944 the attention of the pupils and staff no doubt was centred on the invasion of France. They would not have to wait much longer.

More information can be found in, ‘A History of the Crypt School 1539-2018' by Charlie Hannaford and, ‘The Lost Generations’ by Simon and Sarah Birch and RayPocock. Photos of those who died are displayed in Howard Allen’s book, ‘The Crypt School: 475 Years.’ Please contact me on charliehannaford8@hotmail.com with regard to errors and omissions.

Charlie Hannaford

Mentoring

Life-Changing Moments That Shape Careers - By David Laud

In the early stages of my career, I had some mixed experiences with managers. A chainsmoking, grumpy hermit who lived in his own “glass case of emotions” surrounded by his open-plan underlings. He’s one I remember all too well. I couldn’t understand why he, as the manager, had such a lack of interest in the workforce around him. It was my first proper job, a desk, a phone, customers and quite a lot of responsibility at 18.

I was young, ambitious, driven and perhaps a little overconfident but I wanted to learn and develop so I wrote a proposal outlining the value I could bring the company if I were to gain a higher business qualification.

True to form grumpy hermit didn’t bother to read my proposal, zero communication on the subject other than “go away” smoke signals.

Frustrated, less than a year into the job I could see my future mapped out in front of me with colleagues who had resigned themselves to being managed by the silent, seething smokescreen. Me? I just resigned when I’d landed a far better job working for the financial services division of a global travel company.

Unfortunately, it was, “take two” on the boss front. A different character but equally carrying enough personal baggage that we would all fall over it at some point or another. The last straw with this rather troubled individual was an accusation put to me of “notwalking quickly enough” through the department. A statement that was both bizarre and wildly inaccurate. My reaction was to blow my salary on a couple of new suits and I wore them in rotation as if I had an interview to go to each day. This clearly upset the manager not least when my cunning plan bore fruit and led to a new role with a different department but on the same floor of the company HQ.

Thankfully it was 3rd time lucky and my new boss was not only female but outstanding at her job. Not in the slightest bothered by ego or position. Jackie also became my first mentor.

I didn’t discover what a true mentor was until many years later. But that is what she was. Jackie was not only an outstanding boss she developed her team by building on obvious strengths and addressing gaps or weaknesses in a constructive, almost imperceptible way.

Definition of mentoring

There are plenty of definitions of what a mentor is, all variations on a theme, but the Collins dictionary version neatly encapsulates my thoughts on the subject.

A person's mentor is someone who gives them help and advice over a period of time, especially help and advice related to their job.

Thanks to the generosity of that 3rd boss I now had an appreciation of the value of such a trusted colleague andreflected on where previous experiences may have been different if such a person had been accessible.

Working in the head office of an internationally renowned company provided no shortage of opportunities and it wasn’t long before the career had really started to take shape. In my mid 20’s I oversaw my own territory, the north-east of England. From Stamford in Lincolnshire up to Berwick upon Tweed. My patch meant I’d be driving 40,000 miles a year. I’d moved location to be better positioned to service those customers, a growing number of banks, building societies and travel companies.

On one trip back to head office I arrived a little late for a sales meeting and joined as the director was in mid-flow of her presentation. I noticed that there had been a hand-drawn map of the UK sketched onto a flipchart and the team members' initials inserted representing their respective regions. My brow furrowed when I realised my initials were not only sitting somewhere in Yorkshire but they also appeared midway between Glasgow and Edinburgh. A line drawn through the initials of what transpire to be the ex-regional manager for Scotland.

I discovered that the Scottish sales manager had resigned and immediately left their job leaving the director and senior team with a dilemma. Without consultation and in my absence, I had been volunteered to step in covering both my existing region and now Scotland too.

This might sound, odd but my reaction was one of anger. The shock of seeing such a move on a flip chart before anyone had spoken to me.There were of course noWhatsApp groups we were barely getting to grips with email and although I had a phone fixed in my car it was agreed it was best to relay the news in person. In-person but alongside 15 others in the room.

It was my time to seethe, but rather than throw toys out of my company pram I decided to share the experience with one of my favourite and trusted clients. He was a man in his mid 50’s and he had a very senior role in his building society based in Leeds.

I shared the tale at the end of our meeting and my frustration started to show. My client sat impassively for a while nodded and smiled. He then said a few words that brilliantly reframed my situation.

“I understand why that news would come as a shock David, but perhaps see things from their perspective. There’s a crisis, they need a solution, and you were that solution. Why?”

I shook my head, “I don’t know…” Before I could say another word Alan offered me a mentor's golden nugget.

“If you discover the ‘why’ you might not be so angry and frustrated, also think about this, what message will you be sending if you decide to refuse this opportunity?”

Slam dunk. Without spelling out that I was overreacting he told me I was overreacting. It was genius. My ego remained intact and Alan would from that day forth be one of my favourite examples of effective mentoring.

Mentoring is not coaching or tutoring it’s more subtle. A good mentor can make a session feel like a positive chat but days afterwards you realise you’ve established a change in your working pattern, you’re more productive, that problem isn’t keeping you awake at night and overall, you’re a happy bod.

I’ve outlined above examples of typical mentoring but increasingly I’m seeing alternative approaches that are equally as effective and innovative.

FINDING AND WORKING WITH A MENTOR

 A mentor does not need to be middle-aged, a CEO and it’s NOT an exclusively male domain.

 Younger generations offer capabilities that the older Boomer and Gen X generations struggle with. Technology is a great example of a subject that has seen my own children provide informal mentoring. Some tools can seem impenetrable to those unfamiliar with them but with a mentor and added confidence new platforms can be explored and become very useful instead of stubbornly holding on to the ways worked for years.

 Locating a mentor can be straightforward in education as it’s a common practice however it’s essential to set out the terms of reference. Do you have a specific skills gap, or a plan you want to work through and goals to achieve? Sharing the motivation for reaching out can help determine if the mentor will be the right fit. A good mentor will say no if the need is something outside of their own experience.

 It’s essential to establish trust and be consistent in your communications as well as prompt when you’ve arranged to meet.

 As a mentee, you should set yourself goals from which you can measure your progress with a mentor. For example, if you’re wanting to develop your career how has the mentor assisted you? Have you increased your network of contacts, refined the approach to influencers, improved your CV, gained insights into the area you wish to work in, had signposting to rich sources of further relevant information and gained greater confidence in interviews? These are all things a mentor can and should be able to assist with if they’re a good match for your needs.

 Should you be prepared to pay for a mentor? In certain circumstances, such as corporate programmes or where an individual identifies a genuine need for support in a specific field a professional mentor can be hired. The costs will be their hourly rate and they can vary greatly.

 By contrast, there are also many professional bodies that seek out members of their organisation to “give back” on a pro bono basis. That doesn’t suggest it will be any lesser than the paid mentor but the true test is in how effective that relationship proves to be. The value should be measured in the outputs.

I’m delighted to say that over the years I’ve mentored dozens of aspiring executives and entrepreneurs. The best part is seeing the personal growth, greater confidence and dreams start to take shape. This is matched by the knowledge I gain. Yes, mentors should be open to learning and expanding their own thinking from the mentee exchanges. I don't believe I’ve had a single session that's not offered a spark or two of insight and learning from the mentee. When it works well it is a partnership, a win-win exchange where both benefits.

I can truly say that difficult situations at work remain problems without good management and a mentor on hand, either formally or informally appointed, my own career benefitted hugely from wise heads who enabled me to see the bigger picture.

If you’re interested in the subject and would like to discuss mentoring further, please feel free to drop me a line. davidlaud@me.com

David Laud (1976-81, Whitfield)

David has an interesting series of Podcasts available on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/insight-withhresource/id1517209869 including one with our dinner speaker, Ian Dench.

David is Managing Partner of management / interim consultancy i2i Solutions LLP and founder of business support network HReSource. He is the author of 3 published bookstwo digital marketing for professional services and one covering managing generational diversity in the workplace.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has revolutionized the way we live and interact with technology. From its early conceptualizations to its modern-day applications, AI has come a long way. This article explores the captivating history of AI, tracing its origins, breakthroughs, and milestones.

Early Beginnings

The seeds of AI were sown in the 1950s when pioneers like Alan Turing and John McCarthy laid the foundations. Turing's concept of a "universal machine" and his musings on machine intelligence sparked the idea of creating intelligent machines. McCarthy coined the term "artificial intelligence" and organized the Dartmouth Conference, where the field of AI was formally established.

The Rise of Symbolic AI

During the 1950s and 1960s, AI researchers focused on Symbolic AI, also known as "Good Old Fashioned AI" (GOFAI). They sought to create intelligent machines using symbolic representations and logic. Notable developments included Newell and Simon's Logic Theorist, which proved mathematical theorems, and the General Problem Solver, capable of solving various problems.

The AI Winter

In the 1970s and 1980s, AI faced a period known as the "AI Winter." High expectations collided with technical limitations, leading to a decline in funding and public interest. However, during this time, important advances were made, such as the development of expert systems and the emergence of machine learning algorithms like the perceptron.

Twitter & TikTok @davidlaud

The Rise of Machine Learning

In the 1990s, fueled by the availability of vast amounts of data and increased computational power, machine learning started to gain momentum. Researchers began exploring algorithms that could learn from data, leading to breakthroughs in areas such as pattern recognition, natural language processing, and computer vision.

The Deep Learning Revolution

The 2010s witnessed the renaissance of AI with the advent of deep learning. Deep neural networks, inspired by the human brain's structure, proved to be highly effective in solving complex problems. This led to significant advancements in speech recognition, image classification, and autonomous vehicles. Notably, DeepMind's AlphaGo defeating the world champion in the game of Go marked a major milestone.

AI Today and Tomorrow

In the present day, AI permeates our lives, powering virtual assistants, recommendation systems, and autonomous technologies. Its impact is felt across industries like healthcare, finance, and transportation. Looking ahead, AI holds promises and challenges, including ethical considerations, transparency, and ensuring its responsible use.

An example

It is difficult to escape the subject of Artificial Intelligence these days, so for amusement I asked a couple of the leading contenders what they know about the Crypt School.

Google Bard ChatGPT

Give me a brief history of the Crypt school, Gloucester including any significant alumni

The Crypt School, Gloucester is a grammar school with academy status for boys and girls located in the city of Gloucester. Founded in the 16th century, it was originally an all-boys school, but it made its sixth form co-educational in the 1980s, and moved to a mixed intake from year 7 in 2018, thereby becoming the only fully coeducational selective school in Gloucester. The school was founded in 1539 by Joan Cooke with money inherited from her husband John.

In the school's 500-year history it has been sited in three different locations within the city of Gloucester. The original school was part of St Mary de Crypt Church in Southgate Street and the schoolroom can still be seen there. Later, in 1889, the school moved to Greyfriars, known better as Friar's Orchard, and in 1943, to its present site at Podsmead. The site on

The Crypt School, located in Gloucester, England, is a renowned secondary school with a rich history. Here is a brief overview of its history and some notable alumni:

1539: The Crypt School was founded as a grammar school by John and Joan Cooke. It was initially known as "Crypt Grammar School" and was situated near St. Mary de Crypt Church.

1552: The school received a royal charter from King Edward VI, establishing it as a free grammar school.

1889: The Crypt School moved to its current location on Podsmead Road, Gloucester, where it expanded and developed over the years.

Notable Alumni:

Robert Raikes the Elder (1736-1811): A prominent figure in the Sunday School

which the modern school is situated is land given to the school by Joan Cooke in 1539.

Some notable alumni of The Crypt School include:

Sir William Hillary, founder of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution

John Kyrle, known as "The Man of Ross", philanthropist and social reformer

Sir Robert Murray Gilchrist, 1st Baronet, chemist and industrialist

Sir John Betjeman, poet, writer and broadcaster

Sir Peter Blake, artist and designer

John Taylor, musician and composer

Ben Fogle, television presenter and adventurer

The Crypt School is a highly respected school with a long and distinguished history. It continues to provide a highquality education to students from all backgrounds, and its alumni have made significant contributions to a wide range of fields.

movement and the founder of the Gloucester Journal.

Ivor Gurney (1890-1937): A poet and composer known for his works influenced by his experiences as a soldier during World War I.

Sir Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875): An influential scientist and inventor who made significant contributions to the development of the electric telegraph and the Wheatstone bridge.

J. I. Packer (1926-2020): A renowned theologian and author known for his influential book "Knowing God."

Sir Henry Elwes (1846-1922): A botanist and plant collector who played a crucial role in the introduction of Japanese knotweed to the Western world.

Roger Bannister (1929-2018): An accomplished middle-distance runner who became the first person to run a mile in under four minutes.

Simon Pegg (Born 1970): A well-known actor, comedian, and screenwriter, known for his roles in movies like "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz."

These are just a few examples of the notable alumni associated with The Crypt School, which has a long history of producing successful individuals across various fields.

Conclusion

The history of AI is a testament to human curiosity, perseverance, and ingenuity. From its nascent stages to the present, AI has grown into a transformative force. As technology advances, the future of AI promises even greater possibilities, shaping our world in ways we can only imagine.

Obviously the results are somewhat wayward of the truth – I am sure some of the named alumni would be surprised to find out where they had gone to school – but it does illustrate just how important it is to fact check just about everything that the major information providers are telling us.

Adam Ashby 1973-78 wrote one sentence, one question and one paragraph of the above article.

CORRESPONDENCE

New Committee Member – Catherine Shore (2004-06)

After studying Physics, Maths, Further Maths and French at The Crypt between 2004 and 2006 I chose to pursue my goal of speaking another language fluently by studying ‘French Studies’ with the University of London Institute in Paris. This course, which was entirely in Paris, encompassed not only studying the language and the phonetics of speaking French, but also studying the art, literature and culture of France in general.

After returning to the UK, I decided that despite being a keen linguist it was really maths where my passion lay and I started work as a finance administrator for E.ON based in Barnwood. The excellent maths and further maths teaching from Mr Roberts at Crypt stood me in good stead despite not having the university degree in the maths/finance field, and after a few years I began studying for my Chartered Institute of Management Accountants qualification. With E.On I moved to Coventry to work as a management accountant primarily looking after the accounts of the offshore windfarms for the ‘climate and renewables part of the business.

After a brief hiatus from employment to bring up my 3 children, I have now been working for 2 ½ years for Wenn Townsend, a Chartered Accountant firm based in Oxford where I look after the outsourcing department working on both statutory accounts and reporting along with management accounting for external clients.

I am very much looking forward to becoming more involved in the Old Cryptians Committee and hope I can bring some new ideas and experiences into the mix!

Catherine Shore (2004-06)

Songwriter – Simon Brobyn (1973-80)

The "long story short" version for the last 45(ish) years is:

I left Crypt in 1980 with 2 A' Levels and no real idea what I wanted to do (I'd always fancied being a teacher but when in the 6th form was advised not to apply for university because I wouldn't be up to it!)

In September 1980, for some reason, I decided to work for Sainsburys as a trainee manager. I had to move to High Wycombe and after 6 months realised it wasn't the career for me. So I returned to Gloucester and applied to university to do a B.Ed Honours degree and was accepted at University of Warwick doing Art/History of Art and English Literature. I was there from 1981 until 1985 and graduated with a 2:2. After graduating, I applied for a ton of teaching jobs. Bad timing on my part, Maggie Thatcher was focussing on the Sciences and cutting back on the Arts. After a while, I had to cut my losses because I needed a job (I was getting by with various temporary jobs) which was a shame because I had really good reports from my Teaching Practice during the course.

In 1986 got a job at Laurentian Life (now called Lincoln National) in Barnwood administrating Permanent Health Insurance Policies. As I was also now pursuing a musical career and doing lots of live stuff the Mon-Fri, 9 to 5 suited me. I was in a duo doing original material and we rehearsed at a place in the docks, we usually had the main rehearsal room

in the slot before EMF, who at this point were unsigned, and used to have a brief chat with Ian Dench (not sure if he'll remember or not) as they came in and we went out.

I met Tracy whilst working at Laurentian Life and in 1992 Tracy wanted to move back to St Helens where she was brought up and I followed a few months later to become a fullyfledged northerner. We both worked at the University of Liverpool in administration and married in 1994.

I continued performing in and around Liverpool as a solo artist, as well as focussing on writing songs, alongside my day job, but I gave up performing as I just didn't like it and focussed on my songwriting.

I was taken on by a music management company in the mid 90s. They had offices in Oxford and Los Angeles and things were going quite well as I was starting to get attention as a songwriter. In 2000 the music management company went bust - don't know what the hell happened! So I took a few years out to reassess my musical aspirations but continued to work on improving my songwriting.

In 2007 I did a 12-month course at Manchester MIDI School (which I was able to do alongside my day job) in order to learn the essentials about recording and producing music. The reason for this was to set up my own studio at home in order to have more autonomy as a songwriter.

In 2010 I took voluntary severance from the University of Liverpool (got a decent deal) to throw myself into pursuing my music career. I spent many years contacting people and sending songs for different artists to consider. Many empty promises and false dawns later I got songs with Pull ‘n’ Way and Ronan Parke.

April 2018 I had three songs accepted by Ronan Parke, Britain's Got Talent runner-up from 2011 (he was a cute kid who people loved) for his comeback album as an adult. The songs are "No Love Like First Love" (released as a single), "Found My Way" (title track of the album) and "After All These Years" (just an album ttrack).

In May 2019 I had another song placed with Pull n Way called "Loved By You" for their album

In December 2019 I signed an exclusive music publishing deal and was required to cancel my Music Gateway account to avoid any conflict of interest.

In 2019 Ronan Parke decided to start an intense promotion of his album here and abroad. I believe that dates and venues had been secured for mid-2020 but then Covid struck and ruined his, and many others, plans. Ronan has now decided to take time-out from music.

Post 2019 the music industry has undergone significant change; the effects of Covid coupled with technological advances. This change has further democratized the industry and allowed independent music makers, such as myself, to self-release music.

Since March this year I’ve been releasing songs myself, a new song every month going forward. As I write songs that are vocally challenging (you don't want to hear me singing them, it'd scare the horses!) I seek out great session singers who will "feature" and make the songs come alive. I hire producers and sometimes produce myself depending on how I want a song to sound.

Self-releasing properly requires a lot of work and planning which is why the first song wasn’t released until the end of March. As well as writing and arranging for the song to be professionally recorded, mixed and mastered, I have to do my own marketing and PR through social media (a big learning curve!) and ensuring the song is properly uploaded

through a distributor in order that it be on all the relevant platforms. But I'm not complaining as I'm doing something I love!

Stop press: I've just signed a contract with a company called Sphere Trax https://www.spheretrax.com/ - they are a music sync licensing company who provide songs and music to films, tv, advertising, games and all other media. I'm pretty chuffed as they are very selective. Watch this space and all that!

Website: https://simonbrobyn.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@simonbrobyn-songwriter8458

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/gb/artist/simon-brobyn/1673166552

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4thRUMDnSqymPkf3Ad5PQ5?si=Gcut6-tRQHyrRiUwMhbSqA

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simonbrobynsongwriter

Simon Brobyn (1973-80)

One Sided Paper

This might bring back memories if you were there at the time this happened, or amuse you if you weren't...

It was September 1966 – my first week at Crypt. The primary school informality of using your fellow pupils' first names was suddenly no more, and the corridors were stalked by 'masters' whose black gowns flapped intimidatingly behind them as they walked. This was all slightly scary for some boys, and I was one of them. In one of the early lessons we were given a homework assignment. I can't remember who the master was, what the subject was, or what the assignment was. All I remember is being asked to write on only one side of the paper, and I made a note of this at the time

Later that week, in one of the science classes, Mr Earnshaw (if my memory serves me well) gave us some homework to do. He explained it clearly enough and then asked if anyone had any questions. Silence. I timidly raised my hand and asked whether he wanted us to write on only one side of the paper. I thought that was a fair question under the circumstances.

I was sitting front and centre, an easy target for a master with years of experience in handling cheeky little boys. He walked slowly towards me and leaned forwards until his nose was millimetres away from mine and said in the calmest, quietest voice imaginable with no hint of any facial expression, "If I'd wanted you to write on only one side of the paper, I would have given you... one... sided... paper."

I do remember no-one in the room dared laugh, but it gives me a smile to this day.

Rudy Lacchin

Life on the Grounds

In the spirit of others here's my post Crypt story: 50 years on. My apologies about the length of this, I'm afraid I got carried away plus I was invigilating GCSEs at a well known Gloucester Grammar School and had some time!

I decided after a summer of working at a sportsground that I wanted to work in a sports surface, horticultural, outdoor environment gathering some relevant qualifications and learning the trade on the way.

After returning in the Autumn to retake Physics I left at Christmas 1970

I began working at the Wagon Works sports ground in Tuffley avenue opposite where I lived in Jan 71 as an apprentice Groundsman. I attended Hartpury Agriculture College during next 4 winters.

Due to a retirement I became Head Groundsman in 1975, a bit earlier than I expected, lots of sports going on, cricket, tennis, bowls, football rugby, athletics, I played them all! I even ran the bar at various times! The annual Gloucester cricket festival was always great fun.

During this time and due to family links I played my club rugby for Tredworth (Junior Cup Final Winners 1974) although initially I played a few games for OC's, also Cricket and Sunday football for Winget. Somehow I managed two county colt caps(ties) Representing Glos Rugby County Colts under 18s. I then discovered the Market Bar, Tracys and Tiffanys!

I married Jenny in 1977, two children, and now three Grandchildren. 43 years married July 2020.

Following the demise of the Winget Group in 1983 I became Grounds Manager at Cheltenham College. As well as the Grounds work I coached a bit of Rugby and Cricket taking teams home and away. I recall that I saw and spoke with Mr Holmes (HM Crypt) on the touchline of a hockey match one afternoon at Cheltenham. The County Cricket Festival being an annual highlight.

A new challenge was needed so in 1989 I moved to Pen-coed a village near Bridgend in South Wales as Grounds Maintenance Manager at Mid Glamorgan Civil Engineering working with them through the compulsory competitive tendering period. A suit, secretary and car job, drawing up maintenance specifications for over 300 plus schools, college's and Unis putting together individual Sports and Grounds contracts for each site, tendering for the work, winning it and then providing the service. Win, win for all!

In late 1993 I decided I wanted to return to the Public School bubble, great budgets, good staffing levels and most importantly Sport regarded as an important part of the curriculum. In July 1994 I moved to Eton College as Grounds Manager, big place, big history, big budget, large staff provision including the Olympic Rowing Lake used for 2012 Para and Olympic games, Gardens, Grounds, Golf course, facilities to dream of, every sport imaginable was played at Eton. I was lucky to go on tours, the stand out cricket one was 33 days in South Africa, 20 plus boys, 4 staff to Joburg, PE, Cape Town, Durban, Pietermarizburg, many flights, many hotels great place. Great wines, Stellanbosh!

I coached cricket for a while, a young Prince Harry Wales played in my T3 under 14 team, he found Cow-corner very easily after being coached by me! Bowled a lot of wides. Don't know what happened to him....

Decided to retire at 60, eventually left March 2016 after a six month notice and a three month handover period, so just 61. I have a bench with my name on it on the first team boundary, please do sit on it and feel free to kick my legs if you ever visit the place.

We had a house on Sovereign Harbour in West Sussex near Pevensey which we kept as a holiday home to stay on the ladder (Had to live in College House whilst working at Eton) lived there until 2018 moved back to Gloucester in the August.

The Crypt School

The Old Cryptians’ Club

I should also mention that I took up Paragliding in 1997 and flew them all around europe until an accident in Spain in 2002 curbed my enthusiasm, I broke my left femur in several places, 5 operations over next ten years including re-breaking and realignment. Flew again after 16 months but loss of confidence meant that I stopped and sold the flying gear much to my family's delight.

Many mostly happy years enjoying quite an active and outdoor working life, always had a dog, still do. Back in Glaws following the Rugby and also going over to see the cricket festival at my old Grounds at Cheltenham College and just generally reacquainting ourselves.

I met a few name drops over the years which I'll use one day if a tale needs telling!

I am enjoying doing a bit of DIY around the house and garden, I have a 51 year old Classic MGB that requires a lot of polishing. Seems funny to think it was built September 1969 and where I was and where we all were at that time. To occupy myself I do invigilation, which was very trying during pandemic but just about manageable.

Lockdown gave me the opportunity to get healthier, fitter and lose weight, lower the BP and try to avoid Diabetes, I lost 3 stones and needed to!

Since returning I see Phil Gates, we had a band once upon a time ��, I've met up with and had a lunch with Jim Ruddy and Phil Carpenter and hope one day to see more of you OC's in the future. I don't think another 50 years is doable��

If you got this far then huge respect to you!

Cheers everyone.�� Stay Safe in these times...

John Taylor

Class of ‘71

Floreat Schola Cryptiensis.

In 2022 a small group of Old Cryptians who are friends on Facebook realised that our year group would all be reaching three score years and ten during this academic year. They decided therefore to see if they could muster enough people from the year group to have a reunion in April 2023.

Using old school photos, we were able to name over 50 members of our year group and set about tracing as many as we could. Amazingly, through various contacts and searches we contacted 36 people. There were 13 that we did not manage to find and unfortunately, 5 of our year group had not made it to their seventh decade. A small number were living abroad although that did not stop Chris Talwar from joining us all the way from Detroit, Michigan, USA.

25 of us eventually met at Bowden Hall, Upton St Leonards, Gloucester on Saturday April 1st. After some tentative double

The Crypt School

The Old Cryptians’ Club

takes, we all managed to recognise each other in many cases after 52 or 54 years. We all did our O levels in 1969 and many of us went on to Sixth Form and A levels in 1971. The venue did us proud with an excellent meal and service and the conversation flowed reminiscing our teenage exploits and the teachers we remembered fondly or otherwise. It was also interesting to see where life’s journey had taken everyone and good to see that all had made it this far.

Many thanks to Steve Pearce who now lives in Bermuda and could not attend, but generously funded wine for each table.

The climax of the evening was a rousing rendition of the school song – available from the Club website https://oldcryptians.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Co71SchoolSongTrim.mp4 . Incredibly many of us remembered the words and the tune!

We keep in touch via a WhatsApp group and will no doubt attempt further reunions in the future, though we may not wait until we all turn 80!

Great to see so many old friends – those in attendance were:

Coates Roger, Connett Richard, Dickerson Keith, Ewers Gary, Ferkin Richard, Gardner Gray, Gorman Geoff, Green Rob, Griffin Kieron, Jones Keith, Keller Mike, Lanceley Mark, Marsh Alan, Meecham Derek, Morgan Geoff, Nash Andy, Noon Paul, Odunukwe David, Partridge Charlie, Peacey Steve, Prior Arnold, Rossiter Mike, Sutton Hedley, Talwar Chris and Willis Richard

Stephen Peacey (1964-71)

stevepeacey@yahoo.co.uk

OBITUARIES

Colin Organ (1961-65)

Colin Organ was one of the good guys. He was one of those rare creatures – an estate agent and politician who people liked, trusted and respected.

What stood out about Colin was his remarkable positivity. Despite the difficulties he faced, he never lost his smile or his sense of humour - whatever life threw at him; he always stayed calm and never had a bad word to say about anyone.

Colin loved to create things and make things better – and he had the energy, the passion and the determination to see them through. This could be the house where he and his family have lived since 1972, which he took on as just four walls and a roof but has transformed over the years into a beautiful home. Or his Jensen Interceptor car which he stripped back to the shell and fully restored to concours condition over the course of a decade.

Colin was born and brought up in Gloucester and attended The Crypt School (1961-1965). Over the years, his career was interesting and varied. He followed in his father’s footsteps to work at Fielding and Platt. While he was still at school, he did unpaid work there on a Saturday and was offered one of only five apprenticeships in Europe as an Industrial Photographer. The governors at The Crypt agreed to let him leave at age 15 to allow him to take up such a unique opportunity. He qualified at age 21 but was later made redundant and took up a job at the Nuclear Research Laboratory in Berkeley as a Scientific and Industrial Photographer.

When he and Karen bought the house in Stroud Road, one of their neighbours, John Graham, who ran the Graham & Co estate agency, asked Colin to photograph his house – and then offered him a job. At Grahams, he introduced the first colour photography on property sales particulars for any estate agent in Gloucester. He was later headhunted by Westbury Homes and became an area manager and divisional director before leaving to start his own business with partner Mark Ruffell, known as The Estate Agency, which he ran for many years from offices in Clarence Street. Colin was assisted by Carole Bartlett, who worked in the agency for 25 years and supported Colin until he retired and closed the business in September 2018.

Colin’s passion for Gloucester led to him being asked many times to stand for the City Council. In 2010, he took the plunge and was elected as a councillor for his home ward of Tuffley. He was appointed to the Council’s Cabinet, fittingly looking after the housing and planning portfolio, after just a year as a councillor. As Cabinet Member, Colin oversaw the transfer of the City Council’s 4500 council homes to Gloucester City Homes. This was an enormously complex transaction with a sensitive history. Crucially what it did was to ensure those homes could be well-maintained in the future and new homes built. It needed the support of tenants and £50 million of financial support from the Government. Both were forthcoming and Colin helped the team to get the deal over the line.

Colin was hugely passionate about Robinswood Hill. Having lived on the slopes of the hill for so long that is understandable. Colin helped to raise the profile of the hill, to put on new events, add features like the wood sculptures and deliver the new visitor centre. Perhaps what Colin is best known for in his council role is the Gloucester Goes Retro Festival. Colin woke up in the middle of the night with the idea of creating an event in the heart of the city centre, with thegate streets paying homage to different eras. Not everyone immediately understood Colin’s vision but he stuck with it and has created one of the city’s most popular events – one which many city centre traders gratefully tell me gives them

their best day’s takings of the year. Colin put a huge amount of his own time – and money – into making it happen and disproved the old adage that ‘nostalgia isn’t what it used to be’.

Colin toured the country attending events to encourage classic car owners and re-enactors to come to Gloucester. At one wartime-themed event, he had a chance meeting with three of the characters from the television sitcom ‘Allo, Allo’. He persuaded them to come to Gloucester Goes Retro and suggested they bring another cast member and then another one. And, of course, where else would they take a break for lunch than ‘Café Rene’?

In 2018, the event made national headlines as it was the first time the cast had come together in costume for 26 years. Bringing people together was something that Colin did well.

When the ‘Allo, Allo’ characters were walking around the gate streets, people would say to them “You don’t half look like the real ones.” Authenticity mattered to Colin. He was the same calm, courteous and considered Colin Organ in private that he was in public.

Colin was also hugely passionate about good quality design of buildings – not wanting to accept second best, run-of-the mill, off-the-shelf designs for Gloucester. I’m sure my former colleagues at the City Council will say it is an ongoing battle, but I believe that Colin’s intervention has helped to improve the quality of some of buildings built in the city in recent times.

But, perhaps most of all, Colin recognised that the biggest difference in life is not made by buildings but by people. During my time as Leader of the City Council, if I ever needed advice on a people issue, it’s Colin I would pick the phone up to. Colin believed and understood that you get the best out of people by taking the time to listen to them, to motivate them and treat them with respect.

Colin often lightened the mood by having a pun for every occasion. Sometimes they would come thick and fast. When Colin was interviewed about his life by Radio Gloucestershire’s Pete Wilson a few years ago, he was asked about his decision to go into photography. In just 15 seconds Colin explained he’d “developed an interest” in it, he “didn’t want to be negative” but it was “just a snap decision” as he “didn’t want to expose himself to the public too much”. Puns aren’t always to everyone’s taste, but my only annoyance was that for at least 90% of the time Colin thought of them before I did!

Colin became Mayor of Gloucester in 2019 but his time in office was curtailed by a horrific car accident when he was travelling home from a civic function. This left Colin with some longstanding injuries but also led to his other health issues being identified. Remarkably, Colin never let this get him down, he kept smiling and kept working on the things he cared about – including planning today’s service. He did this because he didn’t want to burden those around him that he cared about the most.

Others will be able to talk in more detail than I can about the personal side of Colin’s life. But it wouldn’t be a complete picture of him if I didn’t mention how much his family meant to Colin. In recent years, he and I would often swap notes about my children and his grandchildren who are of a similar age and I know they gave him huge amounts of

pleasure. Karen, Colin’s wife of almost 49 years, supported him every step of the way in all aspects of his life – including stepping up to be Mayoress of Gloucester, which it's fair to say was out of her comfort zone.

Colin will be greatly missed by many people. But in so many different ways, he has left a positive legacy for Gloucester. His family and all those of us who knew him can be hugely proud of who he was and what he achieved.

Paul James

Gerald Rudge (1954-61)

My father Gerald Rudge (1954 – 61) described himself to me as “a reluctant pupil” for his first three years at the Crypt. It seems his elation at having passed the 11-plus and being rewarded with the customary new bicycle was short-lived. He quickly found himself being compared unfavourably with his academically gifted elder brother, Edward, in whose shadow it seemed he was destined to exist.

Fortunately there were exceptions. At the beginning of Year Three he found that Fred Strachan was his new French teacher, Bernard Jones for art and, best of all, Charles Lepper for English Language and English Literature.

Immediately these three encouraged him to believe in himself. Charles Lepper discovered an embryonic creative writing talent in my father which he encouraged him to pursue and develop in his spare time. In his last year at the Crypt he decided on a career in journalism and began writing to local newspapers to try to find a vacancy for a junior reporter.

The Crypt’s maths master A.L.C. Smith also doubled up as Careers’ Master at that time and apparently made no secret of a bizarre distaste for newspapers and journalists.

This is how my father recalled his conversation with A.L.C. Smith:

“We don’t like to think of boys from the Crypt becoming newspaper reporters. Do you really want to spend your time hanging around in the rain on street corners? Newspaper reporters are in the same bracket as second-hand car salesmen and estate agents.”

Much to A.L.C. Smith’s chagrin Gerald began work as a junior reporter at The Citizen, then in St. John’s Lane connecting Gloucester’s Northgate and Westgate streets, in 1961 and after completing a satisfactory six-month probationary period signed his indentures for a three-year training.

It was the career of his dreams – and for the rest of his working life he never wanted to do anything else.

After his three years at The Citizen he moved to the Western Morning News, the regional morning newspaper at Plymouth, but eight months later, on learning that they were short of a sub-editor, he returned to The Citizen.

He then moved on to the Western Mail, the regional morning newspaper in Cardiff until, inevitably, Fleet Street beckoned and he joined the Daily Mail sub-editors’ desk. After six months he joined the Daily Sketch, which then merged with the Daily Mail and that was where he stayed for the next 25 years.

He became Executive Features Editor and eventually Literary Editor, responsible for book reviews, serialisations, commissioning authors to write feature articles and arranging literary lunches.

In 1994 he left the Daily Mail to become consultant editor at the Western Daily Press in Bristol until he retired from full-time work in 2000. Afterwards he was commissioned to write

travel articles, which took him to France, all around the Mediterranean and Europe and further afield to the Maldives, Singapore and Hong Kong for several newspapers and magazines including The Independent, the Jewish Chronicle and the Eastern Daily Press in Norwich, for whom he also wrote a weekly food and wine column. He was also for many years editorial consultant to both the Egon Ronay Organisation and an English-language magazine group in Helsinki.

In 2006 he moved from Bromsash, near Ross-on-Wye to a cottage in the village of Domecy-sur-le-Vault in Burgundy and split his time between France and his flat in Brixham in Devon. Until well into his seventies he was paddling his canoe regularly on the rivers in Burgundy.

He always attended the OCs’ Oxford dinner until it ceased and the London OCs’ dinner every year.

He died on 21st July 2022.The funeral took place at St. Mary’s Church, Linton, Herefordshire.

DUNCAN RUDGE

Cedric Titcombe (942-49)

My friend and one-time neighbour Cedric Titcombe, who has died aged 81, was an art teacher and artist who worked in many media, producing mostly paintings and drawings but also stone carvings, sculptures, prints, and even masks and kites. He was a painter of expressionist style, creating carnivalesque worlds that were full of raw energy.

Although Cedric’s pictures were shown at the Royal Academy in London in 1986 and 1987, he had little interest in becoming part of the commercial art world, and apart from occasional exhibitions in his home domain of Gloucestershire (including at the Gloucester Guildhall in the 2000s), he rarely if ever exhibited outside the county.

Born in Gloucester, Cedric was the only child of Charles, a telephone exchange supervisor, and Edith (nee Day), a housewife. At the Crypt grammar school his gift for art marked him out, and afterwards it was no surprise that he went to Gloucester School of Art.

There he met a fellow student, Janet Buttling, and they married in 1962, moving the following year to the Isle of Mull, although they returned to England when their first child was expected in 1963. Back in Gloucestershire, Cedric taught at Oakbank open air school, Oxstalls community school and Cheltenham School of Art.

In 1976 he and his growing family moved to LlanfairClydogau in Ceredigion, Wales, where he made a living by providing illustrations for Resurgence magazine, working as a delivery man for a range cooker company, and selling woodburners.

When his marriage to Janet ended in divorce in 1980, Cedric went back to Gloucester and took rooms above a bike shop. After a spell installing woodburners in Ludlow he settled in Gloucester for good, and with his then partner, Bailey Churcher, ran a company called Hedgehog Equipment, making and selling spinning carders. In 1984 he painted the barge headquarters of Gloucester’s Courtyard ArtsTrust andin 1985 set up the trust’s community print shop. He went on to organise summer exhibitions that

The Crypt School

The Old Cryptians’ Club

showcased the work of Gloucestershire artists in Gloucester’s thendeserted dock buildings, returning to teaching in 1989 at the city’s further education college as well as its Guildhall Arts Centre.

Cedric also worked as a life-drawing model and carver of gravestones, and designed his own typeface, Titcombe Bold, although he was the only person who ever used it.

He is survived by the children from his marriage, Lucy, Cass, Ben and Sophie, eight grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

Pat Roberts (Guardian Obituary)

Roger Davis [1937-2022]

A Very Special Friend

Roger, a past president, passed away after a long illness at his home in Cornwall on 2nd November 2022. Roger was 85.

Our friendship blossomed in the late 1940s when we first played together in the school’s junior rugby and cricket teams. This close association prospered when we played in the School 1st XV and 1st XI whilst in the Sixth Form. He was an accomplished and stylish games player – a joy to play alongside and in his retirement great company on the golf course.

Roger made a significant contribution to the life of the school on and off the games field.

Roger, an alumni of Wadham College, Oxford, graduated in English Literature in 1960 after his National Service with the Gloucestershire Regiment [1955-57]. He served in the Middle East and Cyprus during times of national emergency.

In 1963 I was privileged to be invited to be Roger’s Best Man on the occasion of his marriage to Joan. I much admired their care and love for one another and for their extended family for nigh on 60 years.

I was impressed by Roger’s success in his professional life. He was so well respected, not least because of his natural wit and gift for repartee allied to his high degree of integrity, modesty and warmth of personality.

Roger will always hold a prominent place in my own personal Hall of Fame. Bless him. Howard Allen. [1947-1955]

What follows is a most moving personal tribute written by Roger’s wife, Joan.

Roger was born in Gloucester and was a hereditary Freeman of the City and a life-long supporter of G.R.F.C.

He had a happy family childhood living in Longlevens attending the primary school and then the Crypt. Throughout his time at The Crypt his love of rugby and cricket was well satisfied at junior and senior level-he loved being a team player. The school also guided him to achieve a place at Wadham College, Oxford to read English. His career after university was in Personnel.

1960 – first job at Lucas in Birmingham

1963 – Marriage and another job change - Personnel Officer with Gloucestershire County Council

1968 - Chief Personnel Officer at Bournemouth Borough Council

1972 – Director of Personnel at Oxfordshire County Council

1993 – Deteriorating health sadly meant early retirement from Oxford - a time that given Roger much professional satisfaction. There were a few opportunities to do some consultancy work helped ease the blow.

1994 – a move back to his roots – Gloucestershire. This gave Roger the opportunity to become a Governor of the Crypt School and an advisor with the Princes Trust. He embraced these roles with enthusiasm. A passion for reading, a love of music, golf and gardening also kept Roger happily content.

Roger was a devoted family man. He was generous, fun-loving and a proud father of his two daughters, and as a grandfather he was ever delighted to have special times with all four grandchildren

His last four years were lived in Cornwall with his daughters nearby. His life became more difficult as the multiple medical conditions worsened, but his resolve and stoicism meant that he was able to explore a county that he so loved.

Above all, Roger, often spoken of as a modest gentleman, had been content and fulfilled.

Joan Davis.

Bob Ireland (1949-57)

The class register read: Harvey, Hobbs, Howells, Hunt, Ireland… Now I am the only one left.

Always cheerful, pretty laid back and always playing with words, Bob and I shared the editorship of the Cryptian where his editorial comparisons of the achievements of Caesar’s legions compared with the snail like progress of a trench (what for?) around the then concrete slab of our playground aroused union ire: we were impressed that someone had even read it!

His great love of Latin poetry was manifest in the sessions we had in the HM’s office where Colin Ewan and Bob ecstasied together over Catullus whilst the rest of us more Virgil types sat and envied.

He was also a talented actor in Charles Lepper’s productions notably Hamlet. The last time we met was at lunch at Woodstock with Charles Lepper where he reflected that he thought his most worthwhile achievement in work terms was facilitating at some critical stage the publication of Private Eye when it was feared as a fomenter of dangerous anarchy by the establishment. Private Eye, although I am not sure that he ever wrote for it, captured all his sense of mischief at what one could do with words.

With the permission of his partner Margot, below are a series of tributes to his life and work.

There is a full appreciation of Bob’s life and work at the Mirror Group on their Pension Member’s website - Bob Ireland - Association of Mirror Pensioners.

David/Dafydd Miles Board (1950-57)

David and I came together in the sixth form where voraciously we explored books and philosophies and later music. In Charles Lepper’s Hamlet, he was Gertrude to my rather wooden Claudius.

He won an Open Scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford, the acme of academic achievement certainly nationally if not internationally. But whereas I then did my National Service in the Army, as a pacifist he chose other service which I think was not an experience from which he gained. Together we went up to Oxford - quite close on the ground because Balliol and Exeter lay on opposite sides of the Broad.

David became fascinated by the Quakers, but also found time with me to found an University Philosophy Club which met in my rooms (larger than his small study) and to which David persuaded a number of famous names to come and address.

Sadly in his second year he fell ill and whilst we corresponded intermittently, by the next time we met he had become a Roman Catholic, was married and working for the Roman Catholic Church on publishing and publicity.

Always conscious of his Welsh ancestry, he was actively exploring the Welsh heritage of poetry and song. But then job demands took me out of his orbit and our contact tended to lapse. We never met again but from time to time, he would share some of his vast outpourings of prose and poetry which was all on line.

He continually experimented with that media which actually became a barrier for me but I think gave him much wider audiences within Wales.

Peter Hobbs (1949-57)

In September 1950, among the 90-odd new boys starting at The Crypt School Gloucester and who made an impact in his very first year was one David Frank Board.

The school magazine, The Cryptian, was published at the end of each academic year. Most of it was given over to reports and reflections of inter-house and inter-school rugby and cricket matches won or lost over the previous nine or ten months. A smaller part was reserved for literary attempts in prose or poem generally penned by the more senior boys. The piece that caused the most surprise or even astonishment in summer 1951 was a short story written by the twelve year old David.

It concerned the hanging of a man for murder, chronicling the last few moments of his life and finishing with the visible departure of his soul at the moment of death, accompanied by the chiming bell of the prison clock. There was both consternation and criticism from some, who must have thought the piece too gruesome to be published in a school magazine, but there was also overwhelming awareness of the exceptional talent of its author.

Being three months older with a birthday in August I had started at the school a year before David and only knew him by sight. At the start of my fourth year our class was joined by three boys boosted from their third year by virtue of their extra cleverness. David was naturally one them and it was at this point I got to know him personally.

David’s parents were Spiritualists and whilst I don’t think David would have called himself so he was certainly keenly interested in all metaphysical philosophies. I had been raised a Catholic and my arguments to justify my beliefs David almost ruthlessly demolished. In the end I had to concede he was probably right at which point I became, as I still am, what might loosely be termed a Humanist.

David, inevitably, secured a place at Oxford. I once visited him at his room in Balliol where he had gathered around himself a group of his fellows whom I would almost term his acolytes, such was the respect for his intellect that he commanded. He had by now added Miles to his surname.

Our ways parted. I went abroad and lost touch with him. After my return further years passed, by which time I was married with two small children. One day, purely by accident, I discovered that he lived quite close to my home in Buckinghamshire. We reconnected and I found that he too had become a family man and a very active Catholic. The irony was not lost on me. Nevertheless, we were once again friends. A few years later I went through a difficult and painful divorce and I shall ever remember his compassion and support.

We remained in contact, albeit intermittently, and at one interesting stage we worked together professionally. David had been commissioned to produce a film for the Brothers and Sisters of Charity, a religious order, most of it to be filmed in Ireland. By now I was working as a freelancer in television and owned all the necessary filming equipment.

We were three film crew plus equipment, together with David, his son Andor and a spaniel with an actively gaseous bowel, crammed together in David’s car which was not large and was also towing a small caravan. The intimacy proved too much and David had to agree to the hire of a second car for the benefit and sanity of the crew. The film itself, however, became a joy to work on; sadly I never saw the finished result.

Beside the gift of his superb mind, David’s latter years were blessed by a brilliantly loving second marriage. In Fay he had, as he told me himself, found the perfect companion and the strength of their love was quite obvious to all those who knew them together.

When I last saw David a year and a half ago he had become physically frail but still with a mind incapable of admitting boundaries. I do not believe in life after death, so cannot console myself with any idea of an eventual reunion. But I do have the memory of an extraordinary and good man. And that will do well enough.

Anto Dutton (1949-56)

THE OLD CRYPTIANS’ CENTENARY BURSARY FUND 2001

A similar policy to previous years has been maintained in providing Bursary awards to deserving students in their respective fields as outlined in the section covering Bursaries for the current year. All donations to the Bursary Fund are appreciated as the main aim is to remain self-sufficient by matching the level of expenditure with necessary income. The intention for this year is to increase the individual awards to take account of inflation. Ways and means will also be scrutinised to examine special cases to supplement the number of students receiving awards.

Trustees encourage all Old Cryptians to try and commit an annual donation of £50 to maintain the current award scheme.

Richard Briggs, one of our trustees, undertook a sponsored bike ride in N Ireland in May 2022 raising funds for the Bursary which is much appreciated.

On July 12th a commemoration was held for John Crowe a former Cryptian to mark his loyalty and generosity to both the school and the Bursary fund. Sponsorship of specific tasks and undertakings is clearly one means of raising funds.

Bank information for receiving awards is as follows:-

OC Bursary Fund; Sort Code 40-52-40 Account No 00010216

Bursary Finances

The Old Cryptians’ Centenary Bursary Fund 2001 is a registered charity (Registered Charity No 1094627)

Bursary Finances

A summary of the financial position as at Dec 31st 2022 was as follows.

ASSETS

Bank Accounts

Accounts (90 days)

Total Balance

3,062

93,274

96,336

Total Balance reflects a net surplus of £ 1,433 over Dec 31st 2021.

BURSARY AWARDS 2022

10 Bursaries have been awarded this year and the ceremony was held at school on June 29th. The following students were recommended for Bursaries by Crypt School staff following liaison with Hazel Wasley.

Sixth Form - Travel Ruyana Zayd

Sixth Form - Academic Thomas Usmar, David Peet

Art, Music, Drama Maya Weaver, Aleeksia Atanasova, Matthias Kelay

Technology, Engineering Matyas Nyeki – Varga, Andrew Casewell

Sports Awards Martha Campbell, Oliver Workman

Sponsorship

If you would like to raise funds for the Bursary, we have joined the Wonderful Organisation which collects and distributes donations on line with every penny raised going to the charity – there are no fees. Our details are www.wonderful.org/charities/1094627

The 1539 Society

The 1539 Society honours alumni and friends of the Crypt school who since inauguration in 2001 have been benefactors of the Bursary fund.

Membership of donors is acknowledged with the presentation of a special lapel badge and signed certificate.

Full details of the OC Bursary fund can be found on the club website www.oldcryptians.org

Details of how to make regular donations or leave a bequest in your will can be obtained from the treasurer Clive Thomas whose contact details are :-

E Mail clive@clive-thomas.co.uk

Extended support

Apart from Standing orders and Donations made to the Bursary fund, further valuable support can be provided by means of a gift through a Will by adding a Codicil. The Bursary as a Charity pays no tax on gifts and furthermore an estate will benefit by reducing the amount liable for inheritance tax. This may be carried out with the help of a Solicitor or by drawing up your own codicil by stating the following.

• I give ……Pounds (£) to the Old Cryptians’ Club Centenary Fund (Registered Charity No 1094627)

Richard Browning (1952-1959)

March 2023

THE CLUB SHOP

An image below illustrates the current offerings from the Club shop available on the website. https://oldcryptians.org/shop/

We believe it is time for a rethink / refresh of the branded items available, so if you have any ideas or thoughts about suitable items for the Club to sell, please email webmaster@oldcryptians.org

Adam Ashby (1973-1978)

The School and the Club share in the joint publication of the magazine that was born in 1907.

Our primary purpose remains the collection of news and information about the School and Old Cryptians. We aim to collect articles and reminiscences, whether serious, satirical or humorous across the widest age range possible. Photographs are ever welcome.

The Editorial Board will be responsible for the style and content of the annual publication, the management of its production and the budget. We shall consider all articles that submitted. In turn, the editors will retain the authority to make a selection of the articles to be published and of their precise length and use of language.

A reminder that we are using Direct Debit for membership fees, details are on the website https://oldcryptians.org/membership/direct-debit/

Please also sign up to the LinkedIn group – https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7410920/ As always, please encourage friends/colleagues who were at the school to join, or at least sign up to the LinkedIn group - the more members and interested parties we have the better we will be able to support the school and former pupils.

The Cryptian 2024

All contributions for the next edition should be sent (by email attachment if possible) by the middle of April 2024 to: webmaster@oldcryptians.org