Senior Life

1st Year Induction Day

1st Years couldn’t wait to get through the doors on their first day at the Senior School. They hurriedly said their goodbyes to parents and guardians to meet friends old and new.

After finding out their form groups, they split off with their new form tutors to commence the day’s activities: discovering the school grounds, participating in teambuilding games, participating in Q&As to ease any nerves, and introductions to the IT and languages departments.

Welcome back

For the first time in six months, Truro School was filled with the excitement and buzz of pupils and staff once again as the site re-opened for the first day of Autumn Term. Though it was not the usual start to a new academic year, with precautions in place and bubbles created, it was undeniably a happy return to a school environment.

A new Head Boy and Head Girl

Upper Sixth Students Jenny and Isaac were introduced as 202021’s Head Boy and Head Girl, along with their Senior Prefect team consisting of Deputy Head Girl Holly, Deputy Head Boy Monty, Senior Prefects Amber, Alfie, Charlotte, Benjy, Ellie, Cameron, Jenna, Henry, Lucy, James, Zoe and Matt, and Heads of Boarding for Malvern and Trennick, Stephanie and Trevor respectively.

We caught up with Isaac and Jenny in September as they started their new roles.

JENNY

ISAAC

Why did you apply for the roles?

J: I applied for Head Girl because it seemed a wonderful opportunity to represent my peers, influence some decisions that are made about our school lives and accept greater responsibilities. I wanted the chance to work more closely with teachers and make sure that our views are represented and heard. I: Truro School has given me so much in my time spent here and so I saw the role of Head Boy as an opportunity to give back to this amazing community.

What do you aim to achieve in your roles?

J: This year we’re hoping to preserve the sense of community at Truro School, despite the physical barriers Covid has created. We’d like to work on integrating the Sixth Form with the rest of the school in a figurative sense, creating a student support network by utilising the Prefects and ACHE teams. We want to make sure that everyone feels represented and heard throughout the school, and continue to work on the issues raised in last year’s student charter by finding new ways to create school community. No one is quite sure what this year will bring, but we know that we want to continue preserving the atmosphere at Truro School and leave something positive and enduring behind after we’ve left. I: I hope that Jenny and I, as part of the Senior Prefect team, can (despite current circumstances) lead the team to integrate further into the school, and increase the presence around school, to give all students greater access to the specialised skills that our subject prefects offer them.

What are you most looking forward to as Head Boy and Girl?

J: I’m really looking forward to sharing ideas between the prefect team, getting to know and working with our new head Mr Johnson, and rising to the challenge of new responsibilities. I: I’m most looking forward to helping bring the hopes and ideas of the prefects and wider school community to fruition, thus ideally leaving the school in a better place for future students.

What’s your favourite aspect of school life?

J: My favourite aspect of school life is socialising and participating in extracurricular clubs and events. Some of my favourite moments from last year were when I went to Southampton with the debating team to participate in the Mock Trials Competition, attended the Model UN, and performed in ‘This Sceptered Isle’. Although for the foreseeable future events like this will look a little different, I know that there will still be lots of opportunities to get involved in this type of activity, which I’m really looking forward to.

I: My favourite aspect of school life is the sheer variety of activities and opportunities available to us, be that the various sporting clubs running all week at all times of days, to the business lunches that allow us to meet business leaders and get an insight into potential different careers and extensive academic enrichment sessions.

Senior Life

Discovering Cornwall’s geology

With dramatic coastlines, hundreds of beaches, rugged moorland and lush green countryside, Cornwall’s landscape provides our budding geologists with plenty to explore. Enhancing their studies, the GCSE geologists ventured to Widemouth Bay and Carn Brea to see for themselves the geological richness in these areas.

Meanwhile, A-Level students also experienced field trips out. They discovered the features of the metamorphic aureole surrounding Cligga Head Quarry on the coastal footpath to Perranporth. There were several other stops along the route to investigate decreasing grades of thermal metamorphism.

Cape Cornwall Art

While it was still warm and sunny, the A-Level artists ventured to Cape Cornwall, a scenic area perfect for practising their drawing and paintbrush skills.

New decorations outside Burrell Theatre

The clay heads that were made in last year’s ceramics Wednesday Afternoon Activities were put on display outside the Burrell Theatre.

Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day was marked with a livestream ceremony and a small amount of Sixth Form students present in the chapel, along with Mr Johnson, Dr Pope, Mrs Ellison and the Rev.

After Mr Johnson opened the service, Dr Pope and Mrs Ellison read out the names of fallen Old Truronians who sacrificed their lives in both world wars and in Afghanistan. Whilst their names were projected on the screen, each Sixth Form student pinned a cross to the boards in their honour.

Inter-Year Group Music Competition

Over 100 pupils performed in their Year Group Bands and Vocal Groups for the Inter-Year Group Music Competition which took place virtually.

1st Year Cookery

1st Years familiarised themselves with the Cookery School and learned to cook a delicious carrot, orange and tarragon soup with homemade bread, and mastered a variety of basic cooking skills in their first term.

Harvest Festival

During Harvest Festival week, each year group dropped their food donations in the chapel entrance. Three Sixth Form students led an assembly at the beginning of the week with information about the chosen charities, and encouraged donations. Representatives from Truro Foodbank collected the food donations; there was so much they needed help from the caretakers to load it into the van. On Charity Day, money was donated to All We Can.

Truro and Falmouth MP visits Truro School

Cherilyn Mackrory, Conservative MP for Truro and Falmouth, visited Truro School for a tour around the site, whilst meeting new Head Andy Johnson and Head Girl and Boy. On her tour Cherilyn visited the chapel, where she could see for herself the piles of food donations made by Truro School pupils ready to be collected by Truro Foodbank as part of Harvest Festival.

Ten Tors Walk

The Truro School Outdoor Pursuits team were pleased to be back out training for the 2021 Ten Tors event after it was cancelled in 2020. The teams hiked a long, windy walk in tough conditions from Padstow to Mawgan Porth/ Watergate Bay.

Truro School announces new partnership with Saints Southwest

Truro School was pleased to announce a new partnership with leading football development centre Saints Southwest. Saints Southwest is an official club partner of Southampton Football Club, and provides education, community, football and sporting provisions across the South West.

As an official Saints Southwest partner, Truro School pupils will benefit from the club’s commitment to ‘developing potential for all’ both on and off the pitch. Building on an already high standard of coaching at Truro School, which last year saw Truro School’s Under 16s team crowned joint winners of the Independent School’s FA National Shield, the unique programme will provide pathways for boys and girls, taking them to the next level, as well as opening doors to a wide range of roles within the industry, such as coaching, performance analysis and research. Delivered through daily sessions, alongside classroom analysis, gym work and individual development programmes, the programme is designed to complement GCSE, A-Levels and C-Tech lessons to produce well-rounded, balanced individuals.

“It’s with great pleasure the Saints Southwest join forces with Truro School. A proactive partnership built on key values, attention to detail and professionalism. Saints Southwest have a proven track record in developing people both on and off the pitch and pride ourselves on being able to offer opportunities for many young people to take part in sport, football and reach their full potential.”

MARK TITCHARD DIRECTOR OF SAINTS SOUTHWEST. ALEX WATSON

As part of the new Saints partnership, ex-professional football player Alex Watson has joined the school to oversee the Cornwall part of the Saints South West regional and development centre.

Alex had a successful career that started in the late eighties through to the mid-noughties, beginning by signing for Liverpool Football Club. During his career, Alex had over 400 league appearances in a host of clubs including Derby County (loan), Bournemouth, Gillingham (loan), Torquay United, Exeter City, Taunton Town, and Clevedon Town. Alex commented in October: “The school’s fantastic and everyone’s lovely and helpful. I am looking forward to building and progressing the football programme down here and getting to know the area better. The long-term goal is to make Truro School a hub for football. Excellent programmes will ensure players and students enjoy themselves and that students stay in football after they leave school.”

Senior Life

Being active citizens

As part of the 4th Year active citizen lessons in PSHEE, pupils contributed to their communities in several ways including litter picks, Christmas Box Appeal, donating money and items to various charities and lending a helping hand with someone’s gardening.

World Champion Windsurfer

The IQFoil International Games took place in October on Lake Garda, Italy. Sixth Former Finn triumphed and became the first ever U19 IQFoil World Champion. The young windsurfer also won 2nd place in the U21s and 14th overall against the seniors.

Figuratively drawing…

1st Years enjoyed an after-school session of figure drawing using the grid method. Usually, a volunteer would come in to pose so that the young artists could experience drawing a real figure, but due to Covid restrictions this could not happen in the Autumn Term.

Helping the environment

On behalf of the 1st Year, 1K spent a busy afternoon planting trees in a geography lesson. 1K were keen to leave a positive mark on 2020 by planting trees that they will be able to watch grow throughout their time at Truro School. Species planted were oak, wild cherry, crab apple, willow and hazel.

Synthesising aspirin

As part of their A-Level chemistry practical assessment, the Upper Sixth chemists synthesised aspirin in the lab. They had to compose their own experimental risk assessment before carrying out a careful esterification, reacting 2-hydroxybenzoic acid with ethanoic anhydride under strict temperaturecontrolled conditions to achieve their desired product.

Once their reaction was complete, they had to purify their crude product using a process called recrystallisation.

Wednesday afternoon activities

The Autumn Term’s co-curricular programme varied dramatically as the country entered a second lockdown in November, meaning the clubs available adapted to the situation. Off-site activities such as surfing and sailing weren’t allowed under the national guidelines, but pupils found ways to stay active and creative on Wednesday afternoons. The surfers may not have been able to go to local beaches, but they took to the school pool to practise their techniques. As part of their training, the pupils swam up and down through hoops to simulate going through waves, and practised basic board paddling, how to roll over with the board and how to stand and balance, putting their skills to the test in team races.

Meanwhile, the young sailors were joined by various pro sailors for virtual talks, and found ways to bring the water to them by making and racing homemade model boats. Other activities included cooking creamy lasagnas and creating ceramic sgraffito and, of course, as Christmas drew nearer, festive fever swept the co-curricular programme. Pupils made decorations in chemistry, played hockey and netball in tinsel and Santa outfits, and practised traditional carols on instruments.

Senior Life

Senior Life

Subject breakfasts

Choosing A-Levels can be daunting. Luckily our Sixth Form students were on hand to advise and guide our 5th Years about specific subjects in weekly ‘subject breakfasts,’ which took place in the Sixth Form Café, where GCSE pupils sampled the delights that the exclusive student café has to offer.

Leiths International Afternoon Tea

Instead of the usual Leiths canapé evening, this year the Leiths diploma students worked hard planning, preparing and serving their takeaway ‘tastes of the world’ afternoon tea to an invited audience.

The menu, which is served as part of the Leiths Certificate in Food and Wine and the CTH Level 3 Certificate in Professional Cookery, included 12 canapés from seven different countries including Japan, France and Italy, with five sweet and seven savoury delicacies.

Ruthless “Done to perfection”

The Burrell Theatre became the dark and gloomy house of Dr Armitage, as part of the A-Level Theatre Studies students’ examined performance ‘Ruthless’. The play was livestreamed to YouTube, as well as being watched live in the theatre by some fellow Upper Sixth students.

Play-doh diagrams

Play-doh isn’t just for the Prep children: A-Level students showed that it can prove a useful tool for 3D learning. Student psychologists were tasked to create a memory diagram out of the colourful dough to help them visualise what goes on in our brains.

Shooting hoops

Basketball is still a relatively new sport at Truro School, but grows in popularity each year. The afterschool programme offers all year groups the chance to play ‘in-house’ basketball and develop their skills and understanding.

Inspiring futures

3rd Years experienced their Inspiring Futures GCSE taster day. New subjects such as geology, computer science and PE were introduced to help them understand the courses and the doors they can open.

Sixth Form Christmas Social

Sixth Form students prepared their common room for Christmas and enjoyed their festive social, eating festive treats, playing games and decorating the walls and themselves.

Christmas Concert

Our Christmas Concert is always a highlight of the musical calendar, and this year was no exception. Playing everything from ‘Frosty the Snowman’ to ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’, this year’s Christmas Concert sparkled with festive fizz. The fantastic performances took place within yeargroup bubbles and were shared with the school community on YouTube.

Nine Lessons and Carols

Recording took place for the virtual version of the traditional Nine Lessons and Carols Service, which was available to view as part of the ‘Friday Night is Music Night’ schedule in December.