Private School News

PUPILS CHOSEN TO HELP MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN INDIA

Ten pupils from Windlesham House School in Washington are to experience the trip of a lifetime having been selected to visit India later this year.

George Carmichael, Monty Clevely, Theo Golden, Claudia Kelley, Will Line, Henry Martin, Marcus Miller, Laila Petra, Mark Smirnov and Joey Walsworth will be visiting education projects and handing over fund-raising following the School’s efforts during its World Awareness Week in January.

The group, along with two members of staff, will be going with the Chair of Trustees of the CRED Foundation, Paul Sanderson MBE, who regularly leads trips for pupils to community projects in developing nations.

Windlesham last sent out a group in 2008 to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia where they spent a week delivering creative activities for the children and young people in the slums.

Teacher and co-ordinator for the India trip, Justin Blake, said: “The ten pupils all gave very impressive interviews and they each deserve their place for what will be a life-changing experience.”

“We can all play our part in making a difference around the world and I know that this will be an extraordinary journey for everyone. It is a privilege to be able to help vulnerable children in India and we are looking forward to this with great anticipation. It promises to be a truly unforgettable adventure.”

PHOTO: The Windlesham team gather ahead of their trip to India this October.

One of the Largest Groups of Young Voices in Shropshire sing Vivaldi “Gloria” - March 20th, 7.30pm

Two Shropshire Music Scholars perform Bach’s Famous Double Violin Concerto

Shrewsbury Abbey
March 20th 2010
7:30 pm

One of the most famous of pieces, Vivaldi’s “Gloria” is to be performed at Shrewsbury Abbey 20th March by one of the largest groups of young voices in the county. The concert will also feature two brilliant violinists, both of whom are music scholars at Wrekin College; Matthew Duffield and Freyja Clarke. They will, together with the College Orchestra, perform Bach’s famous double violin concerto.

The combined choirs of Wrekin College will be joined by the choir of Prestfelde School too, making a total of 150 singers, with most of the choir being of school age. Prestfelde school will also perform parts of Pergolesi “Stabat Mater”.

Wrekin College has a long and fine tradition for producing excellent singers and three of the solo singers for the evening will be students of the College: the evening will be conducted by the College’s own Director of Music, Francis Murton.

Members of the public are welcome to join us for this concert which takes place in the beautiful surroundings of Shrewsbury Abbey; we look forward to seeing you there.

The concert takes place on Saturday 20th March at 7.30pm and tickets are available, priced £5 from the Music Department at Wrekin College telephone : 01952 265625 or email music@wrekincollege.com

Photo: Freyja Clarke and Matthew Duffield

Rhymes and Races on Book Day

On Friday 5th March, instead of pupils, the Royal Alexandra and Albert School had troops of soldiers, kings, Bo-Peeps, piggies and blackbirds in attendance. It was Book Day and the theme this year was nursery rhymes so all the children and staff came to school dressed as a character from a nursery rhyme.

Fancy Dress Friday in the Junior Department was the culmination of a series of events designed to encourage children to get the most out of reading and enjoyment of books. As part of Book Week, children have written their own nursery rhymes, mixed up traditional nursery rhymes into new nursery rhymes, produced diaries as if they were a character from a nursery rhyme and even drafted newspaper articles reporting on an event in a nursery rhyme.

Literacy co-ordinator, and Year 6 Teacher, Alexandra Smith commented, “The children have really enjoyed remembering nursery rhymes and investigating their actual meaning. They have produced excellent examples of creative writing, artwork and have proved very perceptive when imagining what it is like to be one of the fictional characters.

“One of the highlights of this week was the workshop by author David Mason who really captured the imagination of the children with a humorous and animated performance of his own poems.”

“There were various events on Fancy Dress Friday and these included a parade (in which the Queen of Hearts delivered some real tarts) and sporting activities. Sport ‘nursery rhyme style’ involved pairs of Jacks and Jills racing up a very steep hill with a pail of water. The pail was full of holes and the children had to reach the finish line with as much water as possible. It was wet and muddy but luckily no one broke their crown!”

Bedford Modern School students attend A2 American Politics Conference

Bedford Modern School A2 Politics students attended a revision conference on Wednesday 3rd March in London. The students heard from two notable authors and examiners, Anthony Bennett and Paul Fairclough on a variety of topics including The Presidency, Supreme Court and U.S. Political Parties.

As well as the lecture notes, students were given a free copy of a book each for revision - “U.S. Politics Update 2010″ which has the most up-to-date examples for students to use.

Stuart Baker, Head of Politics at Bedford Modern School stated: “The revision course has given a great start to BMS students’ preparations for their A2 exams in the summer and the resources they were given were superb.”

Photo: U.S. Politics Update 2010

The BBC Radio Wales ‘Jamie & Louise’ show - Live from Christ College

Former Christ College pupil and now BBC Wales Today presenter Jamie Owen returned to Christ College on Thursday 4th March. Jamie hosts his BBC Radio Wales show with Louise Elliott every weekday morning from 9.00 am until 12 midday.

You may have heard about the massive red scarf which Louise and Jamie have been organising with the help of their listeners from all over Wales, showing support for the Wales rugby squad in their Six Nations campaign. The scarf is now over a mile long (and growing). After the Six Nations, they’re going to use the scarf to help some good causes.

Louise and Jamie are taking their show on tour around Wales bringing the Big Red Scarf with them and they came to Christ College, Brecon on Thursday 4th March. They met Christ College pupils and staff but also met pupils from Ysgol y Bannau, as well as members of the local community.

They were inundated with red scarfs to add to their growing ‘Big Red Scarf’. If you want to see some pictures and videos about the scarf, please go to their website by clicking here. You can listen to them on 882 AM in the Brecon area or on 93-96 and 104 FM across Wales as well as on-line and on Digital TV.

Over 125 voices in Choral Spectacular

The Christ College tradition of choral singing showed itself to be thriving in a splendid concert in Brecon Cathedral on Saturday 27th February which brought together all of the school’s choral groups. Alway Singers, both the Female and Male Voice Choirs, and the Chapel Choir all sang individually before joining forces with the Choral Society in music by Fauré.

A fine orchestra of professional musicians had been assembled to accompany the Chapel Choir under their director Jonathan Cooper in Constant Lambert’s Jazz Age classic The Rio Grande. The singers coped admirably with the technically demanding rhythms and harmonies of the work and produced a warm tone in the quieter moments. The percussion section, led by CCB percussion tutor Gareth Hamlin, drove the rhythms forward with a wide range of instruments, and the pyrotechnic piano solo played by Director of Music Richard West was suitably fiery. The rich contralto voice of Flora York Skinner was the finishing touch to a fine performance of this exciting work.

In contrast the Female Choir excelled in Schubert’s familiar setting of the 23rd Psalm. The girls sang with control and suitably angelic tone in well-shaped phrases with clear diction, even singing in German. The Alway Singers took us back to jazz, swinging their way through Gershwin’s Fascinating Rhythm with a real sense of enjoyment but without losing any musicality or clarity. The first half ended with appropriate hwyl for the approach of St David’s Day as the Male Voice Choir gave us arrangements of Kumbayah and We’ll keep a welcome. This was an authentic male voice sound with quality as well as volume, and it was hard to recognise that these were still young voices.

The Choirs of Christ CollegeThe second half belonged to the Choral Society. All the choirs joined forces and were augmented by adult members of the school community and local friends for sacred music by Gabriel Faure. Cantique de Jean Racine and the Requiem are two pillars of the choral repertoire which demand sensitive singing and present some musical challenges. Led by Director of Music Richard West with strings and horns and Jonathan Cooper at the organ, the massed voices of almost 130 singers produced a fine performance. In Nicholas Gedge there was an outstanding baritone soloist to inspire the many students in Christ College taking individual singing lessons. One such student, Anna John, sang the famous Pie Jesu with considerable style. As well as the tone of sweet innocence implied in the setting, Anna sang with musical phrasing and accurate intonation, suggesting a talent that will grow as her voice matures. The short Cantique showed that Richard West has his singers producing a full tone and long lines, the lower parts particularly making the most of their melodies. The Requiem gave the female voices chances to shine in the choruses of angels and it was particularly good to hear the tenors, always a difficult part for school choirs, holding their line with such clarity and confidence. Despite a moment of uncertainty in the second movement, this was a confident and assured performance with the singers’ enjoyment of singing shining through.

A large audience applauded the assembled performers enthusiastically. Messrs West and Cooper had worked tirelessly to produce so much quality music from so many singers; the congratulations were well deserved.

Head Emma Taylor paid tribute to all that contributed, especially Director of Music Mr Richard West and Director of Choral Music Mr Jonathan Cooper, saying: “It was an excellent event and greatly appreciated by all the parents and members of the public who attended. Many congratulations to Richard and Jonathan; lots of hard work but what a result!”

World Book Day celebrated at Bearwood

On Thursday, 4th March, Bearwood pupils of all ages celebrated World Book Day a number of ways. Firstly, the librarian visited the Prep and Pre-Prep Schools, where the children dressed up and were treated to storytime as well as some free literary gifts and World Book Day cupcakes. The themes for Year 3 and Year 5 were based on what they’ve been reading, namely Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Greek myths. The younger children dressed as their favourite book character.

At the College, four Year 8 writers, Holly Bishop, Alastair Cameron, Aidan Sakakini and Frances Tidey, spent five hours being creative as they worked together to produce Chapter 4 in their inter-school e-book. The first three chapters were written on Monday to Wednesday by the Emmbrook, Cranford House and Sandhurst schools, and Bearwood wrote the final chapter, and named the whole story “The Fallen Angel.” Copies of the final story are available in the Bearwood College Cook Library.

Photo: Bearwood College Prep School’s Year 5 children dressed as Greek Gods

TRENT RUGBY TITANS TACKLE READING

Rugby players from Trent College in Long Eaton have discovered a novel way to fit more reading into their school day.

Books and reading play a large role in life at Trent College and its Junior School, The Elms, with all pupils encouraged to read for pleasure. With this in mind, the School’s Rugby Titans, consisting of students from Years 11 to 13, have organised a Book Club, which is held before their weekly training session. Coach Guy Hope said: ‘It’s a bit of fun and the Titans really enjoy talking about the books they’ve read.’

Keep it up, boys!

BROMSGROVE’S U16A RUGBY TEAM NAMED N.MIDLANDS CHAMPIONS

After an exciting and successful season, Bromsgrove Schools’ U16A rugby team have been declared the North Midlands Champions (on 3rd March 2010).

Their opponents, Adam’s Grammar, put up a good fight and it was all square at full time (3 to 3), however it came to the boot of Fifth Former James Widdop to put Bromsgrove ahead with a well struck drop goal with 2 minutes left to play.

Mr Hugh Bell, U16A Coach says, “This win marked a tremendous end to the U16’s season and I would like to thank everyone involved for their help and support”.

‘SPY DOG’ VISITS ELMS PUPILS

Pupils from Years 2-5 at The Elms, Junior School to Trent College, were in for a treat this week, when award winning author Andrew Cope and his dog Lara came to visit, creating a perfect start to the School’s World Book Week activities.
Lara is the inspiration behind Andrew’s bestselling Spy Dog novels, in which a specially trained secret agent dog has many adventures, chasing mega-baddy ‘Mr Big’. The real Lara cannot play computer games or drive a car like her counterpart in the books but she was very patient with the pupils who all wanted to stroke her.
Andrew, from Derby, gave an inspirational talk to the children about books and stories, explaining why reading is so important today and explained to pupils that reading encourages the imagination and makes your brain work harder than watching T.V. The pupils went away with signed copies of the Spy Dog books (Andrew even gave out some free copies) and were inspired to take part in a competition, designed to fire their imagination and improve their writing skills, by writing their own story about a pet gorilla. As an extra incentive all entries stand a chance of winning a special Spy Dog t-shirt!
Andrew’s incredibly popular books have won several awards, including a Nottingham Book Award and Redhouse Children’s Book of the Year.
Both The Elms and Trent College believe that reading is an important factor in ensuring the well-being and happiness of our children and The Elms’ wonderful new library promotes reading for pleasure in a variety of ways, one of which is through meeting an author. All pupils at The Elms have now met a writer this academic year, which has further inspired them to read and to use their imagination. And they have had a lot of fun, too!