BORLASE NEWS 28th March 2014
Issue 13
WHAT’S ON
Don’t forget!
Squid to ParentPay
School starts back on Tuesday 22nd April. (It’s not an inset day anymore!)
Rowing Quiz Night Saturday 29th March PA Meeting Tuesday 1st April
Spring PA meeting Tuesday 1st April at 7.00pm in The Wethered Room.
Dads’ Brewery Trip Tuesday 1st April Hockey BBQ Wednesday 2nd April PA Murder Mystery Saturday 10th May
6th Form Notices Year 13 Parents - An important date for your diary
Marlow Sports Club Ball Saturday 21st June
The Year 13 Celebration of Achievement Tea Party will take place on Tuesday 13th May at 3:45pm. This is a very special day in our school year and we very much hope that all year 13 parents will be able to attend. Invitations will follow shortly.
2014/15 Hockey Registration Evening 12th September
Year 12 and 10 Masterclass Day Tuesday 10th and Wednesday 11th June 2014
Borlase Golf Day Wednesday 4th June
HOMEWORK CLUB Monday-Friday 3.40-5.00 pm in the Learning Resource Centre Supervised by: Mon: Miss Irving (Yr 10) Tues: Mrs Davis (Yr 7) Wed: Miss Barrett (Yr 9) Thu: Miss Maffey (Yr 11) Fri: Mr Ng (Yr 8)
NEXT NEWSLETTER Friday 2nd May
Thank you to those of you who have already offered to help on our years 12 and 10 Masterclass Days. We will be contacting you this week with further details. Meanwhile if any other parents could offer your time we would be delighted to hear from you. Please contact Sarah Kettlewell on 01628-816572 or skettlewell@swbgs.com Miss. S. Kettlewell
Articles Please Thank you to everyone who contributes to this newsletter. For the next issue please send all articles and notices by Wednesday 30th April to
KFarquhar@SWBGS.com
As previously announced, following the successful introduction of ParentPay and Positickets to the school, we are now in a position to move our cashless catering across from sQuid to ParentPay, thereby simplifying payment methods for parents. We are using this half-term to get ourselves ready to make the required technical changes over the Easter period. Our caterers have successfully made the same transition at other schools so are versed in their processes and are providing advice to us. sQuid has been asked to close access to new credits as of 28 March 2014, leaving any outstanding credit on your child’s account accessible for the last week of the term. ParentPay is making arrangements to be able to take credits to children's accounts as of 7 April 2014, ready for pupils return after Easter. Any outstanding credit on pupil sQuid accounts as at 7 April 2014 will be transferred across to our caterers for them to add to the new pupil catering accounts but please note that this process may not be fully completed over Easter please do not top up sQuid assuming funds will then be available after Easter. If you have not yet accessed ParentPay you may wish to take the opportunity to do so over the coming weeks, ahead of Easter. If you require a re-transmission of your parental logon please email finance@swbgs.com and we will arrange this. We welcome those of you who wish to get ahead of the game now as we move along the pathway to greater use of cashless payments into the school. Thank you to all who have embraced this method to date. Mr J Clegg
German Exchange 27 year 10 pupils are eagerly awaiting the arrival of their German Exchange partners from Saarburg on Saturday29th March. This will be the first leg of the exchange. The Germans will stay for a week and will visit London, Windsor and Oxford and they will spend a day in school. Their lessons will include Drama, Technology, English, Science and History. The joint trip to London for English and German pupils includes Covent Garden and the musical "Wicked". Mrs. C. Carter
Calling Gardening Volunteers Next gardening date – 5th April We are a small gardening group who look after the flower beds and Cloisters area. We are always looking for new recruits and helping hands. We meet about once a month in the growing season (March to November). If you would like to help out please come along and please bring some tools, gardening gloves etc. No experience necessary. Refreshments and wonderful cake available. 10am to 1pm (cake at 12) or as much time as you can manage. We will be in the chapel garden or cloisters. Diane Elliot
Chamber Choir sings at St George's Chapel Borlase Choirs continue to impress. Congratulations to the Chamber Choir for a terrific choral performance at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, last weekend. The choir sang as part of a three-choirs concert with award-winning Taplow Youth Choir and Hertfordshire County Youth Choir. Following a thrilling combined-choirs performance of Haydn's 'Insanae et vane curae', Borlase Chamber Choir sang music by Monteverdi, Peacock, and two spirituals. A powerful and moving performance of Mozart's Requiem followed after the interval. The combined choir of 150 young singers produced an impressive sound in the ancient space of the Chapel. Borlase alumna Sarah Maxted (2009), now studying at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, presented some wonderful alto solos, and Alison Hopper (2009) Caroline Hopper (2011), and Mrs Jenny Hopper played in the professional orchestra. Many thanks to Gillian Dibden for her inspirational leadership of the event, and to Gill Ross and Hugh Robson for assisting with rehearsals. A memorable evening for all involved. All our senior choirs Cantorum, Chamber Choir, Chapel Choir, Gospel Choir, Madriguys, and the Octet - together with senior instrumental ensembles will perform at the Senior Concert next Thursday. Dr Parsons
Big Band Jazz Concert: Sunday 27 April. Our former Director of Music Patrick Gazard is bringing the High Wycombe Music Centre BB1 to record their CD - ‘GROUP DYNAMIC’ - live in the Borlase Theatre on the first Sunday after Easter. This will be the band’s third recording - the previous two having also been recorded at Borlase - and this latest one will also be available to buy online. Featuring Borlasians Ellie Potter, Harvey Barber, Dom Ford and Ollie Davie this promises to be an exciting and varied evening of jazz and Big Band music, ranging from Count Basie right through to contemporary arrangements specially composed for the group. The performance starts at 6pm, with tickets on the door: £5 with £2.50 concessions, or £12 for a family of 4. A live audience is essential to create the right atmosphere, so don’t miss it. All enquiries to hwmusic@learning trust.net
U12 Netball District Tournament 12th March'14 On the 12th March, the year 7 A Team girls participated in their first Wycombe League Tournament hosted by Wycombe Abbey School. They played seven matches, winning five of them as follows: Pipers Won 5 - 4 Wyc High Won 3 -1 Grt Marlow Won 4 - 3 Godstow (giants !) Lost 1- 7 Wyc Abbey Lost 1 - 6 St Michaels Won 6 - 0 SWR Won 2- 0
Borlase Rowing March has seen things look up for the Rowing Club after a very flooded Thames resulted in many, many hours in the gym and frequent journeys to Dorney Lake. The whole club competed at the Junior Sculling Head on Friday 20th March which at the outset looked to be cancelled because of fog of all things but the sun burned through and a long day's racing began. The Senior boys and girls raced well, winning gold and bronze respectively in the J18 quad events. The J16 girls then followed this up with another bronze medal plus top ten finishes for the J16 boys A quad and the J15 girls eight. The perfect day to be out of the gym.
They played exceptionally well and came second overall. The girls are captured right wearing their medals. Pictured are (from left to right):Emily Doyle, Elizabeth Broadbent, Rosie Shaw, Beth Zaziemski, Alice Atkinson, Sophie Appleton, Anna Hume (captain), Ellie Yeomans and Georgia Tuke. Our thanks also to Julie McSweeney for umpiring the Tournament. A great season – well done girls! Mrs O’Hara
Yoga by Candlelight On Saturday 15th March, Borlase Theatre was transformed into a relaxing haven of candlelight and music, in an afternoon of Yoga. The event was lead by Alexandra Alves, year 10 parent and local Yoga instructor, to raise money to refurbish the theatre.
The Seniors and J15s then travelled to Hammersmith to race on a cold and choppy Tideway in Schools Head of the River on Wednesday 26th March. An amazing day's racing resulted in a silver for the J18 boys quad, bronze for the J18 girls and the J16 boys and top ten finishes for the J15 boys and girls all in the Championship Eights events. Well done team - the hard work is paying off! M. Wood
54 people attended the event which was a huge success and sold out.
Revision Classes
One participant said: ‘The event was well organized, safe, relaxing and a very lovely way to raise funds. The teachers were attentive and expert. I hope that other similar charity events will be organized in the near future to raise more funds.’
Parents of students in years 11, 12 and 13 will have received an email about the Easter revision courses. Many are now full and cannot be booked, but the timetable sent out on Thursday shows the latest availability.
In total a fabulous £600 was raised for the Above & Beyond Fund, which will be allocated to the refurbishment of the theatre. Celia Blakeway-Phillips, Development Director said ‘We’re really thrilled with the success of this event and grateful to Alexandra to support the Above and Beyond fund in her fund-raising’. We have high hopes there will be a repeat event later in the year.
The final deadline for booking these available classes (only) is 10am Monday 31st March. No bookings will be taken after this time but students can arrive on the day and pay £40 at reception if there are any places left. Confirmation of your courses will be published next week.
The Big Bang ‘AN EXPLOSION of Science engulfed Marlow last week as it played host to an exclusive gathering for all things scientific’ Bucks Free Press ‘Many thanks for an incredible STEM fair. The enthusiasm from students and variation of topics was a joy to experience. We were enthralled by snowflakes, germs, heart implants, volcanoes, corn flour, wind turbines, snakes... even hockey sticks and solar systems! Huge congratulations to the STEM team and everyone who participated. WOW! Thank you’ from a parent Laura Tobin from Daybreak TV tweeted @Lauratobin1 ’Had a great evening at SWBGS @STEMNET Science Fayre talking to the Einsteins of the future. The projects and pupils were brilliant and it made me remember how I fell in love with science’ 97 Students were awarded a Bronze Crest Award A further 183 students projects will now be externally examined for Silver Crest Awards. Year 8 - 25 April Year 9 - 8 May Year 10 - 25 June ‘The STEM fayre went better than we could have ever expected. It was great to see how enthusiastic all of the students were and how much effort went into making each of their projects. We really enjoyed looking at all the projects and it was so hard to pick the winners. We hope that all of the students had as much fun as we did.’ From the STEM prefects: Kate Dicker and Dom Mahoney The Winning Bronze Crest Projects are on display at Marlow Library until the end of Term Mrs. Tolson, Head of KS3 said ‘Impressive, inspirational and so interesting! Thank you to the STEM prefects,
Kate & Dom & to Mrs Barclay & Mr Lee for all the hard work that went into making this such a successful event. We really will need a bigger venue for next year if the numbers this year are anything to go on!’
Above and Beyond Fund 2013/14. Investing in your children's future A communication has been sent via your daughter/son inviting you to support the Above and Beyond Fund. Thank you to those already donating. To find out more contact Celia or Kate in the Development Office on 01628 816519 or celiabp@swbgs.com
www.friends.swbgs.com
Reg Charity No: 1096750
Would you like to advertise? If you would like to advertise in the annual Dance Show, the Autumn Concert programmes, or the annual Borlasian magazine, please contact: Celia Blakeway-Phillips, Development Director celiabp@swbgs.com /01628 816519
Volunteers Needed! If anyone has research skills or design skills and has some spare time, the Development Office would love to hear from you. Please contact Celia BlakewayPhillips to discuss either possibility. Both projects can be short-term, depending on your availability. Contact 01628 816519 or celiabp@swbgs.com Thank you.
Fiona Haynes, is an old Borlasian, class of 2011 and is now studying singing at Royal College of Music
More classes to be added on other days. Please register your interest by emailing or calling barre sculpt