THE SKINNERS’ SCHOOL Newsletter – October 2014
In this edition: Our Bursar saves the day! Rugby success for Skinners’ Skinners’ pupil is Kent Cadet of the Year & more...................
From the Headmaster From the Headmaster
As I write the school feels a bit empty: Year 7 are camping in wildest Oxfordshire and the CCF are on exercise in the harshest of terrain that Ashdown Forest can offer. Still, on a Friday, when fish and chips and burger and chips are the staple lunchtime offer, a smaller lunch queue has been very welcome indeed. This has been a busy term. 100 university applications have been submitted, with the remaining one sixth to go in November. 105 rugby fixtures have been played, with 57 of them won, indicating that our fixture list is very well-balanced. Congratulations to the 1st XV with a played 8 won 7 ratio, and to the U15C, U12D and U12E teams, the school’s three unbeaten teams! The artists have been to Malaga, London and Marle Place, the historians to Krakow and Battle. The geographers are off to Iceland next week. Our first independent production company, Gooms, has put on its first play (Ella Hickson’s Boys), and Skinners’ Got Talent was rightly won on both nights by Oli Paice and his extraordinary magic show. And of course a great deal of academic work has been done. Feel free not to tire of telling your sons that by Christmas they will effectively have completed half of the year’s study. It tends to focus the mind of those with public exams. In the meantime a week’s break has been earned by all, and I look forward to seeing everyone again once the clocks (slightly depressingly) have gone back. Edward Wesson
LAST MINUTE CALL UP FOR COACH JOHNSTON!
A mix-up on coach driver availability left the 3rd XV rugby team’s away match against Whitgift School in jeopardy, until our School Bursar (Mr Paul Johnston) volunteered to stand in as both team coach and minibus driver at the last minute. Mr Johnston, who has never played a game of rugby in his life and confesses to not knowing all the laws, oversaw a magnificent victory for Skinners’, and now wonders what the fuss over rugby coaching is all about! Although under pressure during the early part of the game, Skinners’ held a 12-5 lead at half time. Coach Johnston’s inspirational half time team talk… something along the lines of, “ boys if you can keep this going, I am going to have a lot of fun with the PE Staff tomorrow”, obviously did the trick, and Skinners’ went on to record a resounding 31-12 win – the only Skinners’ team victory against Whitgift this season. After the game, Coach Johnston promptly announced his retirement –thereby keeping his 100% coaching record intact! He was last seen back in his office, undertaking a review of PE Staff salaries – wondering if they are possibly being a little overpaid!
CITATION FOR JAMES WOODROOFE AT THE LORDLIEUTENANT’S CADET OF THE YEAR CEREMONY IN SEPTEMBER FS James Woodroofe, is one of the most outstanding cadets we have had in our contingent and the first RAF Head of Contingent in our 113 year history. Initially joining the army section, he volunteered to spearhead the new RAF section, developed under the Cadet Expansion Programme, and was recently selected to meet the Prime Minister at Downing Street. He is an exemplary leader, achieving distinction on both summer camps and cadet courses, taking part in both a CLC at Nesscliffe and the Senior MOI course at RAF Manston. FS Woodroofe has gained a gliding scholarship, been selected for the Air Cadet Leadership Course at RAF Cranwell and is a candidate for the RAF Junior Leaders’ Programme. As a cadet he has achieved national distinction, in just one year leading a team of cadets through to the National Finals of the Air Squadron Trophy. He has worked tirelessly designing new systems and training plans, whilst engendering a sense of optimism and enthusiasm in all cadets with whom he comes into contact. Outside the CCF, he is a House Captain, keen sportsman, whilst maintaining excellent academic results. He has been selected to join the Royal Society of Arts, Leaders of Tomorrow programme, working with a range of young people in schools and the wider community. For services to the cadet forces and wider community he is awarded Her Majesty's Lord Lieutenant of Kent's Cadet of the Year.
SKINNERS’ v JUDD
The annual match was played on Saturday 11th October, with over 700 people in attendance. The 1st XV entered this game as favourites and it was soon clear why. A dominant start with strong carries from Grasby, Vicary-Watts and Thresher put Judd on the back foot. A period of stalemate and brutal tackling saw Skinners’ go into half time 6-0 up thanks to 2 penalties from Lewthwaite. Into the second half and Skinners’ dominance continued, an early try from Vicary-Watts after a fine charge down on a kick and sitting down their full back with a brutal handoff, Skinners’ went 13-0 up. Judd raised their game and scored a fortunate try, largely down to poor defence from Skinners’. 13-7 with 15 minutes to go and Skinners’ upped the pressure, which led to a penalty which Lewthwaite calmly slotted home, putting Skinners’ 16-7 up with 5 minutes to play. Continued dominance saw Skinners’ round off the match with their best piece of play, a sublime chip kick through from Burgess saw Gomersall outpace his opposite man and touch down for the try of the game. 21-7 and the final whistle blew. Skinners’ players and fans erupted with delight, a first win over the local rivals in 5 attempts, and an extremely sweet one at that. Congratulations to the Upper 6th boys who pass through Skinners’ without ever losing to Judd, a fine effort and a pleasure to have coached you.
1st
Mr Tim Watts XV Head Coach
Art Trip to the V&A Museum & Tate Britain
On 18th September Year 9 boys visited the V&A Museum and Tate Britain. The trip focus was to gather inspiration in the form of notes, sketches, poems and photographs for their year 9 GCSE style art course titled ‘Order and/or Disorder’. The trip also offered the opportunity for curriculum links to Drama, English and History as some of the artwork and exhibits we saw had content linked to themes of slavery, oppression and civil rights, which are areas that feature in these subjects for year 9.
“Art is not a mirror to reflect the world, rather it is a hammer with which to shape it.” This quote by Bertolt Brecht welcomed us outside the Victoria and Albert Museum and pointed to the excellent exhibition titled Disobedient Objects.
The content focussed on ‘objects’ that have been used in public protest and suitably justified the quote above. Other areas of the collection offered a view of how posters have been used to deliver messages by individuals and governments and the Rapid Response collection highlighted ideas on modern day ‘slavery’. The boys worked in small groups and explored works from 18th to 21st Century in the Tate Britain. The trip helped them to appreciate the importance of seeing original objects and artworks. Quality work was undertaken on the day and many said they would have wanted to stay longer and would return again during the holiday to explore these cultural institutions further.
Mr Leo Hillier Art Department
Art Trip to Marle Place Year 10 GCSE Art students recently visited Marle Place in Brenchley. The trip acted as a starting point for their GCSE course and provided an opportunity to work with the artist Lucy Williams. Lucy ran the day and guided the boys through a range of activities that helped them engage with their project title ‘Surfaces’ in new and imaginative ways. the main emphasis was on exploring and creating, with original works being made and photographed on the day. Activities included ‘discovery boxes’ in which the boys felt a mystery object in a box. This task was to generate a list of words to describe the surfaces they felt. They also produced charcoal drawings, took photographs and created solo and collaborative ephemeral land art. One group also painted each other’s faces, inspired by tribal patterns, changing the ‘surface’ of the person they were working with. Both days were a great success and have initiated some original and inspired initial responses.
John Downton Awards 2014 The Art Department has recently submitted 6 students’ work to the prodigious John Downton Awards. Keep an eye on the Skinners’ Twitter feed to be the first to hear about the results.
Mr Leo Hillier Art Department
OPEN EVENING
Another successful was held at the school on Thursday 2nd October. The following pictures illustrate the range of activities and displays on offer during the evening.
SIXTH FORM
Dr Alan Bullion recently visited the school to talk to the Sixth Form students about The European Union
The Life Skills Company ran a workshop with Year 12 students about advanced study skills at the end of September – pictured above is Meg Hutchinson from the company talking to the students.
TRIATHLON SUCCESS Well done to Max Messer (9G), Seb Collins (9G) and Harry Cohen (9Y), who competed in the Hever Triathlon on Sunday 28th September. They took part in the junior relay category for the first time, competing against people up to 2 years older than them. Max Messer took on the 300m lake swim followed by Seb Collins who completed the 8km off-road bike race. It was then down to Harry Cohen, who ran the 4km final leg. All the boys ran the last 100 metres together; supporting Harry as he crossed the finishing line. The team finished in a brilliant 2nd place with a total time of 1 hour and 18 seconds.
SKI-RACING MEDAL FOR JOSHUA Joshua Wakeling from Year 7 spent the weekend of 18th October ski racing at Welwyn. On the Saturday he represented the region (London and South East Region Ski Association- LSERSA) in the team events and on Sunday he competed on an individual level. He managed to win a silver medal in his age category in the individual slalom. As it was the last race of the season Joshua was also awarded 2nd overall in his age category for the whole of the season, within the LSERSA region. Well done to Joshua for such a successful weekend!
DO YOU LIVE WITHIN 5 MILES OF SKINNERS' SCHOOL? IF THE ANSWER IS YES, WE NEED YOUR HELP! We would like to advertise the forthcoming Christmas Fayre and Farmer's Market on Saturday 6th December as widely as possible. Savills Estate Agents have kindly agreed to help us by using some of their boards to advertise the event. So we are asking for parents who live within 5 miles of Skinners, and are on a road with a reasonably busy daily traffic flow, to have an estate agent's board in front of their house to advertise the Fayre. The agency will arrange to have the boards put up 2-3 weeks prior to the Fayre and will take them down in the week immediately afterwards. We need a good response to this request otherwise it will not be worthwhile for Savills and we will miss out on lots of free advertising. If you are happy to host a board, please contact Kay Clark at contactkayclark@btinternet.com giving your name, address and contact details as soon as possible. If you have any queries please call Kay on 07887 988771. Many thanks for reading this and we hope you will give us your support.