Old Wheatleyans Newsletter - Issue 1

JANUARY 2013 FORMER PUPIL NEWS FROM BABLAKE SCHOOL

Old Wheatleyans Welcome to the first former pupils’ newsletter...

I am delighted to introduce our first Old Wheatleyans newsletter. We hope you will enjoy reading about some of our recent O.W. events, and we have also included a few items of more general interest.

Bablake remains a vibrant and ambitious school community, and we are immensely proud of the generous, successful and well-rounded young adults who leave us after a full and rewarding school career.

We are always keen to hear from former pupils, and to discover where life has taken them since their school days.

Please keep in touch, find out about Bablake today from our website (www.bablake.com) and do not hesitate to return to your school for a visit. I would be very pleased to welcome you.

With my very best wishes for a happy and healthy 2013.

J W Watson Headmaster

University Meet-up A group of students from Oxford and Oxford Brookes met up with John Watson (Headmaster), Alison Tumber (Head of 6th Form), Jim Burns (Assistant Head) and Helen Skilton (Head of History) recently. Everyone had a great evening.

School days revisited Bob Griffiths (a former pupil from the 50s who taught in New Zealand) recently visited Bablake and enjoyed a tour around school with Sylvia and former Deputy Head Ron Jones.

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Generations joined at 1930s Reunion

Generations were joined at Bablake when former pupils from the 1930s and 1940s met current pupils at a reunion arranged by our Alumni Relations Officer, Mrs Sylvia O'Sullivan.

Our former pupils, who assembled in the Main Library, were welcomed by Headmaster Mr John Watson, reminisced about their own days at Bablake, sang an impromptu version of the School Song, spoke to Archivist Mr Peter Burden and were able to have a tour of the school with the assistance of our Senior Prefects.

Eleanor Morris, Assistant Editor of the Wheatleyan, Senior Prefect and Bayley House Captain, commented: 'It was excellent to meet the former pupils and I talked to one about his time in Russia, which is the topic I most enjoy in my A Level History course.' “To catch the reader's attention, place an

interesting sentence or quote from the story here.�

Mr Gary Park, Head of English, brought his Shell class to meet the former pupils, and by coincidence the form was reading 'Carrie's War', a story that is based around the experience of a child evacuee. The pupils were able to talk to a number of former pupils who were evacuated to Lincoln in the Second World War. The day was a poignant one for many and we hope to be able to host a similar reunion again very soon.

Class of 1990 Reunion

Travelling from many parts of the UK as well as even across the Atlantic from the US, the Class of 1990 returned to Bablake on a weekend in May 2012 for its 15 year reunion after leaving the school. Greeted by fantastic weather and a healthy number of current and former members of staff, our returning pupils were given the chance to reminisce on tours of the school. As well as catching up with old friends, they were entertained in the Dining Hall by speeches from Mr Peter Burden (Archivist), current Headmaster Mr John Watson and our school captains, Hannah Elsy and Will Sibley. Thank you to Mr Burden and our Alumni Relations Officer Mrs Sylvia O'Sullivan for their hard work arranging such an excellent event. For those who attended or even those unable to, a selection of photos from the event are available to view in our Old Wheatleyans and Bablake Former Pupils Facebook group or on Bablake's official Facebook page.

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Old Wheatleyans RFC The 2011-12 season was one that saw the Wheats continue to rise in stature on the field - having secured promotion the previous season, the young side continued their growth and development in superb style.

The Wheats 1st XV took to life in Midlands 4 with aplomb and finished the season as League Champions losing only 3 of 20 matches. There was Cup success too.

Having beaten opposition from Cambridgeshire, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire and Solihull, the Wheats faced Bloxwich RFC in the Midlands Junior Vase final.

A tense encounter culminated in a 15-9 victory for the Wheats, who then went on to represent the Midlands in the National competition, losing narrowly to eventual champions, Baildon RFC from Yorkshire in the semi-finals.

2011-12 also saw the 2nd XV make great strides playing 15 fixtures, winning 10, drawing 1 and losing only 4 all season. 2012-13 season sees the 1st XV competing in Midlands 3 and the 2nd XV targeting 20 fixtures, ahead of a proposed ascension to league rugby. The Club continues to have a close affiliation with Bablake School and many of our current players are former pupils.

Bablake Weather Station celebrates its 35th Year Head of Geography Mr Steve Jackson proudly reports that Bablake Weather Station is celebrating its 35th birthday this year. The first data was collected on 19th September 1977 with four pupils taking weather readings in an old Stevenson screen, using a rain gauge with holes in it and a wetted finger to assess wind direction.

Wind speed was worked out with the aid of descriptors from the Beaufort scale, the Headmaster gave ÂŁ5 out of his own pocket for a small barometer bought at Boots, and cloud cover was measured in oktas.

Mr Jackson and his team found some old mercury and alcohol sheathed thermometers and even dry and wet bulbs with Relative Humidity tables; the equipment was all very amateurish but the team eagerly awaited a Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder, an anemometer and wind vane. 12,784 consecutive days of weather records later, not a single day has been missed, though Mr Jackson confesses he came close to missing a day when his son Andy was born at 8.30am, necessitating a consequent dash from delivery room to Stevenson Screen! Mr Jackson commented: 'How times change, with Met Office MMS (Meteorological Monitoring System) equipment and our own Cambell Scientific AWS installed in a state-of-the-art enclosure with data sent directly to the Met Office as well as to school and home via a modem! In so many ways, it was much more fun in the 1980s when we had a team of 14 pupil observers out in all sorts of weather at 9am, rain or shine. It almost seems too sanitised today with just four or five observers placed at a computer screen! In the old days, we even drew our own synoptic charts from the shipping forecast!' The Bablake community is thoroughly impressed with the professionalism of our Weather Station team and recognises that 35 years' service must be unique for a school. Here's to reporting on the 40th birthday and beyond!

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Let’s hear from the Archives….

Hello. My name is Peter Burden and for the last five years or so (and once before that) I have been Bablake School’s archivist. Many of you will know that from 1978 to 2011 I taught English at the School. Now I am still employed but part-time.

So what do I do as archivist? Well, for a start I am responsible for keeping all former pupil files. This is quite a task in itself. In 2012, for instance, we have just said farewell to the largest year group ever and all of those files have had to be added to those we already hold, which cover the last century or so. Increasingly we store records electronically too. Fortunately I inherited from the late John Lawrence a very user-friendly system, though at the moment files have to be split between my office, which overlooks the Sixth Form library, and a room at the top of the tower.

This is accessed by two narrow and twisting staircases, I have already told the Headmaster that he should have appointed an archivist with a better sense of balance and smaller feet! As a matter of routine I need to access a particular file for all sorts of reasons. Typically it might be a recent former pupil wanting confirmation of exam results or a reference from the School, or even unfinished business about the payment of fees. More and more often I also deal with requests for information on, say, a grandfather who attended Bablake decades ago. Sometimes he was so long ago that I need to consult records from the late nineteenth century which are held by the Coventry History Centre. Sometimes we just want to find information about someone who is in the news or returning as Guest of Honour at Prize-Giving or planning to visit the School. It can be most enjoyable, though time-consuming, to show round Bablake someone who last saw it many years ago and swap memories of teachers and events of days gone by.

I am also responsible for keeping a host of memorabilia. We have everything from exercise books from the mid-nineteenth century to uniforms from the past to masses of photographs to a sculpted head of a previous Deputy Head. The archive includes material on particular periods or aspects of the School’s history, such as the evacuation to Lincoln, drama productions or even individual members of staff. We also hold a complete set of School magazines, dating back to the very first in 1897.

At the moment much of my Bablake time is taken up by two ventures. Since 1996 I have been in charge of finding former pupils for their Reunion.

Traditionally aimed at 33-year-olds, this occasion involves much detective work and admin, but always seems to be enjoyed by the former pupils and staff who come along. Such things as Facebook have made things a little easier and our Alumni Relations Officer Sylvia O’Sullivan is now a great asset in keeping the reams of data under control. In 1990, to mark the centenary of the School’s move to its present site, I wrote a history of Bablake. The Lion and the Stars, as it is called, is obviously now more than twenty years out of date and I am in the process of writing a second edition, which will include much additional visual material as well as an account of Bablake under Dr Stuart Nuttall’s headmastership and in the years since Mr John Watson took it over.

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Bablake Calendar 2013 We are pleased to be able to announce that, after the success of our 2012 Bablake calendar which raised over £1100 for the Lymphoma Association charity, we have published a 2013 version.

This time we are raising money for CRY and we have been humbled already by the generosity and ingenuity of two donors. Mrs Fleur Sexton, from Progressive Educational Tools (PET), and our Maintenance Team have both donated £300 which immediately covers our printing costs and has raised £150 for CRY. The latter gathered scrap metal that had been thrown away on site and then sold it to an official dealer. The 2013 version, which has a variety of pictures that capture the Bablake year, can be purchased from the school office and from Bablake's Careers Department priced at £4. If you would like a copy please contact us asap as supplies are quickly diminishing.

Other News

Diary Dates

Nativity 2 ‘Danger in the Manger’

Class of 98 & 99 Reunion

Bablake makes the movies again. Fans of this popular film will know that Bablake featured heavily in the first Nativity film and the Nativity 2 trailer shows the school's Main Entrance and the steps by the Main Hall - plus other areas of the school you may recognise!

Saturday 18th May 2013 Planned Reunion sometime Spring 2013 for former pupils who were at the school during 50s/60s …….. If this is you please contact Sylvia O’Sullivan, our Alumni Relations Officer to ensure we have the most up to date contact details for you.

Please don’t lose touch with us ….

Contacts - Advice - News - Events This is our first newsletter and we will aim to publish this twice a year; if you do have any news, events or photographs which you would like to be included in future newsletters, please contact Sylvia (details below). We are trying very hard to keep our database up to date and to increase membership, so please spread the word, and, if you are in contact with any former pupils, please do them encourage to join. Visit our Former Pupils’ database ‘WebAlumnus’, which can be found by visiting the school website www.bablake.com and going to the former pupils area, and then clicking on ‘Bablake Reunited’.

Contact: Email: Telephone: Website: Facebook: Twitter:

Sylvia O’Sullivan Alumni Relations Officer sosullivan@bablake.coventry.sch.uk 024 76271259 www.bablake.com/former pupils www.facebook.com/Old Wheatleyans www.twitter.com/bablakeschool 5