head’sreview
in the British Professional Women’s Schools Public Speaking, the Bablake trio (all boys actually!) were placed third in the national finals amongst the best five trios in the United Kingdom. Three teams won through to the Coventry Final of the excellent Young Enterprise scheme, and Touchdown won the prize for best product in the Coventry and Warwickshire Final for their Easy-squeeze tube-squeezer. If you are looking for Christmas stocking fillers, I’m afraid that it has probably already sold out. In the Young Enterprise level 2 examination, Jamie Stefaniak achieved the top mark in the West Midlands. Fifth Form Design Students Sam Sharples and Lee Paplauskas have received prestigious Arkwright scholarships for the duration of the Sixth Form for demonstrating Engineering flair and originality. Reena Panchal’s project on a hospital superbug won her top project prize from 73 entries in the West Midlands Gold Crest awards. Four Sixth Form artists were selected to take part in the Mad UK fashion show alongside undergraduates and professional designers from around the country, illustrating the themes of Renaissance, Peace and War and the equally worthy Party Pants. In the regional 2007 Mathematics Team Challenge, Bablake was placed second behind King Edward’s Birmingham in a field of 16 schools. Several pupils have won Mathematics Gold certificates at Senior, Intermediate and Junior levels, placing them amongst the top 4% of Mathematicians nationally; James Lambert was our first Fifth Former to achieve this accolade in the senior challenge. Lower Sixth Form Physicists won the Midlands Paperclip Physics competition, as they explained the concept of inertia by making eggs fall from a tray into beer glasses and pulling a tablecloth from beneath a vase of flowers. Plenty of creative energy there. A team of Economists was placed third nationally in the Shares 4 Schools competition, increasing the value of their shares by 20% during a six month period. They will offer financial advice to interested parties after the evening – at a fee, of course. Some of this team then combined with others in the Bank of England/ Times Two Point Zero Interest Rate Challenge, reaching the national finals in London in March, visiting the gold reserves and rising to the dizzy heights of sitting in the Governor’s chair. They were ultimately placed fourth out of 265 teams nationwide, having won through heats in Leamington and the West Midlands and South West England finals. We shall celebrate this highly commendable achievement in the prizes later on. All pupils have benefited from healthy competition and rivalry through the house system in many an activity, and, for the first time in four years, we dodged the showers to enjoy a muddy but exciting Sports Day at the beginning of July; we actually could probably be more confident of it taking place if we were to move it to December. The same might be said of our summer games fixtures, a good number of which suffered from wintry showers and downpours. This did not, however, dampen spirits, and the 1st XI cricket and U15 rounders teams fared particularly well, the former team winning through to the final of the Warwickshire Cup – which was actually played in glorious September sunshine. Many pupils have enjoyed successful seasons representing the school in sport, and there have been some fine highlights, over and above frequent wins in Coventry leagues and cups. Morale remained high amongst the rugby players, with the 2nd XV virtually unbeaten, and the U14s almost completing two seasons without a defeat. Our best players combined with the best from King Henry’s to take on a very strong Warwick School side just before Warwick went on
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the wheatleyan 2006/07
to win the Daily Mail Cup at Twickenham; the Coventry Schools team was winning until the last few minutes, but our two schools’ players, rarely in harmony, were ultimately united in defeat. The 1st Netball VII won all their league matches to take the West Midlands South league trophy. The U14 team won the Coventry Schools, the Warwickshire/ Solihull and Coventry Schools and the West Midlands Tournaments, and were only knocked out by the eventual winners in the semi-finals of the National Schools Netball Finals in Bournemouth. There is also great enthusiasm on the hockey front, with the appointment of two international players to the teaching staff, and the U16 girls’ and the U13 boys’ teams achieved particular success; the latter finished 6th in the Midlands finals, competing against strong club and school sides from seven counties. Individual successes are too numerous to list, but many pupils have gained city, county, regional and even national representative honours. Lucy Horn and Holly Payne trained exceptionally hard to be selected for the U16 England hockey team. Helen Price played rugby for England. Pippa Collison and Emily McNeice competed in the International Children’s Games in Iceland. Rebecca Sewell went to Holland with the Midlands U15 hockey team. Alex Owens competed for Warwickshire Schools in the prestigious Badminton England Harrods inter-county tournament. Paul Best captained the Warwickshire U17 cricket team. Brett Chatwin played rugby for Midlands U18s. Chuka Ogbuneke ran the 200 metres for the West Midlands. Jennifer Gardner represented the West Midlands in the pole vault at the UK Schools’ Games. Philip Walker will be training this autumn and winter with an Olympic coach, hoping to achieve national ranking in 2008. Joshua Baines will be shooting in the National Air Rifle finals at Bisley in October. The Senior Girls hockey and netball players have completed some pre-season training on tour in South Africa, whilst boys’ hockey will go to Gibraltar in October, and rugby to South Africa and Kenya next Summer. It seems that they will go to any lengths to track down some elusive sunshine, whilst pretending to forge international links in the name of sport. And lest we lack inspiration, we have only to look to Old Wheatleyan Shane Geraghty, who, earlier this year, helped English rugby to a morale-boosting victory over France. Surely there can’t be time for any other activity, let alone work? Well, we have enjoyed several drama productions, particularly The Threepenny Opera, a junior 40-minute Tempest, and Daisy Pulls It Off, which was one of four plays in a most entertaining evening of House Drama. The Threepenny Opera recently played to packed houses during the Drama Department’s annual visit to the Edinburgh Fringe. Our musicians have continued to entertain us, and there have been some notable individual achievements: Fourth Former Nadine Minty gained distinction in Grade 8 piano, David Cheetham the same accolade on the oboe, and Simone Willis played for the City of Birmingham Symphony Youth Orchestra. Jessica Blake won the Class Act competition at Leamington’s Spa centre, performing her own composition alongside pupils from nine other local schools and colleges. In addition to the annual Battle of the Bands, the school has hosted several concerts of contemporary music, raising over £1000 for charity. This contributed to a total of over £17000 raised last year by Bablake pupils, for charities such as Send a Cow, which provides livestock and training for the poorest people in Africa, Myton Hospice and the Meningitis Trust, for which Mr Dougall raised £3500 by completing the London Marathon in a most respectable time. I should also mention at