Music, LAMDA and Fashion Show, Friday 11 March
Congratulations to all the girls who took part in the outstanding Music, LAMDA and Fashion Show last week. The theatre was packed with parents, visitors, pupils and staff who were all very impressed with the high standard of each and every performance. The evening started with the Heathfield Orchestra playing The Battle of Jericho followed by Phoebe Parker performing Come to Your Senses. Emma Hazell played the flute beautifully and Isabel Youssoufian stunned the audience with her graceful ballet solo entitled Human. The first half of the evening concluded with the Senior Choir singing an arrangement of Don’t Stop Me Now by Freddy Mercury and the Heathfield Band playing Star Wars Cantina
After a brief interval, the lights fell and the spotlight shone onto the catwalk as model after model strode confidently along the red carpet, displaying each designer’s outfit to fantastic effect. The fashion show displayed textiles by 30 Heathfield girls from Forms I to UVI and complements the GCSE and A Level coursework projects.
A big thank you to our fantastic judges who had the really difficult job of choosing the winner: Angela Drisdale-Gordon from the London College of Fashion, Amber and Tallulah Le Bon, Alice Naylor-Leyland and Mathilde Favier-Meyer. They decided that the winner was Mei Shen, while Grace Congreve, Freya Henderson, Atalanta Thornton and Amber Walduck were all highly commended. Well done!
Thank you to our photographers on the night: Lily Yang and Karen White. The complete programme for the evening is attached to the email with this newsletter.
Designer - Atalanta Thornton
Designer - Freya Henderson
Designer - Grace Congreve
Winning Designer - Mei Shen
Designer - Amber Walduck
The Judges with Mr Alves, Designer in Residence Oscars theme
‘From Jane Austen to BuzzFeed – How to build a career out of what interests you most’
On Thursday 3 March we were honoured to welcome Professor Lucy Kὒng, Visiting Fellow at the Reuters Institute, University of Oxford, to give a talk to the whole school. Professor Kὒng is a consultant, adviser and academic, specialising in leadership, innovation and business model adaptations. She is an expert on the impact of digital technology and has written several books on the subject, her latest being Innovators in Digital News
Firstly, she gave us an insight into how her own career path had evolved. From being a studious girl who relished reading and aspired to study at Oxford and become a barrister, she was incapacitated by illness for a year and told to forget university. Having always loved reading, Lucy was advised to go into publishing and she became a director within five years.
In order to gain expertise in finance, she spent a year studying for an MBA, which was followed by a period of immersion in rigorous academic studies, gaining her PhD as well as her Habilitation, at the University of St Gallen in Switzerland. She has now come full circle and is a Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford.
Having outlined her own career, Professor Kὒng moved on to advise the girls on how best to decide on their future careers. Firstly, find out what really interests you and follow your passion; build expertise in what you are good at and seek expert advice from mentors along the way. Be curious, probe, reflect, ask around, and drill down. Creativity is the combination of intrinsic motivation and expertise, whilst articulacy is of the utmost importance. Young people must realise that their career paths will be zig zag, rather than linear, therefore decisions made now will not entail commitment forever.
The girls were enthralled with Professor Kὒng’s presentation and the clarity of her advice on how ‘to follow one’s dream’ was positive, enlightening and truly inspirational.
Kath Bramley
Librarian & Head of Careers
Youth at Risk, Thursday 10 March
Heathfield’s nominated school charity for 2015-16 is Youth at Risk and on 10 March we welcomed Ashley Johnston, who came to tell us about the work they do in delivering programmes in order to transform the lives of disruptive and excluded young people. The charity helps them to take responsibility for themselves and get them on the road towards becoming thriving, contributing members of society. Through intensive personal development courses, Youth at Risk’s tough love approach sets out to change the lives of disaffected young people, supporting them and enabling them to achieve their potential.
We are delighted to be supporting such a worthwhile charity and our charities prefects, Holly and Phoebe, are currently organising a Music Concert, to be held on 24 June, to raise funds for Youth at Risk. For more information go to www.youthatrisk.org.uk
Kath Bramley
Librarian & Head of Careers
Social Media talk to pupils, staff and parents, Friday 4 March
Social media expert and former Daily Mail journalist Cathy Wood was at Heathfield to give a series of tailored talks on how to navigate social media and avoid its pitfalls.
Cathy gave separate talks to Forms V and VI, Forms III and IV, Forms I and II and also spoke to parents and any staff who were able to attend for a talk before the Exeat weekend.
Cathy explained that her passion was helping young people to avoid ‘making own goals’ on social media and helping them to understand how to protect themselves online and how their digital footprint could extend for years and affect their employment prospects and lives. She used examples from her work with athletes and football clubs and their young athletes and players to show how easy it was for them to make mistakes online which could affect their reputations.
She encouraged younger pupils to consider the consequences of what they shared online, to be extremely careful about protecting their identity with privacy settings and to aim to abide by a code of conduct online and consider how they would like to be treated themselves.
In all four talks, she showed pupils and parents how easy it was to find information online about the students and how important it therefore was to be vigilant.
Her over-riding message was that we need to help young children find a better way of feeling good about themselves than having several thousand followers on social media platforms because having lots of followers negated the privacy settings that were available and laid children open to danger.
World Book Day, Thursday 3 March
Pupils embraced the Alice in Wonderland theme and dressed up in a variety of very creative outfits. The Catering team transformed the dining room into a magical tea party theme with lots of teapots, Alice in Wonderland quotes, beautiful little cakes and biscuits and they even dressed up too! Photos of all the outfits were taken against a large, stunning backdrop, painted by Lily Yang and Sasha Khaneeva. A great day was had by all!
Form
III Barcelona trip, 10 14 March
At lunchtime on Thursday, Form III set out excitedly to travel to Barcelona for four days of hard work, fun and learning. The girls were challenged to look carefully, to show curiosity and ask questions, to develop skills and to behave responsibly when given greater independence. During the trip the girls took part in a number of educational, cultural and social activities which included visiting the Barcelona History Museum, Sagrada Familia Temple, Casa Milà – La Pedrera, Barcelona Cathedral, Park Güell and Torres Winery. The girls also had time to go bowling, visit a theme park and do a spot of shopping.
The girls wrote a piece each about the trip and these are a few of their comments:
‘The best part was being taught how to dance with the old people in the hotel, we learnt some new Spanish dances.’ Phoebe.
‘I enjoyed the views of Barcelona from the Parque Tibidabo, it was magical.’ Maria.
‘Our trip was filled with all kinds of interesting visits including the Sagrada Familia (meaning the Holy Family) and the spectacular Gaudi architecture.’
Mrs Diaz
Assistant Housemistress and PSHE Co-ordinator
LVI Photography Trip to Cornwall, 12 - 14 March
On Saturday, 16 Sixth Form students had the opportunity to drive down to Cornwall to obtain Primary Research, participate in various workshops and take photographs for their Photography coursework. The weather was unbelievably sunny through the whole weekend! Our hotel was just near the beach and the view outside our window was incredible. The relaxing environment and pleasant weather encouraged everybody to participate in all activities.
During the trip, we managed to visit two museums: the Barbara Hepworth Sculpture Museum and the Falmouth Art Gallery. We also had the opportunity to go to the Blue Reef Aquarium at Newquay and enjoy the sights of St. Ives for our project work. Even standing on the freezing beach to do some night photography was great fun! Everyone gained a lot of photography skills during this trip.
Karen White, Teacher in Charge - Photography
A Level Biology Field Trip, 11- 14 March
We set off for Nettlecombe on Friday morning loaded down with snacks, clipboards, wellies and of course a selfie stick! Arriving Friday afternoon, we had a short introduction to what we were going to do over the next few days. We then headed off to the court field and the steepest hill ever seen. Sampling was done using quadrats looking at the different plant species and how their distribution varied with height. Once data were collected they were entered onto the computers ready for the daily after supper session which seemed to involve a lot of statistical analysis. Luckily it was only for an hour.
The next day was ‘Succession Saturday’; we headed off to the Quantocks and looked at different areas of burning on the moorland. Prickly gorse and a lack of 3G signal made for a painful session, however it was also noted that moorland hadn’t been seen in Spain or Russia before! So it was a first for some. That evening taking a break from stats we went small mammal trapping using ethical traps to survey the field mice and vole population. The lack of light pollution and limited torches meant that hidden stinging nettles proved a new immediate danger with Christy narrowly avoiding A and E! However the upside of the darkness was some very impressive star gazing with us identifying planets and constellations such as Mars, Jupiter, Orion’s belt, the Plough and Cassiopeia.
Our last full day’s first order of business was to check the traps, 6 mice in all, Heathfield managed to trap one mouse who was duly named Rudolph, and the other five were caught by Luckley House. The rest of the day was spent back on Exmoor at Embercombe where we sampled invertebrates at different stages of the freshwater river. The idea of sampling animals instead of plants proved to be a bit more exciting. The last night saw us participate in the much anticipated chip and dip evening. On Monday very tired we crawled onto the bus for the drive home, unfortunately some of us mistimed the journey so missed out on a much hoped for siesta! Thanks must go to Luckley House for accompanying us on this trip.
A Level Biology crew
Form I Rushall Farm trip,
Tuesday 1 March
Form I set off for Rushall Farm, Bradfield, in order to examine the workings of this mixed, organic farm. The first stop was a cuddle with lambs and a recognition of how much work the farmer has already completed, as the lambing season arrives ever earlier in the year.
The girls then enjoyed the customary tractor ride up to the top of a hilly field where the analysis began. At each of three sites, the soil was examined both descriptively and scientifically, (qualitative and quantitative data). Geography and Science combined to give the girls a clearer base to see how farmers make their decisions. Further exploration allowed for pig, cow, donkey and chicken encounters as well as detailed explanations of processes such as crop rotation, diversification and organic farming.
The girls had their antennae working, picking up clues and ideas for their Farm Report competition due by the end of term. Luckily, the poor weather conditions didn’t dampen the girls’ enthusiasm and, despite the cold, rain and mud, the lambs left their mark in more ways than one!
Basia Mason - Subject Leader, Geography
ARTiculation 2016, Tuesday 1 March
Freya Henderson represented Heathfield at the ARTiculation Public Speaking Competition at The Roche Court in Wiltshire. We were warmly welcomed and Freya had a chance to set herself up and run through her slides. Nerves and excitement were building as all the speakers and guests arrived. It was announced that she would be the second on. The adjudicator was Elizabeth Brooks, philanthropist in arts, youth and social exclusion.
There were twelve speakers in total and topics varied from Jackson Pollock, M C Escher, the temple of Abu Simbel, Edvard Munch and even the art of the tattoo. Freya’s presentation was on Francis Bacon’s Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X: The Screaming Pope 1953 Freya delivered her talk with confidence, enlightening the audience on the many influences and mysteries of the painting. Freya was commended by the adjudicator for her excellent talk and that she was a very accomplished and confident speaker. She praised Freya’s excellent research and her visuals and contextual comparisons. Elizabeth also commented on how interesting Freya’s presentation was overall. It was very popular with the audience too. Well done Freya! Although she did not win the heat, the experience was fantastic.
Ms Joanna Meeson Teacher in Charge of History of Art
Sixth Form Classical Civilisation
Trip, London, Friday 11 March
It was a beautiful sunny day and we were looking forward to our day of classical civilisation lectures. Our first speaker was Dr Caroline Vout from Cambridge University. Her talk was titled Making Sense of Naturalism in Classical Art. It was fascinating. What did the Greeks want their statues to do at the time? What sort of relationship did the viewer have with the statues? Dr Michael Squire from King’s College London then took us on a journey into how we view ‘Mighty Aphrodite’, The Aphrodite of Knidos. She was the first large scale nude sculpture that was at the centre of the cult of Aphrodite in Knidos. She became an icon that set in stone and defined the female body. What is the ideal female body? He talked about the objectification of the female form, what is ‘womanness’ and how her legacy holds true today. However, the narrative of her as a goddess suggests the mortal viewer is not in control and there are deep consequences!
After a break for lunch in the sunshine we had two more speakers: Dr Amy Smith, who came to Heathfield as our inaugural speaker of the Athena Society, spoke on mythology on Greek pottery and Dr Tony Spawforth enlightened us with many interesting facts about Greek temples. Did you know that the Greeks used special theatrical effects to recreate the experience for the worshippers? The gods came alive and would appear in the pediments either at sunset or lit up with torches. We then headed into the British Museum to look at the Parthenon marbles before our return back to school. It was a most successful and stimulating day.
Ms Joanna Meeson Teacher in Charge of History of Art
UKMT Team Maths Challenge, Monday 14 March
Four girls from Forms I and II travelled to the University of Oxford to take part in the UKMT Team Maths Challenge. The competition was held in the university’s Mathematical Institute; a beautiful building filled with fascinating displays of Mathematics.
The competition is aimed at students in Forms II and III, but with Form III away in Barcelona, Lily Jevons and Paloma Guerrero from Form I joined Ellie Heywood and Olivia Milligan from Form II to complete the team. They all did exceptionally well, particularly considering that they were competing against teams of students who were one or two years older than them. The girls had a fantastic day and are hoping for the opportunity to compete again next year.
Zoe Benjamin Subject Leader, Mathematics
The photo shows a roman copy of Aphrodite of Knidos by the ancient Greek sculptor Praxiteles of Athens (4th century BC)
Cyber Day Out for Heathfield, Thursday 10 March
With the wide skills gap emerging in cyber security, the need for bright young minds was the inspiration behind TeenTech’s desire to bring together like-minded students and industry experts for a day of challenge, information exchange and fun.
Heathfield School was invited by TeenTech to attend this exclusive event in London. The day saw students with a strong interest in technology and cyber security experts from different organisations coming together to look at the knowledge, skills and mindset needed for this rapidly changing field.
The day started with an introduction from the CEO of TeenTech, Maggie Philbin (previously presenter of BBC’s Tomorrow’s World, the forerunner of television programmes such as Click and The Gadget Show) welcoming the students before they then went on to take part in an activity run by each organisation.
The variety of tasks our girls faced included the opportunity to splice cables and intercept data packets in order to read ‘terrorist’ emails, without setting off alarms, with Raytheon Cyber Security – the girls also intercepted emails with GCHQ using a different method. The EMEA Chief Strategist for Symantec ran a task that had our girls take on the role of a hacker to highlight the importance of maintaining strict control over personal information.
Our girls had the opportunity to listen to the Chief Technical Officer of BT talk about some of the future and emerging technologies, before going on to win the BT task: creating an ‘Enigma’ machine to decipher code. Their prize is a tour of BT’s state-of-the-art security facility in Sevenoaks.
Our girls were three out of twenty students in the country to be invited to attend this prestigious event which was filmed in order for TeenTech to share the activities nationwide. When we receive the film, we hope to arrange a viewing for the rest of the school.
Mrs Millns Department of ICT & Computer Science
Lunchtime Concert, Wednesday 2 March
From A Trumpet Tune by John Stanley, played by the Brass Ensemble, to a magical rendition of Magical Kingdom by John Rutter, sung by Form I, this term’s Lunchtime Concert was a perfect celebration of music by our Grade I – V performers.
Three flautists, Hattie Hooper, Katharine Carr and Franny Hunt-Davis played their exam pieces, Greensleeves, Morceau de Concours and The Playful Pony, while Minty played a Prelude by Hummel.
Two of our singers, Charlotte and Tansy sang one of their Grade V pieces each: Charlotte sang Panis Angelicus (sung at the funeral of John F Kennedy in 1968), and Tansy sang Where’er you Walk by Handel which describes Jupiter’s love for the mortal, Semele.
Julie Dance Director of Music
Science Week, 14 18 March
During this year’s Science Week we were thinking about different kinds of space. In addition to the usual lunchtime activities and demonstrations girls in Forms III and IV took part in the national competition the Biology Challenge, and Biology A Level students ventured out on their annual field trip.
On Monday hair raising antiques were witnessed by all as the van der graaf generator came back out, this time also being used to light rockets. Tuesday gave the opportunity for students to take part in various activities such as testing out the Stroop effect, seeing how many drops of water they could get on a penny, layers of liquid, seeing cornflour dance and experiencing virtual reality. Wednesday and Thursday saw more demonstrations of the thermite reaction, fire painting, tricks with water and more exploding rockets.
The week concluded with the interhouse challenge of making pyramids able to withstand wind and falling weights and seeing if types of music affected sporting performance. Staff participating would definitely claim a yes due to a very low goal count! Friday lunchtime saw the return of the very popular liquid nitrogen, with the science department exploding it on the lacrosse pitch, breaking flowers in the assembly hall and finally handing out ice cream to all the faithful spectators. Thanks must go to the rest of the science department for all their efforts but in particular to our science technicians making all the crazy experiments possible.
Clare Wells, Head of Science
Prep Schools Swimming Gala, Wednesday 16 March
We were delighted to welcome seven prep schools to our Swimming gala last week. Garden House, Glendower Prep, Kensington Prep, Maltman’s Green, Orchard House, Pembridge Hall and Upton House brought along their Years 4, 5 and 6 teams and the competition was fierce.
The very high standard of the girls’ swimming meant a lot of close finishes but ultimately Glendower Prep came out on top. Prizes were awarded to the winning girls in each race after a delicious tea.
Equestrian
On Sunday 14 February, three Heathfield teams went to compete in the SUPA (Schools and Universities Polo Association) National Schools Girls’ Arena Championships held for the first time at Westcroft Park polo club in Chobham.
The tournament attracted 14 teams from 10 different schools fielding all girl players. The chukkas were outstanding with all play flowing and some extremely professional play especially from the 4 teams in the open division. Heathfield and St George's had a breathtaking chukka in the fifth chukka of the day. After 21 'round robin' chukkas, St George's took the victory in the open, with Heathfield second. Heathfield came third in both the intermediate sectional and the novice group. RJPolo and Polo Times made sure all girls were rewarded with prizes at the end of play. Well done to all the girls who played like professionals.
On Sunday 20 March, the Heathfield teams competed in the interschools Championships at Westcroft Park polo club. Again, the girls played fantastically, resulting in the Heathfield B team winning the league B and the A team winning the subsidiary finals of league A. Well done!
Gill Glimmerveen, Equestrian Co-ordinator
London Marathon, Sunday 24 April
Look out for two of our members of staff who are running in the London Marathon this year. Our Director of Studies, Marina Gardiner-Legge has raised nearly £3,000 for Macmillan Cancer Support and our Director of Sport, Wendy Reynolds has nearly reached her £2,000 target for Children with Cancer. If you would like to offer your support, there is still time! Please visit justgiving.com/10yearson and justgiving.com/ Wendy-Reynolds13 for further details. Thank you.
Somerville Weekend, 12 & 13 March
With Form III enjoying themselves in Barcelona and Sixth Form Biology and Photography away from school on their respective trips, we started the weekend for the rest of the school nice and early on Saturday morning! The PE department conducted Interhouse cross-country for Forms I, II, IV and LVI. It was a hard fought contest but the overall winner was Rose Hugh-Smith who finished just outside course record.
After prep and lunch, Forms I & II had an afternoon of Dodge Ball in the sports hall. They were joined by LVI pupils who helped Zoe and Gareth Benjamin build the intensity and fighting spirit of the younger years.
On Saturday evening girls from Forms I, II, IV and V attended a fantastic performance of the ballet Coppelia at the Theatre Royal in Windsor. All the students really enjoyed the beautiful performance, dispelling all the concerns they had expressed before the show. It was a victory for high culture and ballet in particular!
Back at school Form IV had a disco and danced away happily for two full hours without a care in the world.
On Sunday morning all the school enjoyed a lie-in followed by brunch at 11am. An exception to the late start were the school Polo teams who headed off early to their SUPA tournament in Chobham. In the afternoon Forms I and IV baked delicious carrot cakes using a recipe from Nadiya Hussain.
At 6.00pm the LVI helped Father Tim celebrate a peaceful Eucharist.
John Doyle, Head of House - Somerville
Austen Weekend - 19 & 20 March
The last week of term was an action packed one with all the girls in for the closed weekend. After Open Morning was finished, the Sports Captains organised some team games with Form III including dodge ball and capture the flag whilst our Form III Drama prefect Poppy led a workshop for the girls in Form I in the theatre. The evening saw the arrival of Harrow for the Form III social which included dinner and dancing.
On Sunday the Houses competed against each other during the Palm Sunday service before the whole school came together for a monumental egg hunt around the grounds with prizes for the most eggs collected. The Lower Sixth then went off, bravely taking on the high ropes of Go Ape in Swinley Forest. Forms I and II had a series of Easter themed activities including making chocolate nests, decopatch, shrinkies and using green-screen in photography whilst having an Easter party. Form III had a lazy day after their social, making use of the SMAT to watch a movie.
Mr Andrew Valner, Head of House - Austin
