Low resolution copy of konnections summer 2014

KONNECTIONS SUMMER 14 | 1

From The Head It has become a regular lament that the much anticipated summer weather, with the prospect of long sunny afternoons of tennis and cricket, ends in the wind and drizzle of May and early June! Our rather damp youngsters have been undeterred and have remained positive and cheerful even when tramping through torrential downpours on Dartmoor. As I write, our students are fully absorbed with examinations and a sort of frantic calm permeates the School. This will not last long; as the end of term approaches, youthful ebullience will return with Sports Day, the Endeavour programme and the Swimming Gala to pack in before the summer holidays begin.

We are preparing for a number of developments over July and August with the creation of a new fitness facility, a refurbished School Tower and improvements to the weather proofing of our main roof, after the impact of the winter weather. Work is well advanced with the construction of the new dining facilities and classrooms at Stroud for September 2014. Plans are now moving to a conclusion phase for the building of a new theatre to replace the Dobson, with a view to completion by the end of 2015.

The number of trips that take place remains a very impressive part of the School’s provision with record numbers involved. Over a third of all pupils were involved in these activities over the spring and many of these are reported in this issue including a very successful ski trip, an expedition to Morocco, a Classics/Religious Studies trip to Istanbul, exchange and language visits to Prague, Mutterstadt, Angers, Córdoba and Catalonia and various Duke of Edinburgh expeditions. Reports of these activities and various individual achievements are given in detail in this edition. Our charity work also remains very active with significant numbers involved in the Charity Commission, as well as Summer Camp, the Lovaton Project on Dartmoor and South Africa over the summer. Other students will be spending the summer holiday abroad in southern France, with the water sports trip, and our biology field trip to Madagascar.

This has been a very active term but also a rather nostalgic one as we say farewell to a number of staff including Mrs Parkyn (Head of Modern and Classical Languages) who leaves to take up the Headship of Mayville High School in Southsea and Dr Leaman who moves to Devon as Director of Music at Blundell’s School. We thank them, and the other staff who are retiring or moving to other posts, and wish them all well.

AJ Thould Head

King Edward VI School Wilton Road . Southampton . Hampshire SO15 5UQ Telephone: 023 8070 4561

www.kes.hants.sch.uk

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Academic Junior Science Roadshow At the end of May, the First Years welcomed, with a mixture or excitement and nerves, Jonathan’s Jungle Roadshow. With more than 30 years’ experience of keeping and breeding many species of reptiles and invertebrates, Jonathan brought along a number of his creepy crawly friends and shared his passion for them as part of the Junior Science programme.

Many pupils got the opportunity to hold a variety of insects, millipedes and amblypygids and even a rather large boa!

Maths is challenging!

The past few months have seen KES mathematicians competing in a variety of maths competitions and challenges.

In March the team from KES won their heat of the Further Maths Support Programme Year 10 Team Mathematics Competition held at Barton Peveril College and were subsequently invited to the South East final to be held at the University of Sussex.

The results from the Intermediate Mathematical Challenge produced several Gold Certificates for KES students. Ina Cho, Rishabh Chugh, Jamie He, Mike Huang, James Mitchell, Ewan Murphy, Seungyeon Oh, Daisy Porter, Sophie Proud, Harry Richardson, Oliver Rose, Toby Saer, Georgia Stonadge, William Thompson, Iona Todd and Eleanor Turner all achieved Gold awards with David Veres receiving the ‘Best in School’ certificate and also being selected for the prestigious National Mathematics Summer School as a result of his excellent performance.

In the UKMT Intermediate Maths Olympiad both Oliver Rose and David Veres were awarded Certificates of Distinction for finishing in the top 25% of participants whilst Sophie Proud, Ewan Murphy, Jamie He and Rishabh Chugh received Certificates of Merit. David Veres was also one of just 22 students within the country who were selected to attend the UK Mathematics Trust Olympiad training camp to be held at Queen’s College, Oxford in August. The main purpose of this camp is to offer young mathematicians a week of intensive training and help identify potential members for the UK Olympiad Team.

A number of First and Second Years achieved success in the 2014 UKMT Junior Mathematical Challenge. In total seventeen KES students achieved Gold Certificates, five Silver and ten Bronze. Kelvin Xie and Sarah Macleod also gained high enough scores to reach round 1 of the Junior Mathematical Olympiad competition.

In the Hampshire Maths Challenge (which was organised by Southampton University during the Easter break) Patrick Lotery, Chris Lotery and David Veres were all awarded prizes.

Turing Competition success In May, Oliver Rose, Eleanor Turner and Mike Huang successfully completed the Alan Turing Cryptography competition organised by the School of Mathematics at the University of Manchester and were awarded certificates for their performances.

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French Exchange to Angers The fifth French Exchange with the LycĂŠe St Martin in Angers came to an end just before the Easter break. The French group managed to pick the best possible weather for their three day weekend in the UK and the KES hosts were quick to make the most of the unexpected sunshine with many heading for the seaside or to the New Forest. The French students enjoyed time in lessons, spent a day in London where they enjoyed a bus tour and a river cruise and also travelled to Oxford, where they took a guided tour and enjoyed some free time in the shops.

Mutterstadt Exchange celebrates 15 years This year KES celebrated the 15th anniversary of the Mutterstadt Exchange.

The School was pleased to welcome the host school, IGS Mutterstadt, for the return leg of the Third and Fourth Year Exchange and the visitors experienced a day at KES, trips out to the Isle of Wight, Portsmouth and Winchester, and rounded the week off with a Farewell Party with speeches and presentations by the Head and special guest Mr Albert-Lauritz Rasmussen, one of the co-founders of the Exchange.

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A twist in the tale Congratulations to Isobel Searles whose entry to the Young Writers’ ‘A Twist in the Tale’ mini saga competition has been successful and will now be published in a special anthology.

Chemistry Olympiad results Congratulations to all the KES students who recently took part in the 46th International Chemistry Olympiad. In total 5682 students entered the competition and four KES entrants received awards. Jenny Whitby achieved Bronze, Lewis Marden and Emily Atherton received Silver and Josh Blunsden was awarded Gold and finished in the top 4% of the country.

A windy day at KES On 6th May KES hosted visitors from Southampton University who brought along with them their fully functional scale wind tunnel. A series of practical sessions were attended by Third Year students during the afternoon and the wind tunnel was available during lunch time and after school with aerodynamic challenges laid on. Many students dropped by to take advantage of the engineers’ experience and knowledge as well as to see how a wind tunnel works.

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Co-Curricular Thanksgiving The annual Thanksgiving Service took place on 25th March with this year’s guest speaker being the Revd. Alex Aldous from Oakham School who was formerly a teacher at KES. The Service provided an opportunity to thank all the School’s founders and benefactors in a collective celebration of the KES community past and present.

Author visit to KES On 2nd May the School was delighted to welcome the popular children’s author, Chris Bradford. King Edward’s was one of just a handful of schools selected to be included in the author’s Puffin Publishing tour promoting his latest series, ‘The Bodyguard’. Chris is a true believer in ‘practising what you preach’. For his earlier award-winning Young Samurai series, he trained in Samurai swordsmanship and a range of martial arts. For this new Bodyguard series, Chris embarked on an intensive close protection course to become a qualified professional bodyguard. Hearing about unarmed combat, threat assessments, surveillance, and even anti-ambush exercises; the fast-paced, highly interactive presentation lived up to expectation, and offered the First and Second Year pupils plenty of opportunities to participate, learn some bodyguard hints and tips and question Chris about his novels.

Revealing hidden detail!

In March, Professor Ian Sinclair was the KES Mathematical Society guest and his talk ‘Revealing hidden detail: what happens when the CAT (scanner) sneaks out of the hospital’ was very well received. Real life applications such as archaeological finds, stresses and strains in materials, environmental impact of phosphates and minerals, as well as medical applications were discussed and Professor Sinclair gave a glimpse of the mathematics behind the CT scanner.

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Córdoba Trip In March, fourteen Third Year students travelled to Córdoba, in the South of Spain, to spend five days immersed in Spanish life. They stayed with host families and attended Spanish lessons at a specialist language school. The group did a lot of sightseeing in and around Córdoba, including the ‘Mezquita’ and the ‘Alcazar’. They also spent a day in Sevilla, where they became familiar with some of the sights relating to the discovery of America. Other activities included a Flamenco workshop and sampling local tapas and chocolate con churros was also highly popular.

Second Year Camp Over the past term two groups of Second Year students, accompanied by staff and former pupils, have spent an action-packed and fun-filled couple of days participating in a wide range of outdoor activities at the School’s Rural Studies Centre at Lovaton. They enjoyed cooking on trangias, walking on the moors, building rafts and climbing, to name but a few.

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No queue at Kew! On a day when the weather forecast was for more heavy rain the cactus hunters of the School’s Cactus Club had Kew Gardens very much to themselves. The students explored the gallery dedicated to the work of the intrepid adventurer Marianne North whose cactus paintings from around the world are wonders of botanic exactitude. Time was also spent in the dry zone of the Princess Diana Conservatory where cacti have a safe environment in which to flourish. Visits to Kew Palace, the Palm House and the Badger Sett completed a valuable day’s experience.

Morocco Trip Over the Easter holidays, thirty-six Third Years spent eight days on a mini adventure across the High Atlas Mountains and on into the Sahara Desert. The trip included highlights such as trekking in the Todra Gorge, sleeping under the stars in the desert, listening to traditional Berber music around the campfire, watching the sun rise whilst riding a camel amongst the sand dunes and exploring the smells, sights and sounds of Marrakech.

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Hat-trick Friday At the end of last term the School supported Sports Relief with a ‘hat-trick Friday’ themed non-uniform day. There were some splendid hats on display and the day was great fun as other activities, such as space hopper races and Krispy Kreme doughnut sales, also took place to raise further money. Over £1000 was raised for the Sports Relief fundraising effort.

Sixth Form climbing On 7th May, Sixth Form climbers spent a fantastic afternoon climbing at Dancing Ledge. Following a good warm-up in the wind and salt spray, the group was progressively challenged, as one by one, they completed eight climbs. At the end of the session, one Sixth Former even managed the complete set including ‘Mariana’s Trench’.

Robotics Competition After six months of preparation, a team of KES students competed in the National Robotics Competition held at Newbury Racecourse on 26th and 27th April. With much tinkering and problem-solving, Team KES progressed up the leader board during the league matches on the Saturday to reside in 34th place out of the 48 competing teams. With a dash of good fortune the team made it through their first knockout round but unfortunately exited the competition in the following round. This is the first time a team from King Edward’s has entered this competition and students are keen to build upon their experience and push for victory next year.

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Istanbul and Troy Eighteen students and three staff spent a wonderful week in Turkey over the Easter holidays. Two days were spent in Istanbul visiting, amongst other places, Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace and underground Cistern. The inevitable trip to the Grand Bazaar resulted in a number of interesting purchases including ‘authentic’ Turkish slipper, plenty of Turkish Delight and a mini sultan’s outfit. The group spent an informative morning on the Gallipoli Peninsula, visiting Anzac bay as well as both the Australian and Turkish cemeteries. For classicists, the highlight had to be an afternoon trip to Troy and an opportunity to climb inside the horse, just like Odysseus.

Prague Exchange In the last week of the Easter holidays, four Fourth Year pupils visited the Czech Republic as part of the new Prague Exchange. They spent the week staying with host families and attended the local secondary school, as well as seeing the highlights of Prague. These included King Charles Bridge, Prague Castle and the Old Town Square. The foundation of the trip was to help out in a special needs school and experience the differences in culture.

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Sun kissed rounders at Wellington In May, the inaugural ‘KES U13 Girls’ Invitational Rounders Tournament’ was played in glorious sunshine. A round robin event saw nine teams play seventy-two matches in an all action tournament. The KES team played well to record four victories, with Westhill Park and Twyford Schools taking home trophies for achieving 2nd and 3rd places respectively. The Challenge Cup was won by Forres Sandle Manor who managed to win all eight of their games. The Girls from Ballard, Bournemouth CS, Durlston Court, Stroud and Walhampton all played well and contributed to a successful tournament. We hope this will be first of many.

Ski Trip During the first week of the Easter break, sixty-five students accompanied by nine staff departed for Serre Chevalier in the French Alps. The group enjoyed fabulous snow conditions and, for the majority of the week, excellent weather.

Coupled with four hours of skiing lessons each day, the students engaged in a series of evening entertainment options with a good degree of enthusiasm! The participation at the interactive quiz was as good as we have known it and ten pin bowling and bum boarding seemed to be as popular as usual. The group thoroughly enjoyed the opportunities to explore the skiing area within their six ski school groups which were based on ability and experience.

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Catalonia Trip During the May half term thirty-six First Years, ten Second Years and six members of staff spent five interesting and very enjoyable days exploring the rich cultural, historical and artistic heritage of Catalonia. The group stayed in Tossa de Mar but visited Figueres (Dalí’s birthplace and the home of his fabulous Theatre Museum), the beautifully picturesque Cadaqués, Barcelona (including the Parc Güell, created by the modernist Gaudí, with its famous mosaics, columns and colonnades) and the city of Girona. They also had time for a Flamenco lesson, eating lots of tapas and a trip along the coast in a glass-bottomed boat.

KES debaters beat university teams KES students (Joe Smith, Vanya Zheludev, Henry Marden, Alex Chamberlain-Clay, Ollie Chapman, Curtis Crowley and Georgia Everest) took part in the University of Southampton Debating Tournament. They performed exceptionally well, particularly as they were competing against undergraduate or postgraduate teams from various universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, Warwick and London. The teams beat the Universities of Manchester and Southampton and Georgia Everest defeated Southampton and Kingston University teams to gain a 1st and a 2nd place.

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A glorious day at Goodwood With the smell of overheating electric motors in the air, around sixty teams lined up at the famous Goodwood Race Circuit to take on the Formula 24 Greenpower regional heat. With our motor temperature reaching 56 degrees the major problem facing the KES Greenpower team was keeping the motor cool under extremely warm track conditions. Over the course of two, ninety minute races the team performed consistently well gaining 34th and 30th place respectively.

With more regional heats to take place this summer, the team must now wait to discover if their effort will be enough to take them through to the finals.

Poole Veterans’ Reunion Lunch Sunday 8th June saw the 15th Poole Veterans’ Luncheon take place at the School. Over 30 former pupils who attended KES between 1939 and 1945 and who were subsequently evacuated to Poole Grammar School during WWII enjoyed a hearty lunch and time together reminiscing. The annual event always attracts a good number of guests and we are always pleased to welcome so many back to School.

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Creative Arts

KES playwrights ‘longlisted’ Congratulations to Georgia Humphrey and Tabitha Piggott who took part in the National Theatre New Views Playwriting Competition, run in School during the autumn and spring term, and have both made it to the Long List. The National Theatre received over 480 student scripts and the School is extremely proud to have two pupils make it into the top sixty.

Dance workshop The Northern Ballet Company visited The Mayflower Theatre in May with their acclaimed adaptation of Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. During their visit to the city, KES pupils were lucky enough to enjoy a workshop run by the company. Northern Ballet are a narrative ballet company, renowned for telling stories through dance. The pupils enjoyed a fun and energetic warm up and the workshop then explored the story and characters from the show and gave pupils the chance to try out some of the moves for themselves.

Southampton Music Festival Musicians from King Edward’s competed in a variety of classes held at the Southampton Music Festival. Particular congratulations go to the following students whose outstanding performances won them various cups, medals and titles over the two weeks.

Emmy Huang came first in the Chappell Challenge and also won a medal in the Baroque or Classical Junior Piano (14 years and under) class, Mike Huang won the Southampton Piano Teachers’ Challenge Cup, the Whitwam Trophy, the Festival Plate for Strings and came first in the Post Grade 8 String Recital and joint first in the String Concerto class.

Luke Roberts came first in the Post Grade 8 Woodwind Recital and was asked to play in the Festival Gala Concert and Tom Edwards received honours and won the Grade 8 Woodwind class. Bi Jia Wu won the Triangle Pianos Trophy (Post Grade 8 Recital) and Joan Chen won the Miss A B Reid Cup for Baroque Playing (under 18s) and the Jane C R Smith Challenge Cup for Classical Playing (under 18s). Joan Chen and Carol Cao also won the Eardley Russell Challenge Cup for Under 18s Ensemble Playing with their piano duet. Shyam Samraj won 1st prize and the cup in the U11 Piano Competition as well as 1st prize in the Grade 4-5 Guitar section.

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Sports

Public Schools’ Fencing Competition Just prior to the Easter break, seven KES fencers took part in the Public Schools’ Fencing Championships at Crystal Palace National Sports Centre. They competed in various disciplines and age group events and represented the School incredibly well.

Beth Ryan fenced in the Girls’ Mount Haes Epee event as one of the youngest fencers in attendance finishing a creditable 45th overall. George Budden competed in the same category winning a good number of his first and second round bouts to gain promotion to the direct elimination rounds finishing an impressive 29th.

Tom Edwards entered the Junior Boys’ Epee in a round with 136 competitors eventually finishing 69th, and Katya Sheath, an experienced fencer who recently qualified for the British Youth Championships, also competed in the junior section finishing 18th in the epee and 10th in the foil event.

At Senior level, Tim Riley finished 64th from an initial line of 136 fencers and Jenny Budden achieved an impressive personal best of 14th in the epee. Lauren Begbour performed particularly well, demonstrating her experience and leaving the venue as Public Schools’ Fencing Championships finalist.

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National Rhythmic Gymnastics Championship On 10th May a team of KES girls entered the National Schools’ Rhythmic Championships. The girls all performed with dedication and retained the two trophies for the team competitions. For the third year running they also finished as Under 19 Rhythmic Team Champions. There were also several successes in the individual classes.

Level 1 Under 19 Rope Solo Gold - Amelia Abraham Silver - Georgia Hoile

Level 2 Under 19 Rope Solo Gold - Abigail Sheppard Bronze - Joan Chen

Under 19 Ribbon Solo Gold - Gemma Asher Silver - Beth Rose

Under 19 Ribbon Gold - Abigail Sheppard

Under 19 Rope Group Gold - Joan Chen, Seonaid Carson, Beth Rose & Annabel Winsor Silver - Maddi Holden, Daisy Sarton, Phoebe Nicoll, Emily James, Abigail Sheppard, Isobel Browning & Rosie Potter Bronze - Georgia Hoile, Gemma Asher, Amelia Abraham & Bella Turner

Under 19 Ball Duet Silver - Julia Mead-Briggs & Danni Townsend Bronze - Phoebe Nicoll & Emily James

Individual Achievements Tim Riley and his crew, James Taylor, won the 420 Winter Championships in Pwllheli in March scoring 1st place in five out of the seven races. They also added the RYA Youth Championship (sailed in Weymouth Bay) to their championship success and have been selected to represent the British Youth Sailing Team at the forthcoming ISAF Youth Sailing World Championships to be held in Tavira, Portugal from the 12th-19th July 2014, the 420 World championships to be held in Travemunde, Germany and the Junior European Championships Marina Gdynia Poland.

Michael Gorry played with the National Welsh Exiles to challenge for the Provincial cup this season. Michael’s team won every match to take the cup, beating RGC in

Ekaterina (Katya) Sheath competed in the Southern Region U16 Fencing Championships in the epee event.

the final 25-10.

She achieved 3rd place, which qualifies her to compete

Jade Brindley competed in the recent SE Regional

at the British Youth Championships later this year

Diving Championships. She achieved a Silver (and a

representing the region.

personal best) on 1m board and a Bronze on 3m board.

Matthew Whitehead has gained a place in the U14

achieving a Bronze medal. This means that she has

Hampshire and Isle of Wight County Tennis Squad.

qualified on all three boards for the National Finals in July.

On 18th May she also competed on Platform, again

Robbie Keefe finished in the runner-up position at the

Harry Uglow took the J17 single scull Bronze medal

English National Squash Championships.

at the NSR in Nottingham on 24th May. He is still in the running for the GB squad and will compete in the race

Jackson Taylor won the Intermediate Solos class at the New Milton Music Festival with the highest mark,

offs for the final three places in July.

Honours, and also played in the Gala Concert at the end

Tom Hardwick competed in the Southern Region

of the event.

Athletics Championships finishing in 3rd place in the U17 Boys’ 100m Hurdles and winning the Bronze medal.

Charlie Callaghan has been offered membership of the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain (NYT) and the NYMT (National Youth Music Theatre). He has also been offered a place with the Tap Attack Company, training at the highest level once a month with an opportunity to represent England at the forthcoming Tap World Championships.

Jenny Whitby won the Winchester Young Soloist Competition 2014. Cellist Mike Huang also charmed the audience with an excellent performance of the Elgar cello concerto as one of the other two finalists.

King Edward VI School Founded 1553

Wilton Road . Southampton . Hampshire SO15 5UQ Telephone: 023 8070 4561

Miss Yerbury competed for Team GB in the World Duathlon Championships in Pontevedra at the beginning of June. She finished in 13th place in her age group.