DEARLOVE SOCIETY
ISS
Our yearly trip was a riveting visit explanation of the Houses of Parliament
When you come away from home and experience a different culture, what you start to realise is that your roots are very important
in great detail! The food was of a superb quality and the discussions around the table were very intriguing as they were fueled by Sir Richard sharing his fascinating experiences with us.
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his year, the Dearlove Society has been another great success. This consisted of various events including a dinner with Sir Richard Dearlove himself, a trip to the houses of Parliaments and a number of lectures. All 22 members embraced the challenges and were intrigued in many different ways. The first lecture of the Dearlove society year was Miss Ward’s lecture in the Michaelmas term on Russian Literature’s Golden Age. She talked knowledgeably about Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov and Gogol. This was an interesting insight into centuries of classical literature. In the Lent term, Miss ArmandSmith talked about Miyazaki Hayao, the Japanese anime pioneer. The lecture was intriguing - the differences and similarities between Eastern and Western entertainment are remarkably tangible. In the summer term, Mr Backhouse gave a fascinating talk about economics - entitled “Supply, Demand, the Spice Girls and Game Theory”. Yes, that’s right, the Spice Girls. We were all surprised at their economic aptitude! The highlight of the year was when Sir Richard Dearlove visited Monkton for the society’s dinner in the Michaelmas Term. Sir Richard gave a thoroughly interesting speech on his life at Monkton and as Director of MI6. We were particularly fascinated by the element of danger in his job - this was described
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Our yearly trip was a riveting visit to the Houses of Parliament. It consisted of a very interesting and engaging talk describing the purposes and history of the Houses of Parliament. We particularly enjoyed looking at the House of Commons with our own eyes. The House of Lords was especially grand, something that we just weren’t able to appreciate on television. We were surprised to find that we weren’t allowed to sit on the seats there as well! On the coach, Mr Dewes unfortunately found his skull to be too thick to keep the windscreen intact! In the Lent term we were challenged to write an essay titled ‘What is the purpose of the European Union both currently and historically and will British politicians ever have a unified approach with the European Union.’ For us this was a tricky task for we knew little about current affairs and where the different parties stood. Sir Richard Dearlove, who provided the winner s from each year group with a kindle, picked this topic with great care due to its relevance. The winners were Daniel Mangles, Pip Harrison and Henry Pope. Writing the essay increased all of our interest in the subject, drawing our interest to events such as David Cameron recently stating that he would call for a referendum in a couple of years for the UK to be in or out of the European Union. All in all this has been a fantastic, exciting and challenging year for the Dearlove Society. David Palmer, William Backhouse, Henry Pope, Uri Lee, Hannan Saddiq
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et me start by saying what the ISS means to me. To me it’s a name we put on a group to get funding by the school to go on awesome trips with amazing friends and to eat great food from different places. But at the same time it is a community that makes students like me, who are thousands of miles away from home, feel a little more comfortable and feel a little less homesick. We have a wonderful diversity of cultures in the school; from Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand to Russia, Spain, and even Nigeria. And that simple fact that we have people around us who are in the same shoes as us makes everything little easier and little less scary. So I really owe it to the international community here at Monkton, past and present for making me who I am today. When you come away from home and experience a different culture, what you start to realise is that your roots are very important. It’s so important to remember who you are and where you come from because you can easily be reshaped and moulded into what society
thinks you should be. And having this range of cultures around me really taught me to keep my roots strong. It has been an honour to be the president of ISS this year. It has been a real pleasure to have been the face of this brilliant and vital community that is ISS. I hope everyone else have also enjoyed the trips to Bristol, welcome dinner, cultural night, Chinese new year and other events laid on by the committee as much as I have. I hope the ISS will keep growing and keep strong with the new committee led by Tiffany next year. Keisuke Suzuki. (Kiesuke joined Monkton in year 7. He is now a School prefect and Head of the ISS.)
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