Clubs and Societies

C L U B S & S O C I E T I E S

Duke of Edinburgh Award

We are pleased to congratulate the following students on achieving their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh Awards! Congratulations go to Yaman E (11S) , Josha G (11C), Aslan H (11L), Sharath K (11W), Kavin K A(11W), Hal R-D (11S), Adityaraj S (11S), Varrun S (11C), Benjamin S-R (11L), Thomas S-R (11S), Oscar S T (11L), Kamran S (11C), Satvick S (11E), Siddhant G (11W), Thomas L (11L), Alessandro M (11L), Yuvam M (11C), Rohan R (11L), Darsh K (11L), Yash R (11E), Veer P (12L), Adam B (11E), Oliver C (11E), Rishi M (11S) and Rayyan N (11C). All students worked hard on their three sections of Volunteering, Physical and Skills over the last year and completed their Qualifying Expeditions in June. We have been really impressed with the activities they have chosen and their dedication to giving back to the community as well as their personal development. Activities included supporting their siblings with their schoolwork through lockdown, improving their fitness through swimming, running and rock climbing, developing their musical skills at piano and violin and learning to bake. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, we are immensely proud of the dedication, effort and achievement of our students and participants from Reading School dedicated 663 hours to volunteering between April 2020 and March 2021, with a social value of £3016.65.

In addition, well done to all the students from Year 10 that completed their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh expeditions this academic year undertaken by School of Outdoors, Path Hill and Cloud 9.

The Wordsmiths Guild

The Wordsmiths Guild was formed in 2022 to bring together writers from across the school. The group meets weekly during Thursday lunchtimes to chat, write, edit, share recent pieces of work, and get inspiration for their creations through various writing games. They were fortunate to have Writer-In-Residence, Will Burns run an afternoon workshop for some of The Wordsmiths Guild writers. The students were guided through the creation and development of original characters, description of real and imagined settings, and had the opportunity to write some poetry that explored ideas of belonging. During the workshop, they discussed character development, how to create well-realized worlds and settings, and were tasked with creating a poem about a two or three-letter word.

United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26)

Year 11 students Tom L (11L), Oscar T(11L), Adityaraj S (11S), Advay C (11S), Kavin A (11W) and Tarith A (11L) represented Reading School at the Reading Schools’ Model Climate Conference event. Highlighted on BBC Berkshire and BBC South, the conference saw pupils from six local secondary schools where they took on the role of negotiating teams during the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in the Civic Offices’ Council Chambers.

They formed teams representing a diverse mix of 15 developed and developing countries attending COP26 - including Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Kenya, the Marshall Islands, Saudi Arabia, Uganda, UK and USA. Putting forward policy positions using carefully chosen arguments in a conference debate model that mirrors the real-life UN negotiations, the students will agree on a set of resolutions on key themes. The conference also featured a ‘Climate Question Time,’ which included a session where pledges for actions were put forward, including ways to make the most difference within schools. Our students represented Ethiopia and Russia and they put forward their pledges to reduce carbon emissions in thoughtful and meaningful ways. Thank you to Mr K Luteijn (Head of Geography) for organising this opportunity and Mr D Singh (Community Relations Manager) for leading on the day.

Srivallabh S (10E) awarded Bronze Medal in the CREST Awards

Congratulations to Year 10 student, Srivallabh S (10E) for achieving a Bronze Medal for his RAF Humanitarian Engineering Project in the CREST Awards.

CREST is a nationally recognised scheme for student-led project work in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths). It provides teachers and home educators with simple and adaptable activities and projects aligned to the national curriculum and gives young people aged 5–19 the chance to choose their own subject and the-shelf, one-hour long challenges through to large-scale, student-led projects of over 70 hours work or more, CREST can be done by anyone.

“I am very delighted to have achieved the bronze medal under the CREST Awards. I have got this award when I appeared for the RAF Humanitarian Engineering course which was conducted by the Industrial Cadets in partnership with The Smallpiece Trust.” London International Model United Nations

A delegation of 12 Reading School students visited Kings’s College, London for the London International Model United Nations Conference (LIMUN) from 20th to 21st November 2021. Ansh B (12VGG), Daniyal V (12BOW), Haadi Khalid (13JP) and Saharsh Anand (13RC), all won awards for their participation. Vice Captain Karan B (13TT) commented, “Model United Nations is a conference in which participants assume the role of being representatives of a particular country to debate and tackle real-world issues. Over 200 delegates attended this event, including 12 Reading School students. Amongst us were representatives of countries ranging from Germany to Saint Lucia. My favourite element of MUN is the aspect of suspending belief and seeing yourself as an actual representative of that country and acting accordingly. Another aspect I enjoyed was the collaboration that takes place. You work with new people from all over the UK to help solve real issues so that change can be made. In the end, I think my highlight abouT all the crazy debates and inspiring resolutions we passed. I want to thank every delegate from Reading School for giving it their all in this event and especially want to thank the staff who attended with us and gave us support throughout the event! This will probably be my first and last MUN at Reading School but I enjoyed every minute of it and urge all of you to try out Model United Nations if you get the chance to in the future!”

"LIMUN encourages the development of our core values of integrity, leadership and community and as well as public speaking, problem-solving, and the ability to rapidly form relationships with people of different backgrounds and cultures. We are fortunate as a school to be able to offer them this opportunity to serve and inspire others.” Mr A M Robson (Headmaster)