26 minute read
JUNIOR SCHOOL
from The Review 2020-21
In the Junior School, of which we are all very proud, most (if not all) that goes on is driven by our RGS Superpowers: able, strong, calm and kind. Most people think of superpowers as the ability to stick to the side of buildings or fly over the treetops with nothing but a cape to help, in truth unless you can demonstrate ability, strength, calmness and kindness, becoming invisible is largely pointless anyway!
The highlight of the year gone has been the community cohesion demonstrated in the face of significant challenge. I’m going to reserve the highest praise for our fabulous children who have shown great adaptability and determination to make the most of every opportunity that we could provide. As you will see in the following picture and articles, the pupils of the RGS are not ones to let a mere pandemic get in their way. The whole RGS community has learned many lessons over the last year or so, and I know of plenty of people who have recalibrated their values and sense of perspective.
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At a time of significant personal and professional difficulties, the superpower of kindness has come to the fore and my great hope is that the most significant legacy that our ‘friend’ Covid leaves us with is a greater understanding of how important compassion is.
I hope you enjoy reading this review and that it puts a smile upon your face.
MR JAMES MILLER HEADMASTER JUNIOR SCHOOL
DEMONSTRATING THE SKILLS OR KNOWLEDGE TO MEET A CHALLENGE
FRASER AND RAFFY JOIN THE 1000 DOODLE CLUB
Two of our Junior School mathematicians achieved a 1000–day streak on DoodleMaths, becoming proud members of the 1000 Doodle Club.
Fraser Hall and Raffy Bonner both from Year 6, reached the impressive milestone of 1000 consecutive days of doodling on the maths platform, which is used in the Junior School to provide all students with a tailored approach to learning and consolidating their mathematical knowledge.
Speaking about his achievement, Raffy, said: “I am amazingly excited to reach my 1000–day streak. Top tip, keep calm, keep your streak and doodle on.”
The ‘little and often’ approach – which involves using DoodleMaths for 10 minutes a day – has proven to be hugely successful at maintaining interest levels among students and ensuring the development of long–term knowledge and understanding.
TEACHER, MR LLOYD
YEAR 6 ANNIE PRODUCTION
NSPCC Number Day
May 7th 2021 was NSPCC Number Day – a maths–inspired fundraising event where schools across the UK raise money for the NSPCC. On this day, children take part in maths activities, are encouraged to make a donation and wear an item of clothing with a number on it. Our pupils worked together to solve a variety of problems. Robot Wars in Lambton House seemed to be a huge success with some intelligent designs and launching mechanisms. In Brandling House, the Year 5 and Year 6 afternoon consisted of creating our own Top Trumps. In spite of lockdowns and bubbles, the Year 6 pupils performed an amazing production of the musical Annie. The children worked phenomenally hard in both the rehearsals and the recording sessions, and all the staff were immensely proud of all they achieved. Their commitment and dedication to the show and their fellow cast members reinforced just how important it was that they had the opportunity to take part in a production before their time in the Junior School came to an end.
PUPILS TAKE ON THE PRINGLE RINGLE CHALLENGE
As part of the Year 6 curriculum, pupils looked at hyperbolic paraboloids and thought what better way to look at the properties of this unusual shape than to have a go at the Pringle Ringle challenge. As a warm–up task, pupils created origami hyperbolic paraboloids and then we moved on to the Pringles. We think they all look fantastic!
MUSICIANS PLAY ON TO ACHIEVE TOP GRADES
This year, a number of our talented musicians have achieved some fantastic results in their music exams:
• Bernard Socha (Year 4) passed his first Drums exam.
He skipped Grade 1 and jumped straight to Grade 2 – passing it with Merit!
• Jack Copland (Year 5) passed his Grade 3 Drum exam with Merit.
• Poppy Melville (Year 4) who passed her Grade 1 Piano exam with Distinction.
• Jeffrey Li (Year 4) achieved his Grade 6 Piano with Distinction.
• Allan Zeng (Year 3) has achieved his Grade 5 Piano with Distinction.
• Anya Joseph (Year 6) was awarded Distinction in her Grade 3 Piano exam.
• Aaryan Krishnamurthi (Year 5) who was recently awarded a Distinction in his Entry Level 3 (Debut) Acoustic Guitar exam.
• Arjun Godse (Year 5) passed his classical guitar Step 1 exam with Distinction.
Egyptian Day
On Tuesday 3rd December Year 4 experienced Egyptian Day. Here’s what some pupils thought:
“The top favourite thing I liked on Egyptian Day was the food tasting. I’ve never had the T’ameya falafel and it is quite good.” – Charlotte Todd
“I liked it when we mummified our toys because it felt like we were real Egyptians and we made death masks and charms to put on the bear.” – Evangeline Bowes
BUSHCRAFT AT BROCKWELL WOODS
Our Year 6 pupils enjoyed some learning outside the classroom when they spent the day discovering Bushcraft at Brockwell Woods. Pupils learned how to construct shelters using tarpaulin and rope and build fires to boil water for hot chocolate and cook chicken and vegetable kebabs. They investigated ways to filter water to develop their survival skills before putting their map skills to the test in a tricky orienteering task.
EVACUEES’ DAY
On Thursday 25th March, Year 6 took part in an Evacuees’ Day in school. They all wore 1940’s dress and we imagined that it was Friday 1st September 1939, two days before war was declared and the day that RGS staff and pupils moved to Penrith to share premises with Queen Elizabeth Grammar School. This was so the RGS could become the North East Regional War Room.
The children were all labelled, so that nobody got lost and we spent the day thinking about the life of an evacuee, and how they must have felt, leaving their families to go and live with strangers.
We took part in a session with Beamish Museum, to help them find a missing evacuee, as well as with Victoria Tunnel, all virtually (which is not very 1940s!) and produced our own air raid art work, using chalks. We finished the day by looking at some artefacts from the RGS Archive. We all agreed it was a great day and we can’t wait to continue our topic on World War II back in history lessons.
Super Science
Tiree Rastogi (Year 3) created a model of the solar system, which she put together and painted.
Her favourite planet is Saturn because it is beautiful, with its rings made of rock and ice.
Solar Eclipse – The clouds cleared at just the right time, which meant it was perfect for all of the children to see the partial solar eclipse.
They used special eclipse glasses to safely see about 40% of the Sun covered by the Moon, as the Moon came between the Sun and the Earth.
Fossil Fun – Year 3 enjoyed creating and unearthing dinosaur fossils in science.
PUPILS CONQUER THE OUTDOORS
Tristan Errington–Stevens (Year 3) practised looking at a map of the Cheviots, finding symbols from the key at the side.
Charlie Brook (Year 5) struggled with a fear of heights but determined to overcome his nerves, conquered a tree top adventure at Whinfell Forest, including a 255–metre zip wire across a lake.
Ralph Manners (Year 6) made it to the top of Ros Hill, also known as Ros Castle an Iron Age hill fort. It was a hard Four–hour return hike from Chatton with amazing views across Northumberland.
SHOWING COMPOSURE & CLARITY OF THOUGHT
WORLD BOOK DAY 4TH MARCH
On World Book Day we certainly weren’t going to let a little thing like remote learning stop us celebrating everything to do with books and reading! Our theme this year was ‘detectives and spies’, so we spent the morning creating fake identifications and our new identities before enjoying a virtual visit from one of my personal favourite authors, Robin Stevens. She talked to us about her writing process, the Murder Most Unladylike series and what she’s up to now that she’s written the final book.
With children at home and in school dressed up as spies and detectives, a great day was had by all.
Beautiful beach necklaces
Noah Patterson (Year 5) used lockdown with time on his beach walks to create some lovely sea glass necklaces which he sold and he is now planning to make more.
PUPILS TURN THEIR HAND TO PHOTOGRAPHY
During the last year, Amelia McCready (Year 6) tried her hand at photography and has turned out to be rather talented, as you can see from some of these superb shots.
Noah Patterson (Year 5) tested out his photography skills during a visit to Gibside, the Georgian landscape garden with over 600 acres of gardens, woodland and countryside – perfect for wildlife spotting.
GREENFINGERED STUDENTS DELIGHT IN GROWING
These pupils certainly love digging in the soil, getting dirty and creating things but they also learned a variety of other skills including responsibility from caring for plants and self–confidence from achieving their goals and enjoying the food they have grown.
Raffy Bonner (Year 6) experimented on tomato plants to see whether they grow better in coffee compost (coffee grounds), home–made compost from rotten plants or shop bought compost.
Derek Balaraj (Year 6) and his brother took up gardening with gusto and designed and created a horticultural Persian carpet.
Kathy Punnoose (Year 5) enjoyed helping out with potting a pothos plant.
Amrit Jagpal (Year 4) has been encouraging bees into her garden with some help from her Grandad, by planting lots of wild flowers. On the 20th May it was World Bee Day, Amrit has been learning about bees and how they are important to the food chain.
Yoga wellbeing sessions help during lockdown
Aniruddh Kalluri (Year 3), Rufus Edwards (Year 5), Cassius Edwards (Year 3), Jake Perry (Year 6) and many other Year 6 pupils all enjoyed taking part in yoga sessions throughout the year. Yoga is great for our pupils as it helps strengthen their growing bodies and helps them improve their flexibility, which can reduce their chance of injury. It also teaches them about discipline as they work on clearing their minds and perfecting their poses.
LOCKDOWN LITERATURE
Millie Maddison (Year 3) spent her lockdown engrossed in a whole host of different worlds as she got through this impressive pile of books. Abhindra Karki (Year 6) and Simran Toor (Year 4) also took this time to keep up with their reading.
5C Commune with Nature
Class 5C pupils headed outdoors to participate in some nature listening, ‘looking up’ and finding their balance during Mental Health Awareness Week.
RGS FAMILY
In February, we challenged our pupils to take part in the RGS Family Bake Off. We were delighted to receive a whole range of delicious looking entries and we were so impressed with all the students’ efforts. Well done everyone!
Ellie Al–Jumaili (Year 5), Amrit Jagpal (Year 4), Mehar Marwaha (Year 4), Will Brien (Year 6), Millie Maddison (Year 3), Ben Goldberg (Year 3), Ambika Vedhara (Year 3).
SELECTION OF BEAUTIFUL ARTWORK
Our pupils have always loved creating art and then sharing their work with us. Here is just some of the beautiful artwork which has been created over the last year.
Shuquan Gan (Year 5), Hemadri Pakhira (Year 6), George Chen (Year 3), Ishaan Oruganti (Year 3), Will Brien (Year 6).
LEGO LEGENDS
George Thompson (Year 3), Zachary Van Bedaf (Year 3) and AJ Paul (Year 5) used their time outside the classroom to build these impressive Lego creations.
THINKING OF OTHERS OR ACTING SELFLESSLY
STUDENTS HELP THE COVID CRISIS IN INDIA
Mohitha Bonam (Year 3), Havish Kamtam (Year 5), Pranay Mukesh (Year 5) and Akshara Saranga (Year 6) who, along with their friends, participated in a sports challenge to help people in need. They set up physical activity targets to achieve over a period of one month. They all reached their targets successfully and went beyond their goals.
Through its COVID campaign, the EKAM Foundation has been filling up the gaps in the health care system in India by setting up quarantine wards, supplying PPE and critical care equipment to government hospitals.
DARING DEXTER DESCENDS FOR CHARITY
Year 6 pupil, Dexter Brissenden–Lang, has raised thousands of pounds for charity by abseiling down Langley Castle.
Participating in his first proper abseil, Dexter took on the 90ft challenge, raising over £1,000 for Maggie’s, the cancer care charity at the Freeman Hospital.
It was his first proper abseil and it was a bit scary but really exhilarating! It was a perfect, sunny day and Dexter was very brave.
“I really enjoyed the whole experience and felt really excited when I had finished,” said Dexter.
“The views from the top were pretty special too. The scariest moment was stepping over the turrets of the castle and seeing how far down it was!”
Dexter, along with his mum who also took part on the day, chose to support Maggie’s charity as they are local to where the family lives and do amazing work in supporting people diagnosed with cancer and their families.
Ms Brissenden, said: “I have abseiled off the Tyne Bridge before, but Dexter had only done a really small one during an adventure week, and I knew he would enjoy the challenge.
“It feels great that the money will make a difference to families in our local area and support them when they need it the most. People have been very generous, including lots of Dexter’s school friends, so we are very grateful for their donations.”
BEN’S DOUBLE CLIMB FOR CHILDREN’S CANCER CHARITY
Having successfully completed a challenge which saw Ben Goldberg ‘Climb’ Ben Nevis, the Year 3 pupil carried on and conquered Machu Picchu, raising £100 for North East Children’s Cancer Research (NECCR).
RGS CANCER RUN
The much–loved annual North East Children’s Cancer Run had to be cancelled due to the ongoing Covid–19 pandemic. We decided to organise our own Cancer Run this year in order to raise much–needed funds for this very worthwhile charity. In December the RGS Cancer Run took place across the Town Moor. As usual, the children entered into the spirit of things with great enthusiasm and energy and raised an amazing £960 for North of England Children’s Cancer Research fund.
WILL’S RUN HELPS RAISE THOUSANDS FOR CHARITY
Will Oliver (Year 6), along with his sister Gabriella and 14 of her friends from Year 9, committed to run a marathon (half marathon for Will) over a week for an amazing charity founded by their cousin, Mabel’s Enterprise. Thanks to a fantastic effort from all 16 pupils, 406.1 miles were run throughout the week and a grand total of £1,807 raised.
NIKITA BAKES FOR CHARITY
Nikita Alagar (Year 4) and her brother set up a cupcake and hot chocolate stall outside their house. They raised a grand total of £85.50 for North East Children’s Cancer Research (NECCR).
Yogam’s December donations to food bank
Yogam Vinayak (Year 3) and his brother, Aaryan (Year 7)both believe that ‘sharing is caring’. When they opened their advent calendars throughout December, they each added something to their food bank box to donate to their local food bank.
Lyla Shirley (Year 3) and her sister, Amira, have enjoyed buying a different item for each day of Ramadan to donate to the local food bank.
Oorja Chakraborty (Year 3) did some shopping to donate to The People’s Kitchen. Oorja very kindly chose to do this using her own pocket money, rather than adding on to the family weekly shop.
JAY JOINS PROJECT SANTA
Jay Vadhera (Year 3) his mum and a team of friends got together with local schools to collect for children and their families who are known to their schools to be living in poverty. The team, known as Project Santa, facilitates gifts and food hampers for these identified families, this year they helped 411 children with gifts bags and over 170 families with food bags to help feed them during the holidays.
STUDENTS HELP WITH CLEAN UPS DURING HALF TERM HOLIDAYS
Olive Matthews (Year 4) and her brother Artie spent time litter picking on the streets of Heaton and Bernard Socha (Year 4) helped to clean the beach at Robin Hood’s Bay. Daniel Hempton (Year 6) was up and out early (before 9am!) to spend two hours with the Backworth Clean Team on a volunteer litter pick. He was even called out as a ‘superhero of the week’ as he helped to collect all the bags of rubbish into one massive heap for the council to collect.
Emma and Mina take part in a charity chop PHOEBE HELPS PRODUCE PATIENT NEWSLETTER
We were really proud of Emma Barabino (Year 4) who donated 30cm of hair and Mina Johnson–Lynn (Year 3) who donated 20cm of hair to the Little Princess Trust. The charity provides free real hair wigs to children who have lost their own hair through cancer treatment. Phoebe Spyridopoulos (Year 6) helped her Dad to illustrate a patient newsletter for the COVID–HEART study which is a research study to understand how the Coronavirus affects the heart.
THOMAS WINS THE GOLDEN BOOT
Thomas Thiele (Year 6) received an award for winning the golden boot for his football teams five years in a row. He won four golden boots for Red House Farm Eagles, a Saturday team he played for from U7 – U10. This year he won the golden boot playing for the Bedlington Bisons U11, a Sunday team he joined last summer.
SHOWING A ROBUSTNESS OF MIND, BODY OR SOUL
Gymnastic Success
Jaya Bedi (Year 4) achieved the British Gymnastics proficiency award advanced level Bronze in floor.
COUNTY CRICKET CALL UP FOR ELLIOT AND TOBY
Elliott Mee (Year 5) and Toby Jobling (Year 5) were both chosen to represent their county in U11 cricket this year. The pair played for South North Cricket Club and in one game they played pairs cricket and opened the batting, scoring a respectable 39 runs from four overs.
JACK AND ALEX ENJOY LEAGUE CUP VICTORY
Jack Copland (Year 5) and Alex Davy (Year 5), who both play for Hexham Roma U10s, won the West Division League Cup 7–1.
Adam takes third place at National Skiing Competition
Adam Hardy (Year 4) came third in the Club National U10/12 Skiing Slalom competition with a time of 18:13.
MULTIPLE MARTIAL ARTS MERITS
Several of our students have enjoyed success in their martial arts disciplines this year. Mina Johnson–Lynn (Year 3) passed her black stripe kickboxing grading after 4 years of hard work. James Botan (Year 3) was very pleased to have passed his Tae Kwon Do grading. Yogam Vinayak (Year 3) was awarded his brown belt from Newcastle Goju Ryu Karate Academy.
CRICKET ‘MOST IMPROVED’ FOR RALPH
Ralph Manners (Year 6) won ‘most improved player’ in the Rock U11s awards. They’ve had a brilliant season, winning five of the six games they played. They finished off the season with a game of diamond cricket, children against parents, and the children won that game too.
Harry signs for Sunderland
Gifted footballer, Harry Wood (Year 3) officially signed for the Sunderland AFC Academy.
The eight–year–old has been heavily involved with academy football, from the age of four, and attracted interest from Middlesbrough, Newcastle and Sunderland with all three clubs offering him a contract.
“I’m very happy to have signed for Sunderland as I really like the coaches and think they got the best out of me,” said Harry.
“Being at the academy is a lot of fun and I really enjoy the training sessions.”
As part of the Sunderland AFC Academy, Harry is expected to train twice a week and play a match on the weekend. He also gets the chance to meet the Senior 1st team players occasionally and is provided with some nice kit as well.
During lockdown, Harry was extremely committed to his football, attending up to four Zoom sessions a week. Following the easing of restrictions, he has played matches against Everton, Manchester United, Wigan, Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday.
Harry, who is able to play in a number of positions, but prefers the left wing, said: “My favourite match was the away game at Everton because I played really well and enjoyed the challenge.”
Speaking about his son’s success, dad, John, said: It’s been a busy year for Harry as even in lockdown he had technical sessions and conditioning sessions via Zoom. He has worked incredibly hard and we’re very proud of his achievements so far. It’s going to be exciting watching he gets on.”
ANIRUDDH WALKS 100 MILES
Aniruddh Kalluri (Year 3) completed 100 miles of walks between June and Dec 2020.
Some of these walks have included the Northumberland Country park including Simonside Hills, Breamish Valley, Bolam Lake, Hadrian Wall, Sycamore, Linhope Spout, The North Berwick Law, Druridge Bay, Herrington Country Park, Chopwell Woods and Thornley Woods. What a fantastic initiative and well done Aniruddh.
EASTER CHALLENGE
Mohitha Bonam (Year 3) was awarded a certificate and medal for taking part in the Junior Great Run Solo Accumulator Challenge April 2021, Mohitha successfully completed the required 10 physical activities.
Tennis Ace Scarlett wins tournament
Scarlett French (Year 5) became the girls U12 and U10 champion at the annual Cullercoats Lawn Tennis Club tournament.
DANIEL WINS PLAYER OF THE YEAR AWARD
Daniel Hempton (Year 6) was awarded Player of the Year for last season’s U10s at Whitley Bay Rockcliff RFC.
Fraser wins prestigious award
Fraser Hall (Year 6) was awarded the Endeavour Cup by his tennis club, Beverley Park. This is a prestigious award for determination, perseverance, commitment and sportsmanship.
TAYLOR’S SPORTING SUCCESS
It’s been a great year for Taylor Miller (Year 6) who has enjoyed several sporting achievements. She was selected to trial for Durham County Cricket’s Player Pathway in October. With over 50 girls from across the region trialling, Taylor impressed the selectors with her attitude and style of play and was named in the county Player Pathway programme. She spent the winter season training and developing her skills before taking part in a league competition which saw Durham compete against other northern counties in an U11 league.
In May, Taylor gained a place at the Durham County Netball Satellite Academy after impressing at the trials. She was one of 20 girls to be asked to join the academy out of a cohort of 200 who attended the trials during the Easter holidays. Taylor, a talented centre, who has been playing netball for five years, participated in attacking and defensive drills, as well as matches, as part of the rigorous trials and was delighted to receive the coveted red hoodie upon being selected.
Taylor, who also runs for Chester le street AC and North East Project Elite Running programme – focusing on middle distance (800m – 1500m) and Cross Country also competed in the Dalton Park Girls Junior 2K Run. She was so happy to win the event, which was on a very tough course, in awful conditions.
JUNIOR SCHOOL HOUSE MUSIC
Year 3
Winner – Allan Zeng
Year 4
House Music Competition Finals took place in the Miller Theatre on 20th May – the final 16 children, painstakingly whittled down from 90 applicants, waited patiently for their time in the spotlight to come.
The standard of musical performance was quite exceptional, and the unenviable task of selecting a winner for each category fell to our very own Mr Fazlic (Director of Music and Performing Arts in the Senior School). There was clearly hours and hours of practice that had gone into preparing our young performers for this moment! Winner – Jeffrey Li
Year 5
Winner – Shuquan Gan
Year 6
Winner – Clara Lingam
House Cricket
All four year groups took part in our House Cricket competition during the second week of October. With small boundaries and short innings, the runs kept flowing as the ball sailed over the boundary line. Our bowlers demonstrated good technique and bowled with pace and accuracy.
SUMMER SWIMMING GALA
It was so lovely to finally host a gala again, after almost 16 months, whilst still managing to adhere to all the restrictions!
The gala had a Hawaiian beach theme, with races carrying giant ice creams, buckets, and beach balls, amongst other things.
To end the event, there was a Dress the Teacher race, where all the items were brought through the pool – we ended up with some very soggy teachers!
HOUSE DANCE COMPETITION
Each student received a dance tutorial to follow and learn each week throughout the second lockdown, they then recorded their performances and sent them in to be judged by Miss Barlow. We were then able to merge all the videos into one big House dance video for each year group.
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV Year 3
Winner – Emily Smalley
Runner Up – George Chen
Year 4
Winner – Annabel Mableson
Runner Up – Nikita Alagar
Year 5
Winner – Amelia Roberts
& Ellie Al–Jumaili
Runner Up 1 – Hèléne C
Runner Up 2 – Bethany Cottee
Year 6
Winner – Akshara Saranga
Runner Up – Sophie Waite
MILLER CUP OCTOBER 2020
All Junior School students took part in the Miller Cup cross country event, where they demonstrated their resilience, fitness, and commitment.
WINNERS
Year 3 Results
Fastest boy – Oliver Smalley
Fastest girl – Elizabeth O’Grady
Year 4 Results
Fastest boy – Lucas Collins
Fastest girl – Emma Barabino
Year 5 Results
Fastest boy – Elliott Mee
Fastest girl – Emma Blackburn
Year 6 Results
Fastest boy – Frankie Foster
Fastest girl – Maggie Copland
SPORTS DAYS JUNE 2021
This year, we wanted to ensure everyone took part in every single activity and so each year group split into groups to rotate round each event.
Track events: 60m/80m sprint, 200m sprint, middle distance run, hurdles, 4 x 50m relays.
Field events: Sack race, egg & spoon race, tennis ball throw, skipping, obstacle course, long jump and last but not least, the highly coveted TUG OF WAR!!
There was the opportunity for everyone to excel and win points for their House and we couldn’t be more proud of everyone’s determination, energy, and enthusiasm on the day! The smiles and laughter were infectious and the sportsmanship on display was extraordinary.
