Heads weekly report 24 11 2017 v4

24th November 2017 - Issue 10

HEAD’S

WEEKLY REVIEW

Head’s Introduction Congratulations to Year 11, who have now all finished their trial GCSE exams. I hope that going through this process has given them a real flavour of what the actual exams will be like in May. To celebrate the end of this exam period, it was great for Year 11 to share a fantastic social with their guests last night. The dinner was wonderful, and this gave them a chance to relax after all their hard work; I am grateful to Mrs Robins for organising this and our catering team for looking after them so well.

After sneak previews in Chapel yesterday, when the choir sang Fly me to the Moon, and

this morning, when the orchestra played the Imperial March from Star Wars and accompanied the hymn, I am really looking forward to this evening’s space-themed Gala Concert in the Chapel – I am sure that it will be spectacular and I hope many of you will be joining us.

We have had some wonderful sporting results this week, particularly in Hockey, where the junior teams have rounded off their seasons brilliantly.

I am also delighted with Roedean’s success in the Kids’ Lit Quiz for both Year 7 and Year 8 teams. For Roedean to achieve first and second place in the Southern England region is a great achievement. We wish them well for the national finals in the last week of term and say a big thank

you to Dr Blood for her tireless dedication to our readers. I hope too that all the new scholars enjoyed their event at the start of the week, overseen by Ms Kazem, where they received their badges. I am always keen to say that scholarship is more than just a badge; it is an attitude of curiosity, passion, and rigour towards something we do and therefore is something that every Roedeanian should aspire to and can achieve.

Good luck to all those involved in the concert this evening, and to you all for the next two weeks – there is the Christmas Fair next weekend, and then the Carol Services and Christmas lunches in the last week of term!

Christmas Fair Need some stocking fillers?

Christmas cards? Fancy trying your luck with the raffle?

Or the tombola? Come and join us at the Christmas Fair.

10:30am to 1:00pm Saturday 2nd December

Year 11 dinner to celebrate the end of mocks!

Last night, Year 11 enjoyed a well-earned congratulatory dinner to celebrate the end of their trial GCSE examinations.

100 girls, tutors, and guests had a lovely time, relaxing over a delicious two-course dinner, including an amazing croquembouche by our very own Ruth in the catering team, and there was some music too. The girls have had a busy few weeks and they’ve done really well, so they really deserved a lovely occasion to round it all off!

DRO

HEAD’S WEEKLY REVIEW

24th November 2017 - Issue 10

Unsung heroes in the spotlight Each week, many wonderful things happen at Roedean, about which many in the school are perhaps unaware; this section of the weekly review is dedicated to ‘unsung heroes’, in order to draw our attention to these people and remind us that our community is special.

Roedean at the MUN Last Saturday was the annual Model United Nations conference, hosted by Croydon High School. We sent four delegations, representing Hungary, South Korea, Jamaica, and Djibouti, to discuss topics as wide-ranging as apologising for the slave trade to regulating trans-national companies. Congratulations to Emily ‘Oh no, my resolution’s been chosen; I’ll have to speak’ F (Yr12), and Sophie H (Yr12), who not only had her resolution (on shipping and the environment) passed, but was also given the ‘highly commended delegate’ award for her committee. Congratulations to all delegates at the MUN, and thanks to Mr Marchant for accompanying us.

KRH

Archaeological CAP

Sophia S, Esme B, Megan T, India H, Madeleine Q and Holly F (Yr9) for looking after our visitors so well during Science Challenge Day [JCO]

During this term’s Sixth Form Community Action Programme slot every Wednesday, Millicent, Shirley, Elaine, Chelsea, and I have had the chance to help out a local archaeological society, covering different areas of conservation, archaeology, and ancient history. We’ve been able to learn a range of new skills each week, from field walking across Ovingdean to sorting through ancient artefacts and drawing up accurate illustrations of soil layers and pieces of pottery. During our first field walk, we even found a shaped lead token, a precursor to modern coins.

Anne H (Yr11) and Alice S (Yr10) for voluntarily doing the GCSE Art trial [SSN]

Mrs Wilson for decorating the Studios for the Year 11 social [DRO]

Mrs Coombes for picking me up and taking me to the medical centre when I fell down the stairs [Ava Z]

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A particular highlight would have to be the recent trip we made to Brighton Museum; not only did we learn about the upcoming exhibition of local archaeological artefacts (the first in over a decade) and the Pavilion where they’re housed, but also got to see some of the lesser-known oddities hidden underground in the basements and old wine stores. This included a perfectly preserved mummified head (with hair!) that was stolen from Egypt by a British explorer, as well as the chance to hold a huge Neolithic axe, with special permission from the curator of the museum himself.

We’d all love to thank Mrs Dunlop, John Funnell, and the rest of Brighton Archaeological Society for organising a really interesting placement, and I know that we’re all really looking forward to everything else we’ll be doing next!

Mary M (Yr12)

HEAD’S WEEKLY REVIEW

24th November 2017 - Issue 10

Scholars’ Evening On Monday this week, all those girls who were awarded scholarships for this academic year were presented with their scholar’s badges and a certificate at a lovely event in the Theatre, with proud family and friends in the audience. The strand leaders for the scholarship programmes in Art, Dance, Drama, Music, and Sport also made presentations, along with Dr Hobbs (Deputy Head – Academic) to show what is involved in, and can be achieved through, the enrichment provided, and how it stretches and challenges the girls, so as to give them every opportunity to fulfil their potential. It was a lovely occasion, and well done to all of the girls!

AK

Roedean Triumphs at Kids’ Lit Quiz!

Thanksgiving in House 4 This week, the House 4 boarders celebrated Thanksgiving with a special and very traditional turkey roast dinner, followed by pumpkin pie, amongst many other delicious treats made by our wonderful catering staff.

Following our lovely meal, the girls took some time to chat and reflect on what they are truly thankful for in their lives. We wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Fancy a haircut? Thought about filling a shoe-box?

On Thursday 30 November, between 4:30 and 5:30 in Keswick Hall, there will be a charity hair-cutting event. The hair will be sent to the Little Princess Fund, which uses it to create wigs for children who have lost their hair because of cancer or other illnesses. For anyone who wants to donate their hair, a wufoo form must be completed by parents to give consent. Hair donations must be a minimum of 7 inches and the hair must be a natural colour. If your hair isn’t long enough or you don’t want to cut it, you can donate money instead. Thank you!

This year, the Roedean shoebox appeal will go to support homeless people in Brighton. For Houses 1 to 4, all shoeboxes should be left in the House Studies up to 2 December. For Keswick and Lawrence, donation boxes will be placed around the Houses where you can donate anything that would help the homeless. The two houses will gather together all the donations and sort them into shoeboxes and bags. On Sunday 3 December, we will go around Brighton and hand out as many shoeboxes as we can. Thank you in advance for all of your donations!

Maria P (Charity Prefect) Page 3

Roedean entered two teams (Year 7 and Year 8) in the Kids’ Literature Quiz. This is an annual literature competition for students aged 10 to 13.

The girls competed in the South England heat of the quiz at The Duke of Kent School in Surrey on 20 November, where the three-hour competition consisted of ten challenging genre rounds which included Classics, Clocks, Knights, Snakes, and Escapes. The questions ranged from ‘Name two characters who can understand Parseltongue’ to ‘What was the name of the girl who went to live with a brother and sister on Prince Edward Island in a famous Canadian novel?’

Both teams had the opportunity to meet the author Matt Dickinson, who wrote the Everest files and produced films for National Geographic and Discovery channels.

The girls gave a superb performance, each Roedean team achieving top scores in many of the rounds, winning books and vouchers, and also winning spot prizes for correctly answering additional questions between the rounds. Twentyfour teams from twelve schools participated in the South England heat, and the final score was very close with the Roedean Year 8 team (Dorothea, Sylva, Flo, and Alma) gaining the top spot with 82 points, and our Year 7 team (Amalie, Nettie, Sasha, and Berenice) coming second with 79 points! Well done to both teams! The Year 8 team will now compete in the National Final in London on 5 December – what a brilliant achievement!

HEAD’S WEEKLY REVIEW

24th November 2017 - Issue 10

Year 10 Flower Paintings Congratulations to Dana K, Yoyo C, Farah MF, Eva P, and Victoria C for these beautiful flower paintings.

Antigone ‘As a Classical Civilisation, English and Drama student, I jumped at the opportunity to see a professional production of the ancient Greek tragedy, Antigone, performed in our theatre by the Actors of Dionysus, as part of their nationwide tour on Tuesday evening. This thrilling modern adaptation, adapted into English by David Stuttard, breathed new life into a classic.

The staging was minimalistic and modern, representing a kind of dystopian near future.

There was a very clever use of wire caging which represented at different times, the cave where Antigone was entombed and, when it broke into two halves, the opposing sides of the brothers Polynices and Eteocles. There were surveillance drones flying across the stage which allowed the traditional ‘messenger’ speech to be reported as part of the surveillance operation by the drone itself. The chorus, always a difficult ancient concept to produce successfully on a modern stage, took the form of ‘city archivists’, a kind of computer to be questioned by the main characters. With only five actors acting out a

complex story, the company did very well to portray this tragedy with its universal themes that still ring true. Some of the performance made for great debate in my Classical Civilisation classroom, we weren’t completely convinced that the concept didn’t overwhelm the heart of the play. The downfall of Creon as a result of his inflexibility and the final lines of the play - ‘Wisdom is by far the greatest part of joy........ those blows will teach us wisdom’ left us all thinking hard about our principles and what we believe to be ‘the right thing to do’. As a group we decided that the performance was exciting and the modern spin with references to Donald Trump and Malala Yousafzai gave a freshness and immediacy to the production.’ - Sorcha H (Yr12) To have a nationally acclaimed theatre company use our theatre for their Brighton performance was fabulous and we hosted well over 150 pupils from other schools such as Hurst, Lancing, Mayfield, Brighton College, Ardingly, BHASVIC, Varndean and others.

Anti-bullying week activities in House 4

Kitesurfing for PSHE

The House 4 girls in Years 7 to 11 enjoyed spreading kindness like confetti during anti-bullying week during anti-bullying week! They braided, plaited, and twisted and turned colourful string to make wonderful friendship bracelets. The Year 7, 8, and 9 girls also loved making cookies and good luck cards for the Year 11 girls during a stressful week of mock exams. Well done everyone!

On Wednesday, the girls in Years 8, 10, and 11 were fortunate enough to have a guest speaker in their PSHE lessons. Lewis Crathern is a professional kitesurfer, who has competed internationally and has multiple titles to his name. Most recently, he was crowned The International Kitesurfing Association World Champion in the freestyle discipline of Big Air. When not competing himself, he is a regular on the worldwide tours, commentating and compèring events such as The Virgin Kitesurf World Cup and Red Bull King of the Air competitions. Having grown up in Worthing, he made a name for himself jumping over the piers in both Worthing and Brighton. His passion for his sport is evident, and his message to the girls was to pursue the things that you love in life. Sharing the importance of living a healthy lifestyle, considering the environment, and thinking positively are an important part of his ethos, and it was inspiring to hear from somebody who has made such a success from his love of life.

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24th November 2017 - Issue 10

HEAD’S WEEKLY REVIEW

Badminton victory against Burgess Hill The Roedean badminton team had some close games against Burgess Hill last week. 14 girls played in a mixture of singles and doubles, and every girl really rose to the challenge and was a fine ambassador for Roedean. We won 11 of our games and lost only 3, which is a brilliant result.

Special mention must go to Nancy Z (Yr13) and Eileen D (Yr9) in their singles games, as they showed great resilience to withstand the pressure from Burgess Hill and come out on top. Well done!

KAN

Cross Country

County Representation Congratulations to Tatum W (Yr9) who was selected this week for the Sussex Cross Country on December 9th as part of the Sussex U15 Girls team. Well done also to Maria V (Yr 7) for being selected to represent the county in Cricket and Lucy P (Yr9), Olivia T (Yr9), Izzy B (Yr7), Clara H (Yr11) in Hockey.

Hockey 9-0 win for U13As

The U13A team finished their season on a high, beating Dorset House 9-0. The girls played great hockey, passing the ball through the gaps in defence, linking up to the wings, who set up a lot of assists. There were some outstanding moments of play, particularly by Isabel H and Phoebe H who scored 4 goals.

The girls have had a successful season and are certainly an exciting prospect for the future.

U12B undefeated for the season!

The U12B team finished the season with a great, well-contested match against Lingfield A. The girls played meticulously, moving the ball through the pitch, using the width well, and putting pressure on the ball. They were able to capitalise on the movement down the pitch with a goal in the first half. In the second half, Lingfield came out strong – they put a good press on the defence, bringing the ball out, and they kept us under pressure down the pitch. After sustained pressure, they were able to score a goal to equalise. The game ended a 1-1 draw, and the girls should be proud of their efforts and resilience!

A close match for U12C

The U12C team had a close match against Lingfield. In the first half, our defence was strong, with the ball being cleared effectively for our attacking players to drive the ball forward, and Lingfield tried their best to intercept. After a short corner was awarded, it was Lingfield who were able to break through and score the first goal. The Roedean girls kept their heads up and tried to keep possession throughout the second half, however Lingfield were able to pass the ball quickly and keep possession. The final score was 1-0. Our girls played brilliantly and the player of the match was Eleanor J.

A great game for U12Ds

There were lots of positives to take from the 2-1 defeat away to Lingfield College. Isabella J played some solid defence at the back, alongside Mimi.

There was also some nice midfield play from Tia and Dawn, really challenging the forward runs from our opponents. A key player was our goal scorer, Luella, who made some promising runs and chased down every ball. She also hit the left post in an earlier goal-scoring attempt, and finally hit the back of the goal in the 2nd half to get herself on the scoresheet. The girls showed great teamwork and some lovely play.

We welcome contributions from all parts of the Roedean community.

If you have something you would like featured in the Headmaster’s Weekly Review, please email: marketing@roedean.co.uk

Our inter Cross Country team set out to compete in the regional round of the ESAA Cross Country Cup held at The Judd School at the end of last week. They had 2850 metres to run, which was 2 big laps of the course. The gun went, and Gracie B (Yr10) got off to a strong start, with Sophia and Serena C (Yr9) and Jess M (Yr10) close behind. The hills were very muddy, so the girls did well to battle through, and the pace during the course was extremely quick, so Roedean did well to maintain this form. Our girls performed brilliantly: Gracie came 19th, Serena 46th, Sophia 47th, and Jess 59th, which meant that Roedean came 12th overall. Congratulations!

SCH JJ WHAT’S COMING UP IN THE

WEEK AHEAD?

Mon 27 Nov

Piano Masterclass and tea time recital

Wed 29 Nov

U12A&B & C&D Hockey vs Lingfield Notre Dame (H) U13A&B & C&D Hockey vs Lingfield Notre Dame (A) Year 10 Parents’ Evening (1st evening)

Thur 30 Nov

Volleyball vs Burgess Hill (A) Year 10 Parents’ Evening (2nd evening) Sixth Form Social: Christmas Snow Ball

Sat 2 Dec

CHRISTMAS FAIR 1st & U15A Hockey vs Lingfield Notre Dame (A) U15B, U14A & U14B Hockey vs Lingfield Notre Dame (H)

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