Clubs and Extra-curricular

Natural Sciences Society

In January 2013, three people were appointed to be the new leaders of Natural Sciences Society; Jenni Visuri, Harry Jenkins and Fraser Boistelle. The society meets every Friday lunchtime in S4 for a range of different types of events. Each of the leader gave a speech during the Spring term, the topics being exoplanets, explosives and evolution of whales, dolphins and porpoises. We also held a debate on the topic “should science interfere with nature?” In addition to this we have contributed to the global Zooniverse project which asks all people to register and help with scientific research and analysis which cannot be done by a computer. This features projects such as classifying parts of the Moon, mapping Mars, and classifying galaxies as well as helping sort images of cancer cells. On the last day of the Easter term we held a quiz on random scientific knowledge which was just for fun.

The NSS has also been to visit many lectures at UCL over the year, which have featured a plethora of topics such as quantum computers, aliens and colonising space, the origins of asymmetry in the brain, mirror image molecules, and the science of invisibility. These have all provided a fantastic opportunity for members who have visited some of these.

Easter term was a extremely busy one for the society because we have released the third issue of our journal, a first for the new leaders. We had a whole new host of members wishing to participate by writing articles in all three fields of science. We do hope that you will read our journals (available online from the school website) and learn a lot about different scientific topics.

Chapel Notes 2012-13

2012-13 was a busy year for the School Chaplaincy, with a full programme of special events as well as the Chaplain’s day-to-day pastoral support for the school community.

The Chaplain’s weekly discussion group Firm Foundations, which is aimed particularly at boys in Y7 to Y10, has covered a wide range of exciting and sometime controversial topics, including If Hitler repented on his deathbed, would he go to heaven? Then in the end-of-term special event known as Roast the Reverend, the Chaplain was subjected to a quickfire barrage of difficult questions put by the students. His knowledge of theology bore up reasonably well, though his awareness of TV soap operas was found wanting!

Alongside the junior meeting, a group of Sixth Form students has continued to lead the Senior Christian Union, giving opportunities for Y12 and Y13 students to lead prayers and Bible study discussions. The Staff Prayer Meeting has also continued this year, with a faithful group of teaching and support staff gathering week by week to pray for the needs of the school community.

Continuing the school’s tradition of preparing lower school boys for Confirmation in the Church of England, three students – Billy Belsham, Marcus Finn and Alex Song - were confirmed in April by the Rt Revd Brian Castle, Bishop of Tonbridge. The boys also helped to lead different aspects of the service such as Bible readings and prayers. Music was led by the Chapel Choir, conducted by Peter Leigh.

Our annual Chapel weekend away at Carroty Wood Activities Centre near Tonbridge involved a group of students ranging in age from 12 to 18 and a team of staff led by Mr Maltman and the Chaplain. Along with activities such as low ropes, scavenger hunt, campfire and a forest wide game, students had the opportunity to consider aspects of the Christian faith through scheduled sessions and informal discussion times. This year our theme was Christmas, which we celebrated in the middle of the summer with roast turkey and traditional carols! Despite the unseasonal weather, we enjoyed taking a fresh look at the story of Jesus’ birth, and saw how the fact of God coming into his world 2000 years challenges us to re-examine our relationship with him today.

The school’s community service programme known as the Le Chavetois Society (named after a former member of staff) has continued to grow in size and scope, with over thirty Year 12 students taking part in a wide range of different projects from healthcare to charity fundraising. A large team were based at St Paul’s Cray Church of England Primary School - a local school which St Olave’s has supported in various ways for many years - where our students helped in the school’s literacy drive, running a library bus and reading with children from Years 2 to 6. Placement supervisors testified to the positive contribution our students made within the community, describing their Olavian volunteers as excellent, polite, helpful, professional and always willing to help. One headteacher summed up the contribution of one of our students: “he will be sadly missed by all our pupils.”

Festival 2013

Following a special Christmas Assembly on Thursday 20th December, the School held a festival to help raise money for two charities nominated by the students; ‘Over the Walls’ and the Princess Royal University Hospital Special Care Baby Unit.

The Festival Committee put together a great line up of events, including ‘Jeopardy’, ‘Just A Minute’ and ‘University Challenge’. These events saw teachers pitting their skills against each other in the Great Hall. Also, students wore non-uniform to school and during the afternoon tutor groups created stalls in their classrooms to help raise money.

The School raised through Festival and Cabaret around £7300 for the two chosen charities, with the most successful form being, by a considerable margin, 9C, who raised some £226 by selling pancakes, cupcakes and milkshakes.

O-Factor 2013

After weeks of intensive training, the “O Factor” inter-house choir competition finally culminated in an electrifying showdown on the last Thursday of the spring term. With each house singing one hymn and one karaoke classic, offerings ranged from Robbie Williams’ Angels to Amazing Grace via Bread of Heaven and even a song from Disney’s The Lion King.

After more than an hour of music, punctuated by excoriating criticism from the judges and dry wit from the dynamic duo of hosts Max Kennedy and the Reverend McClellan, the champions were finally crowned.

A close contest saw Leeke house (singing ‘Angels’ and ‘I vow to thee, my country’) storm to victory for the third year running, followed by an unprecedented three-way tie in second place between Harvard, Cure and Bingham. With a rousing full-school rendition of Jerusalem to round off proceedings, another year’s competition came to an end.

Special thanks must go to the music prefects, senior prefects and Peter Leigh who together masterminded, co-ordinated and led the competition from start to finish; the generous assistance and coaching from the music department; and the forbearance of Mrs. Ayres in reprographics.

James Watson, Vice Captain

of School

Chess News

Congratulations to Raunak Rao (Year 11) who came equal second in the Jessie Gilbert International Chess Festival, held at Coulsdon between August 25th and 27th 2012. This result is particularly impressive as it was a largely adult tournament, with many high graded players. Congratulations also to Raunak who, as a member of the Kent Chess team, contributed, later in the year, to their win of the Southern Counties Chess Union under 160 Grade tournament for the 2012/13 season. Although the team still had one match in hand, they were declared league champions. Raunak played on Board 3 out of a 16 board team and has faced formidable opposition in his opponents over the course of the past year, being the only junior player in the team. Our congratulations to him and the team.

Millfield Chess Tournament

Our young Chess team travelled to Somerset to take part in the annual Millfield International. At the end of the first day we were in third place and hopeful of maintaining this position. However with relatively little experience, exhaustion took its toll and we slumped down the standings, needing a very strong performance in the last round to take third. As the results came in, this looked unlikely, but a nail-biting finish in the last game of the tournament did indeed secure our third place position, continuing our run of successive top-three finishes for the past nine years! Well done to all the young players.

ECF National Schools Chess Championships

On Thursday 16th January St. Olave’s played The King’s School Canterbury in the second round of the ECF Schools Championship.

This proved to be a challenging match; however, we were able to finish with an impressive 5-1 win to progress to the next stage of the competition. Congratulations to all who played: Sachin Balaji, Nigel D’Souza, Owen Messere, Raunak Rao, Gautham Reddiar and James Wagstaff-Hall.

Then, on Friday 8th February St. Olave’s faced Eltham College, in what promised to be a tight match. Despite wins from Conrad Allison and Xavier Chitnavis on boards 1 and 6 respectively, some unlucky results meant we drew the match 3-3. Unfortunately, due to the age handicap system, our participation ended there. However, we then looked forward to the challenge of the plate competition.

ECF National Schools Plate Competition

At the beginning of March, our chess team played Hampton School B team. It was a match we expected to win with relative ease, but things didn’t quite go to plan. From the beginning it was a struggle, and we soon found ourselves two games down, with tricky positions in several of the remaining games. It looked as though it was all over, that we would be consigned to a humiliating defeat. But with true Olavian spirit and tenacity, we slowly fought back. Wins in the last three games from Xavier Chitnavis (who has won all his games this season), Raunak Rao, and Conrad Allison, on boards six, two and one respectively, clinched victory by the narrowest of margins - 3.5-2.5! Our team was yet to be defeated this season, and we looked forward to playing in the quarter-finals.

Unfortunately we were then soundly beaten by QE Barnet in the quarter-finals, losing 0.5-5.5. However, we look forward to next year’s competition – we’ll be back!

Kent Junior Chess Success

Conrad Allison of Year 13 won the Under 18 section of the Kent Junior Chess Association 2012/13 Grand Prix, also finishing first in his section at the Grand Prix Final held in Sevenoaks on Sunday 14th July.St Olave’s School also finished the season as the top secondary school. Congratulations to all the boys who took part to demonstrate the chess prowess of St Olave’s over the past year.

DofE Awards - Expeditions

The Gold D of E group had a very testing time on Dartmoor over the October half term, as they struggled to complete their practice expedition. The weather ranged from icy cold on the first night to high winds, driving rain, mist and the occasional glimpse of the sun over the next 4 days of trekking. The groups started in Cheston and trekked over 4 days (which included 3 nights of wild camping on the moor) to Oakhampton. With this behind them, they hoped that the assessed expedition, to take place in the Brecon Beacons at Easter, would be comparatively easy.

As Easter approached, expedition preparations were then under way, with not only Gold going out to the Brecon Beacons at Easter, but also Bronze in and around Sevenoaks and finally, Silver participants either on the Sussex Downs or in the New Forest. All in all it was a busy time for both students and the hard-core helpers on the staff without whose support these challenging opportunities just would not have been able to happen –and we are very grateful to all of them.

The Upper VI had hoped for a better assessed expedition, following the Gold practice in Dartmoor where drowning seemed more than possible. Instead, we again endured unseasonal weather with temperatures down to -5 at night plus the windchill factor! During the day on the Mountain tops it was well below -15 with gale force winds and thigh deep snow in many places.

The assessed group numbered 26 walking up to 25km a day in hills and mountains in testing weather conditions. Despite this, all the teams overcame the challenge and passed the assessment in the Brecon Beacons with flying colours. It is a testament to the teams that they were only one of a handful of groups to complete the five day expedition when the weather had caused so many schools to pull out.

World Challenge – Years 8 & 9 in Croatia

The expedition was to be for many of us the highlight of the summer, if not the academic year. After months of fundraising, lunch time meetings, and team building exercises after school, the two teams of year 8 and 9 students were almost ready to leave. The teams were led by teachers from the ADT department, Miss Hawley and Miss Heraghty, who were then joined by World Challenge leaders. This record of the trip is mainly in the perspective of Team 2 led by Miss. Heraghty, as this was the team I was part of.

The expedition began at Saint Olave’s Tuesday 30th July where we completed our final team building exercises, practiced putting up tents and getting familiar with the ‘trangia’ which would all be essential if we were to survive in Croatia. After final goodbyes were given by tear-sodden parents a final supper of Domino’s pizza from Orpington High Street was shared. The night soon fell and we slept in the pavilion, an honour which many students don’t get to experience in their school life. Our flight to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, from Gatwick left at 05:50 the next morning. We woke up just after midnight and were at the airport at 02:30, due to the regulations of our insurance. Tired, anxious and yet still excited we boarded the flight as the sun rose over our Easyjet plane. On an expedition of firsts the Easyjet flight was also a first for many.

Once we had landed in Zagreb, a comparatively minuscule airport, we met our local guides who took us by coach to our first destination, Lidl supermarket, a second first for some. Here we were faced with the challenge of getting used to the local currency (£1= 8.6 Croatian Kuna), and buying food for the next three days ahead as well as keeping within the teams budget. Two hours on the coach followed, Team 1 of 15 students lead by Miss Hawley, started on the beaches of the Adriatic Sea, near Novigrad Bay, overlooking the ‘national park paklenica’. Their first challenge… sea kayaking.

The second team, led by Miss Heraghty, were then dropped off on the bank of the River Zrmanja where we set up camp and then tackled the challenge of cooking, not only for ourselves but for our leaders too. On the menu first was ‘chicken with paprika on a base of very sticky rice’, which was no mean task especially without cooking oil for the chicken, but we overcame the challenges and were all feed. After a camp fire with roasted marshmallows we settled down for the night.

Kayaking down 8K of calm, crystal blue waters surrounded by baronial canyons was the next challenge. The surroundings were stunning but the kayak was to be a difficult one. After packing up tents and putting our equipment in dry bags ready for transportation on the two man kayaks we set off down the River Zrmanja.

We then came to the River Krupa and joined it to reach our wild camp destination for the night with no facilities what so ever, apart from the refreshing water running from a spring close to our camp which was welcomed with masses of open bottles after a long day on the river, negotiating rapids among the challenges.

After a rougher night than the last we were up early ready to get back on the river to the campsite a further 8km downstream with a couple of waterfalls in the way as well. Negotiating these natural phenomenons was a task left to the local guides, lowering them one by one with many cords of rope. Continuing past the waterfalls ended our River journey and brought us to a popular campsite, with toilets and a shower all which had been alien to us the night before. These facilities were greeted with open arms after setting up camp in the sweltering mid day heat and kayaking for more than three hours.

Everyone was greeted the next morning by the warmth of porridge for the tasks ahead of us were massive. The first on the list was food shopping for the time we were going to spend in the mountainous national park paklenica. The challenges in Lidl still present. Once we had distributed the food between our bags we were back on the coach and dropped off at the foot of the park. What was advertised as a two hour walk for tourists certainly was not. Once our 65+ litre bags were factored in we knew two hours was an unrealistic target, especially with most of the course sloping with a violent gradient up hill. The moment we made it to the mountain hut was one few will forget, celebrations filled the air and the home made swimming pool was bombarded by 13 students needing a wash. Once recovered from the trek, we were greeted by Miss. Hawley’s team who had just climbed the ‘black peak’. This was the first time the two teams saw each other and a great chance to talk about each other’s adventures. Our team were eager to find out the time they had completed the black peak trek, knowing we were set to do the same trek tomorrow. Given a time to beat of seven hours, after supper, we made home in the mountain hut and settled down for the night.

After waving Miss. Hawley’s team down the mountain, to their river journey, we set out with our day sacks to climb the infamous black peak, so named because of the trees that surrounded it, making it stand out from a distance compared to the other peaks white with rock. Reaching the peak was another moment on our expedition that was unforgettable, eating lunch overlooking the Adriatic Sea. The trek was a challenging one but we were glad to hear supper was to be cooked by our leaders as a reward for our efforts throughout the week, a well deserved and much welcomed break.

The next day saw us wave goodbye to the mountain hut and trek down to the foot of the park where we were to