Clubs and Extra-curricular

The Duke of Edinburgh Award.

The Duke of Edinburgh scheme continues to be very popular and successful with students from Years 9 to 13. By doing the DofE, students are in for an amazing adventure and masses of fun as they take part in a range of activities, all leading to the achievement of an Award that’s recognised by unis and employers alike.

Bronze Expeditions

This is a busy time of year for all those involved with DofE. Since Easter until the end of term there will have been 2 Gold, 1 Silver & 2 Bronze expeditions out and about across the country. This last weekend saw the Bronze Assessed out walking through to West Kingsdown and back to school in 2 days. All students worked well in their teams with only a few questioning their map reading skills. Saturday night saw the World Cup being played out on the campsite to everyone’s enjoyment. A big thank you to all the staff that helped as without them this just would not happen

Gold Expedition – Dartmoor

The Gold expedition is, as it should be, tough. Dartmoor certainly provides this year in year out with a testing environment & some very testing conditions. This year the weather once again threw all it could at us with driving rain, a very wet moor with the streams flooding & howling gales. This took its toll on equipment, with two wrecked tents and many wet soggy students. However this did not deter the party who spent 4 nights on the moor wild camping and covering a great distance over the 4 days.

Despite all the weather the groups all passed the practice and after this experience the assessed at the end of the summer term should really be a ‘walk in the park’

A big thank you to the staff who gave up part of their holidays and a warm comfortable dry bed.

Chess champion, Anantha Anilkumar

Congratulations to Anantha (7B), who represented England in the 2013 FIDE World Youth Chess Championship held in Abu Dhabi, competing with 1773 players from 121 countries. He finished as the 2nd best England player in his U12 age group, and as the 4th best player overall out of the England squad of 24.

Chess Report

After some excellent play throughout this term, the Saint Olave’s team finally went out of the National Schools Championship in an extremely close match against Sevenoaks with wins from Anantha Anilkumar, Nigel D’Souza and James Wagstaff-Hall. Well done to the team who, in the ECF tournament at Eton, secured wins against Hampton, Wilsons and Eton to emerge 5th out of the 20 teams entered.

World Challenge 2014 - Honduras

We flew into the city of San Pedro Sula, driving at night through a strange city on a strange continent. Everyone was exhausted after the two flights required to get here, one to Miami and another across the Gulf of Mexico. Many of us had never been to a tropical country before, and were still reeling from the brief journey from the air-conditioned airport to the air-conditioned minibus.

We arrived at our accommodation for the next two nights, and tried to get as much sleep as we coulddespite the conditions. The next day was spent running around exchanging money and sorting out food and accommodation for the next couple of weeks, and acclimating to the intense heat and humidity.

We headed out to the coastal city of La Ceiba next, where we would spend the next few days in the Pico Bonito national park completing acclimatisation treks and learning jungle bush craft. We camped in the rainforest, and soon learned it was not called that without good reason. One of the persistent highlights of the trip was the people we met, and we got off to a very good start with Jorge Salaverri, our guide, who was extremely knowledgeable about the flora and fauna of the jungle, and was forever picking fruit off branches for us to eat.

After leaving La Ceiba we went straight onto the Project Phase, in the hillier, temperate Santa Barbara region of Honduras. Here we would be helping to clear bird watching trails through the cloud forest. Living up in the hills gave us some of the most spectacular scenery we saw on the trip, and we got to meet and work alongside local villagers, all clearly passionate about improving the lives of those in their close-knit community. After two nights we came down from the hills, having successfully completed our trails. There, we helped to paint murals designed by local schoolchildren and played a few friendly football matches. Our local contact, William Orellana is building up an eco-tourism business in Honduras, emphasising its untouched beauty and quality of bird watching.

We then visited the Mayan Ruins at Copan, beautifully preserved and full of incredibly colourful scarlet macaws.

On the next phase we were supposed to be trekking through the Celaque National Park and reaching the highest peak in the country, but due to a combination of injury and illness we only managed a day of trekking. Instead, we spent a lot of time getting to know the town of Gracias we were staying in, and explored the surrounding area.

Eventually we got back on itinerary and went back to La Ceiba, for white-water rafting and river hiking in the Rio Cangrejal, full of imposing boulders and drops. This day, was for sure, a highlight of the trip.

For our Rest and Relaxation phase we caught the ferry to the tropical island of Roatan, where we all engaged in four days of scuba diving, in the incredible Mesoamerican barrier reef. We also all got a great taste of the Caribbean lifestyle and climate.

Honduras really does prove that you should never judge something by how it appears on the surface. If you were to look up Honduras now, all you would get would be reports of violence and corruption, yet this does not compare with actually visiting the country and seeing for yourself the beautiful countryside, and the ever-friendly, driven people determined to improve Honduras’ standing in the world, and I sincerely hope that they will succeed.