World Challenge 2014 - Thailand and Laos

Above & Left: In the village enjoying our time with the kids

Below: At Kuang Si waterfall and relaxing after our main trek our serious trekking to our accommodation for the night (surprising to us, a hostel!) with our guides Som and Atit. We visited a waterfall later on in the evening in which we were allowed to swim, a nice refreshment after a tough trek that day. Over the next several days, we trekked between villages; there were ups and downs emotionally and quite literally – one of the hardest parts was the hilliness of the northern Thai jungle: we would trek up a steep hill and it would immediately go back down after. A killer for the feet! Between the sweat and exhaustion, some team members managed to contract colds, being given a day off from trekking on the third day. Their return to the group members was nothing short of culturally typical for a south-east Asian country – packed into the back of a truck, they were driven along to the village meeting point and endured big bumps, little space, driving on the edge of cliffs and sliding back and forth on up and downhill parts! Amazingly, the guides crafted all of our eating utensils (cups and chopsticks) from bamboo, from which they also did their cooking, laying it out on banana leaves. The best night was by far Jungle Camp night. Sleeping outside in hammocks was quite the experience – a comfy night’s sleep and entertainment provided in the form of peoples’ hammocks collapsing in the middle of the night!

Post-trek, we were driven back to Chiang Rai, where we had several hours to eat lunch, re-pack and shower before taking a 3-hour bus journey to Chiang Mai. This marked the start of our R&R phase and, as such, we enjoyed watching Muay Thai for an evening, shopping around in some of the most dazzling night markets, taking a scenic walk through the ‘Old City’ (seeing countless grand and beautiful temples) and visiting a huge mall. After two nights in Chiang Mai, we took an early-evening overnight train to Bangkok, arriving at 11:00 the next morning at Hua Lamphong station.

We had finally made it to the hustle-and-bustle city of culture, Bangkok! We purchased metro tickets and took the metro from Hua Lamphong to Sutthistan, where we walked to our hotel, Bangkok 68. Over the course of our time in Bangkok we did huge amounts of sightseeing (of particular note were the Golden Mount, a stunning place to see a panoramic view of the whole of Bangkok, and the Grand Palace, a beautiful array of temples and buildings steeped in history, culture and art, housing the emerald Buddha), visited a mall to rival those in London in size (in which we took a tour around an aquarium), went bowling, had two meals at night markets (one at the famous Khaosan Road) and relaxed in Lumphini Park.

On our final day, after a lie-in, swim in the rooftop pool and a game of bowling, we packed up our last things and took a train journey to the airport. We checked-in, had dinner and boarded our 01:10 flight from Suvarnabhumi to Heathrow. 11 hours later, we landed back home in London, after an amazing month-long expedition.

From the more exotic foods we were able to try, having to use a long-drop toilet during our times outside of hostels and using bucket-showers to living a month away from our families, overcoming tough physical and mental obstacles and working as a team in a different way than anything we had experienced before, everything contributed to the life-changing opportunity we had and memories that will last a lifetime.

Visit to La Martiniere School for Girls, Kolkata

During Activity Week II at the end of last year the Head Master and Miss Heraghty visited La Martiniere School for Girls as part of the British Council’s international link school’s programme. Focusing on the themes of ‘sustainability’ and ‘global citizenship’ and ‘commemorating WW1’, projects were instigated across departments. The epitome of the hospitality, the Indian international team were able to give a real flavour of La Martiniere; through basketball matches, inaugurations of societies, the annual Art exhibition and a tour of Kolkata to name a few. Speaking to their students highlighted the similar mentality they have to our Olavians, with the girls being ambitious, creative and academically curious. The school has a strong link to the city’s Science Museum and students are able to use the laboratories to perform experiments, test out new inventions and learn about robotics. The aim is for the link between the two schools to continue for years to come.

Hip-Hop & Design

Hip-Hop & Design Society has enjoyed a successful début year, with members presenting on a broad range of intellectually stimulating topics, from “Architecture in the Projects” to “The Art of Spoken Word”. There has also been an exciting line-up of guest speakers, with Old Olavian Dhaval Kale speaking from Dubai via webcam on “Jazz Hip-Hop”, and Los Angeles photographer Dexter Navy and Hackney rapper Bate Nate H are amongst those scheduled to talk later in the year. The society is now looking forward to an even more prosperous second year, with new ventures such as a society magazine journal on the horizon.

both at a local and global scale, using puzzles and games to remember these.

Film Club

At film club, students from all years have been making short films based on the theme ‘Time’, with talks on the filmmaking process from Alastair Haig, Daniel Gillette and Henry Gill. The teams have so far written their scripts, drawn their storyboards and are starting to shoot their productions on DSLRs and a professional cinema camera.

Photography Club

Photography club has been running every Thursday lunchtime, teaching students from all years how to take professional photos. This years talks have so far included macro photography, lens whacking, and photoshopping by Henry Gill, portraiture and lighting by Luke O’Donovan and long exposure photography by Chris Page.

Hope Foundation

St.Olave’s continued the long standing partnership with the local Hope Foundation food bank charity, and this year we saw an exceptional increase in dontaions after sixth formers Daniel Bradford, Luke O’Donovan and Shezara Francis visited the food bank to learn how valuable their service is to the community, and then presented their findings in a whole school assembly. A number of students also volunteered to help the charity during half term, assisting with their week-long operation of sorting out all of the food donations from across the borough ready for distribution to those who need it most.

Thank you to everybody who made a donation this year, and we are looking forward to continuing the school’s collaboration with the charity on the future.

Wonders of the World Club

Attendance to the new WOW (Wonders of the World) club has been rapidly increasing. Activities have involved an opportunity to develop creative skills through the planning and design of earthquake proof buildings as well as joining Attenborough on his journey through planet earth, embracing the incredible landscapes and ecosystems of the African continent. Students have also developed their knowledge of places in the wider world