Highlights 2017

HIGHLIGHTS 2017

BBC Music Magazine Choral Award 2017 The College Choir, of which the Choristers form part, won the BBC Music Magazine Choral Award for its recording of Deo, a collection of sacred works by the late composer and College Honorary Fellow, Jonathan Harvey.

Deo, released in May last year, was the first recording on the College’s new label, an imprint on Signum Classics. Harvey, who died in 2012, was an undergraduate at St John’s and is widely considered one of the most significant composers of his generation. Two of the works that appear on the recording were written specifically for the College Choir.

It is the first time that a collegiate or cathedral choir has won the award for choral music at the prestigious ceremony. BBC Music Magazine is the world’s best-selling classical music monthly, and the awards are the only celebration of classical releases in which the winners in each of the main categories are chosen by the general public.

Front Cover: Form 6 performing Twelfth Night at the Shakespeare Schools Festival Back Cover: Artwork by Louise Porritt (Form 6) © St John’s College School 2017

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63-75 Grange Road, Cambridge CB3 9AB

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www.sjcs.co.uk

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admissions@sjcs.co.uk

Highlights 2017

Flexible Learning

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My Mind, Mindfulness

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Challenge by Choice

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Tai Chi, Philosophy, Compassion 6

Digitally Enhanced Learning 8

Computing

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Poetry

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Byron House Forest Garden12

Sustainability

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Child-led Learning

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Enrichment Programme 20

Wonder Afternoons

Reading & Creative Writing 24

Iceland Trip & STEM

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STEM

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Design Technology

Senior House Art Outdoors 30

Charities & Community

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Parents’ Association

Music

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Compositions

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Shakespeare Schools Festival 41

Drama

Sport

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Flexible Learning One of the most important skills to develop in our children is the ability to think flexibly to help them prepare for tomorrow’s world. Our children need the skills to be good learners- to learn how to learn so that they can develop their own strategies to solve problems and evaluate their own learning. This might include developing a sense of ownership and purpose in their learning as well as enabling them to reflect on what they are doing well and what they need to do better. Teachers have been exploring a range of creative approaches to developing flexibility of thinking, which fall into three main groups: a ‘My Mind’ curriculum (including Mindfulness and ‘Learning Dispositions’), ‘Challenge by Choice’ and Digitally Enhanced Learning. You can read more about these in the pages which follow.

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‘My Mind’ Curriculum In today’s world, we are preparing children for jobs that do not yet exist, using technologies that have not yet been invented, in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet. It is estimated that a week’s worth of today’s New York Times contains more information than a person would have been likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century. A good education today therefore needs to teach children learning skills, attitudes and dispositions that will enable them to flourish in a quickly changing landscape.

The aim of the ‘My Mind’ curriculum in Forms 2-6 is to teach the children the skills to think flexibly and adapt as the circumstances around them change. ‘My Mind’ consists of lessons in philosophy, study skills, mindfulness (including Tai Chi), critical thinking and PSHEE (Personal, Social, Emotional, Economic and Health Education). Though different curriculum areas, the themes and objectives of each of these subjects are interwoven and include: understanding that you can change the way you think; meta-cognition, or thinking about thinking, supports creativity; training your mind and body can help you learn better; focus and attention are key to learning and to happiness; learning skills in attention, speaking, listening and argument can help us to learn better together and think more creatively through collaboration.

Across the different strands there is a combination of theory about the mind and self with practical ideas for implementing this theoretical knowledge. Whilst the ‘My Mind’ curriculum does prepare children for exam success, its scope is far wider and aims to help children understand themselves, their learning and their relationships in such a way as to be better able to manage themselves in the future.

A Tai Chi lesson, part of the ‘My Mind’ curriculum

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‘Paws.b’ Mindfulness

Mindfulness

The ‘Paws.b’ Mindfulness programme, which stands for ‘Pause, Breathe and Be’, is designed for the younger age group and has been used for the third year at Byron House with Form 2. It supports, in a highly practical way, the children’s emotional development, teaching them to recognise and regulate their emotions. It focuses on teaching children about the different parts of their brains and the role these play in how they experience the events that happen in their lives. ‘Paws.b’ also teaches some Mindful practices which support attention and concentration and can be used as a calming tool in times of difficulty or as a way of noticing when things are going well.

In Senior House, Mindfulness teaching continues to be an effective way of helping children to slow down, bring attention to the moment and reduce stress. For example, one Form 6 child described how on entering his Common Entrance exam, all his revision was like “pages flying about” giving him only “glimpses of information and then it disappeared”. During and after the mindfulness practice used before the exam began, he said that he “saw the information drop down into trays marked with each subject and the writing became still” so that he could access the information that he needed.

Some of the ‘Paws.b’ sessions have included topics such as: dealing with difficulty; the storytelling mind; growing happiness; brain training; steadying a ‘wobble’. The children also learned about the parts of the brain such as the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus and insula and how these parts of the brain work together to help us concentrate, focus, stay calm and make good choices.

“Mindfulness is good for me because it allows me to be calm and ignore things or people that might distract me. I concentrate on the movement pattern of a bubble, moving up and down, which helps me to focus and keep calm.”

Learning Dispositions We live in a complex, rapidly changing world and it is now well recognised that having positive learning behaviours, such as perseverance and creativity, are just as important to a person’s success as their subject knowledge.

According to research by Carole Dweck, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, a ‘growth mindset’ is one in which people believe that with effort they can develop their abilities, become more successful learners and achieve more. When students believe they can get smarter, they understand that effort makes them stronger.

We are in the process of identifying the characteristics that underpin effective learning that we wish to develop in the children and that will help them achieve their full

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potential and become lifelong learners. The result will be a programme to teach children about the process of learning and how to adopt a ‘growth mindset’ and put it into practice, through the explicit teaching of ‘learning dispositions’. These are ‘habits of mind’ or ways of thinking and approaching problem-solving that will equip our children for life.

Once complete, the programme will introduce the learning dispositions identified by an icon, colour or image, thereby providing a visual hook to support the children’s understanding of the concept. Initial trials have been very positive showing that children as young as 6 or 7 are able to think about and discuss how they learn and to identify dispositions they display and those they need to develop.

Challenge by Choice ‘Challenge by Choice’ is a model of working that incorporates a ‘challenge for all’ philosophy where every individual in the classroom is extended throughout the lesson. The lesson is structured to offer the children a choice of level, varying in difficulty, and they choose the one that they feel will provide an appropriate challenge. This provides opportunities for developing self-awareness, reflection and ownership, allowing them to work at their own pace. It encourages children to challenge themselves without the level of work being capped by a teacher’s expectations.

‘Challenge by Choice’ was first introduced in the Maths department in Senior House and has now been successfully adopted by many departments across the School. Children have embraced the concept and find it motivational and beneficial to their learning.

Our own evaluations support nation-wide research in showing that giving children a choice of levels of work usually increases the level of challenge they are prepared to have a go at. Far from opting for the easiest task, in the majority of cases children will exceed the teacher’s expectations. Children report that it is ‘motivational’ and ‘challenging’, finding that they like to be able to “push yourself to the next level”.

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Tai Chi This year we have extended the teaching and practice of Mindfulness skills through a programme of Tai Chi lessons for all children in Forms 2 and 3. While practising Tai Chi, the focus of one’s awareness in the present moment is on the movement of the body. The goal is for the children to be able to integrate these key Mindfulness skills into their everyday lives.

Taught by specialists from the company Cambridge Kung Fu, this martial art nurtures the connection between body and mind and provides the children with a more accessible means to develop their skills in awareness, focus and resilience, through whole body movements. Scientific research specifically pinpoints these attributes as being important for a number of factors including academic self-efficacy, the development of effective coping skills and positive mental health.

Critically, these skills can be trained through practice.

“I really enjoy our Tai Chi sessions, you get to play so many different games as well as learn the moves too. They all help with different things such as balance, co-ordination, concentration and teamwork.”

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“Tai Chi movements are slow and you learn to really focus your mind and control your body to master the techniques and poses. We sometimes do Tai Chi outside which is really fun and more spacious.”

Philosophy

Compassion

A key aim of our Philosophy teaching at St John’s, for children aged eight onwards, is to help them gain an understanding of themselves as learners by developing and using critical and creative thinking skills. The children learn how to structure thinking in different ways, to ask openended and searching questions, to put ideas into different situations to see if they still work, to consider issues from different points of view, to explore the reasons behind their own and others’ beliefs and opinions and discover what some of the great philosophers of the past have thought.

Compassion lessons have continued this year, consisting of experiential tasks, exercises, story-telling, group discussions and partner listening and communication exercises. These are designed to have a direct effect on the children’s interactions and relational behaviour thus impacting upon issues such as bullying, social exclusion, stereotyping and bias, whilst also enhancing self-awareness and emotional intelligence.

As children progress through the school, they become more independent in their philosophical discussions and

by Form 4, after an initial stimulus, they are frequently chairing discussions themselves. The chair person’s role is not to give value judgements on the opinions of others, but rather to exercise philosophical skills such as clarifying the meaning of what others are saying and questioning the logic of their arguments.

“Compassions lessons gave me time to think about things more carefully and helped me to have a more open mind.”

“I learned that you should show compassion to yourself as well as others.”

Emotions for Learning

“I think philosophy is an important subject at school because it helps develop your reasoning skills and no matter what you think you can say it without people saying what you think is bad.

It is very interesting and is a mixture of thinking games, discussions and reasoning.”

Over 60 St John’s parents attended our Emotions for Learning (E4L) Parents Morning at Byron House. Parents were invited to see aspects of our E4L curriculum and Mindfulness programme in action, experiencing it with the children, as well as listening to key presentations from the staff. T2 demonstrated the Action Story (peer to peer massage) and Mindfulness Club led the parents in a Mindful practice, Finger Breathing and a Form 2 class showed focus and awareness during a Tai Chi demonstration.

“My favourite Philosophy lesson this year was talking about what makes me “me”. If all my body parts were replaced one by one when would I stop being myself and change into someone else? We had an interesting discussion and lots of people had different views. I believe that when your brain is replaced you are no longer yourself.”

E4L is a curriculum and an approach to learning and relating at school that has been developed uniquely at St John’s.

We have created an entire social and emotional curriculum for our youngest children; based on research and evidence about how children’s minds and brains develop. It is designed to encourage children to express their opinions and feelings and give them the knowledge, skills and understanding they will need to be able to think creatively and problem solve effectively in all areas of their lives.

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Digitally Enhanced Learning Our digitally enhanced learning programme of development has continued to expand. All classes in Byron House are now equipped with class sets of either iPads or Chromebooks.

Our rigorous programme of monitoring and evaluation has shown continued improvements in collaboration, research skills, independence, breadth of learning and motivation as well as improvements in basic skills such as spelling.

In the words of one child, “I think that by introducing Chromebooks into lessons, it greatly enhances the way that you can learn, therefore widening education and openmindedness.”

In Physical Education (PE) lessons across the whole school this year, we have been trialling the use of iPads, which has opened up a world of self-reflection. Whilst children are very good at peer-reflection and this continues to be a valuable learning tool, they comment that the iPads can sometimes be “better because you can see yourself and improve.” As a result, an incorrect action in, for example, swimming, can be explained more clearly and corrected more effectively.

At Senior House, we have also been trialling iPads in Music and Art. In both subjects, evaluations have shown that iPads have supported with developing skills in three key areas: The breadth of work and resources has expanded. Children are able to view a much wider range of stimuli, including the work of other artists; in Music a wider group of children have been able to engage with digital composition for a longer period of time, applying skills learned in lessons to an expressive recording that they can edit repeatedly, carefully tuning in to the fine details of their compositions.

“It is fun using iPads in PE because we saw how we could improve our balance.”

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Individual pupils’ engagement has improved. Particular groups of children who had previously found the subject area more difficult have been more engaged with the subject. The new technology has offered them new and different forms of expression within each subject area, whether digital art or composition and they have been able to produce higher quality expressive work as a result.

The quality of all the pupils’ expressive work has deepened and been enhanced. Quality is developed in different ways, sometimes through the capacity of iPads to focus in on the fine details of an area, such as features of the face in portraiture or the timing of an entrance to a bar of music recorded; at other times through the exploration of combining different genres, such as the layering of heavily textured paint on top of flat digital art or through combining a soaring classical melody with pop rhythms.

The improvements have been evidenced not just in the children’s work output, but also in their discussions about their work and their individual progress. When discussing the use of digital technology in the classroom, many of the words the children now use are linked to meta-cognition or ‘thinking about thinking’. They use reflective words such as: try again, improve, concentrate, your brain gets stronger, explain, understand, be creative, inspiration. Learning dispositions such as these have been identified as key both to improvements in learning as well as being core skills looked for by employers.

“When you watch yourself on the iPad you can actually see what you are doing well in PE but it also helps you know how to improve your skills for the future.”

Digital Artwork by Sacha Mackenzie (L) and Tabitha Pearson (R)

“Using iPads in Art was fun because you could use it in lots of different ways. It also inspired me to try different techniques without ruining my work and I found that I could draw much better too.”

“It was an amazing experience to use the iPads in Art and being able to do art differently as well as physically too. I even learned to smudge my work!”

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Byron House Computing Curriculum The redevelopment of the Byron House computing curriculum has continued this year. Each year group now has access to digital learning tools in their classroom, providing them direct access to tools to improve their digital literacy. For example in Forms 1 and 2, pupils are following a touch-typing programme and markedly increasing their typing speeds as a result.

The computing curriculum continues to focus on coding, logical thinking and sequencing skills. This is supported by using apps such as ‘Scratch’ and ‘Scratch junior’, robotic toys and beebots (programmable floor robots). iPads continue to be used across Byron House to develop video work, animation and digital art pieces. The younger year groups have enjoyed using the iPads for further independent research and for collaborative learning, as well as to create posters, digital books and to practise key phonics skills.

Forms 1 and 2 have made excellent use of their Chromebooks via Google Classroom and are now proficient at accessing online resources, sharing their work digitally and providing feedback to each other. Apps such as ‘Padlet’ allow them to brainstorm with ease whilst video editing software has added an additional creative element to their work in humanities subjects.

“We have been seeing how traffic lights work and we made the start of an algorithm to figure out how they go round in order. My favourite part of this lesson was definitely using the computers to work out these algorithms.”

“Learning how to code and using ‘Scratch’ are my favourite lessons because I love using technology and I am quite good at it.”

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Raspberry Pi, Coding & Micro:bit The aim of the Raspberry Pi Foundation is to place the Raspberry Pi, an inexpensive, pocket-sized stand-alone programming device to which a screen, keyboard and mouse can be connected, into the hands of young people to inspire the software developers of the future. As one of the first schools to make use of the Raspberry Pi as a resource for teaching the physical computing elements of our Computing curriculum, we now have considerable expertise in this area for which we have been awarded Lead School status within the Network of Excellence by Computing at School (CAS), a foundation set up to give children a better education in computing.

We also actively support and contribute to the teaching of computing in local primary schools through a number of initiatives. In the process, in addition to our continued close association with the Raspberry Pi Foundation and CAS, we have built up close relationships with: the East of England Broadband Network (E2BN) which works to raise standards of teaching and learning by the use of broadband technology; The Centre for Computing History, a Cambridge-based charity which promotes education in computing through its museum, hands-on exhibitions, learning workshops and events; The Teaching Schools Network, a close association of teaching schools that provide teacher training in and around Cambridge; gPiO, the company that builds the control interface (general purpose input/output) for the Raspberry Pi. In the Senior House Raspberry Pi users club, we are able to give the children hands-on experience of creating and programming physical systems which interface with a wide range of input and output devices. They are able to select the projects they wish to work on and cover a wide variety of computer controlled applications including: programming music using Sonic Pi; controlling 240v mains equipment via a radio transmitter; building a line-following vehicle; learning how to make a camera trap for wildlife photography.

We have recently introduced the BBC micro:bit, a pocket-sized codeable computer with motion detection, a built-in compass and Bluetooth technology which is able to connect to Raspberry Pi, for the teaching of Computing and also as a resource to use in Science to teach data logging and control. We hope to use the micro:bit as a basis for Form 5 work in DT on feedback control systems.

“I enjoy coding games because there are lots of things to learn on the computer. I think this is important, so that you know lots of different codes as these skills are important for our futures.”

“Playing other people’s games is one of my favourite parts of Game Maker Club. I sometimes get to make my own game, which I like as it is fun doing both and I feel proud when I get to play a game I have designed myself.”

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Byron House Forest Garden The new Forest Garden has been designed around a new circular teaching and meeting space, surrounded by an alley of hornbeam, which is large enough for an entire year group to sit and discuss and learn together. The whole space has been designed to mimic the natural ecosystem of a woodland, with nearly 3,500 plants being planted. Although there is a practical hardcore base under the main teaching areas and pathways, there are no hard edges and the paths and plantings have a fuzzy edge which allows them to grow and contract over the year as the plants grow, bloom, set seed, colour for autumn, loose their leaves and hibernate.

Plant communities have been designed to work together in drifts throughout the under-storey, to seed just enough to take on a life of their own and to cope with being trampled and picked, without one variety dominating. In the winter there is strong evergreen structure of shrubs, bushes and trees so that there are plenty of spaces to hide, paths that curve out of sight and spaces for play even in the depths of winter. Much of this strong winter skeleton is created by existing mature trees, whose crowns have been lifted to bring more light and to create the largest possible footprint for play.

Additional hollies, viburnums and crab apple trees have been planted alongside multi-stem specimens such as juneberry and flowering dogwoods.

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Kindergarten Forest School In Forest School the children progress their learning and development through leading their own explorations in woodlands or wild spaces. They engage with the natural world using all of their senses, exploring the environment and developing a deep respect for nature.

The children lead their own exploration in Forest School and so every session and every child’s experience will differ.

Children often choose to: dig, run, jump in muddy puddles, climb trees, saw fallen branches, make mud pies, collect sticks, swing on branches or the rope swing, cook on the fire, make up their own games, build dens and look for creatures.

Routine is important in building the trust that allows us to stay safe even whilst engaging in more risky play, so each session follows the same basic structure. They begin with a mindful moment in the ‘sit spot’, listening and noticing any changes to the woodland since the last visit. After sharing experiences together there is a short team building activity such as a blindfold trust rope trail to imagine what it would be like to be an animal with poor eyesight, or making natural instruments to replicate woodland sounds.

This is followed by a period of independent learning. The children come back together to base camp to enjoy some storytelling, usually in the form of an oral folk tale, which teaches them something about the animals, plants or seasons in the woodland habitat.

“I like caring for the plants in our Forest Garden and learning about each one.”

“I really love den building because if you try hard you can make your dens gigantic, especially if you work in a team with your friends and you use all the natural materials.”

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Sustainability At St John’s we aim to foster the aptitudes and nurture the growth of each child so that they can become their best selves.

To be one’s best self involves being compassionate and aware of the world so that one has the skills, ability and courage to re-envision the world and take action to right what is wrong. We want to encourage our children to find their ‘voice’ and to understand that they can make a difference. This is the aim of our sustainability development, which will be a long-term development over the next five years and beyond. ‘Sustainability’ is used in its ‘integralist’ sense to include environmental issues as well as humanitarian concerns (social awareness) – care for the world and for each other.

Three of the ways in which we have begun the sustainability development this year have been through our Refugee Day, the sustainable kitchen garden and through our funding of a school in Ghana.

Humanitas Charity St John’s has begun working in partnership with the charity, Humanitas (www.humanitascharity.org), to fund the initial set up and building of a school in rural Ghana. Funded initially by the school’s ‘Grow a Pound’ campaign, the small community of Ayensueko now has a thriving school where the children can learn the skills that they need in order to be able to make a difference in their community and their futures.

Aside from the fundraising efforts, there have been many shared experiences for the children in both schools, including blog posts, shared lessons and letter-writing between pupils. The links with Ayensueko go beyond raising money; there is real scope in the future for a lasting bond between both communities and the roots of this have already been planted.

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Kitchen Garden The idea of the school’s Kitchen Garden is for the children to develop a greater awareness of sustainability through having the opportunity to grow their own food. A range of vegetables, flowers and herbs have been sown and planted which have been tended on a weekly basis in raised beds. As well as the fixed growing beds, children have grown vegetables in pots to take home during the holidays to continue to monitor and care for. The children also have responsibility for weeding, watering and maintaining the beds, cultivating the compost, preparing the soil and mixing the manure. The Kitchen Garden club has enjoyed weekly sessions where children have planted, maintained, studied and enjoyed learning about germinating seeds, growing vegetables and creating compost. The children have gained responsibility for their own ‘plot’ within a raised bed and where they have really shown enormous care over their seedlings and plants over the term. Children have brought in seeds from kitchen scraps to grow, an abundance of butternut squashes and chilli plants are thriving.

“‘Lasagne’ gardening is where take all the weeds out of the soil, then lay cardboard over, so the sun wouldn’t let the weeds grow back, then you put leaf litter and soil on.”

“Some of the vegetables we have planted will be used in Food Technology Club too for cooking, some of the edible plants as well.”

“We have planted lots of seeds as well as transferring lots of small plants to bigger pots. We also made seedling pots from newspaper.”

Opposite: Humanitas funded school in Ayensueko, rural Ghana Right: Kitchen Garden at St John’s

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Refugee Day ‘Refugee Day’ involved a whole school programme of events organised to raise awareness of the plight of refugees and to generate commitment to practical action. ‘Refugee Day’ saw a full day planned with workshops and visiting speakers including authors, poets, charity representatives and musicians, some of whom were refugees themselves.

All donations were split between Cambridge Calais Refugee Action Group (CamCRAG), Save the Children and Oxfam.

The day started with the whole school going on a ‘refugee walk’. They brought with them a rucksack that contained things they would take if they were given a couple of hours’ notice that they had to leave their home, never to return. In school, they had talks and workshops from Nola Ellen and Richard Asquith on an introduction to refugees using Paddington Bear, charity speakers including Oxfam, Save the Children and a Red Box talk. Anthony Robinson and Annemarie Young provided workshops based around their refugee-inspired books, poet Harry Baker based his sessions on writing poems inspired by the refugee crisis and Vanessa Altin spoke about her personal experiences with refugees, examples of which can be found in her book The Pomegranate Tree, a moving novel about the Syrian war for young adults. Top footballers from The Red Card spoke about their campaign to educate children about racism and the children also looked at the paper boat refugee art by Bern O’Donoghue. ‘Music For Change’ artists (Emmanuel, Lucky and Black Voices) also provided workshops to celebrate the diversity and richness of different cultures.

“It is really shocking to hear the stories of refugees......and how fragile life is.”

“Although the day couldn’t be a replica of life as a refugee, it has given us a good representation of some of what it is like and raised our awareness.”

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“It was so surprising to hear that the 6 richest countries between them only take 9% of refugees.”

Above: Kindergarten Refugee Day rucksacks and The Red Card workshop Opposite (clockwise from top left): Bern O’Donoghue inspired paper boat art, Anthony Robinson and Annemarie Young workshop, Music for Change workshop and Refugee Walk

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Child-led Independent Learning In Byron House, the children in each year group from T1 to Form 2 have continued to choose their own topic for one term each year. This year, these covered a diverse range of subjects including Japan, North America, Extreme Earth, Chocolate, Future Technology and Toys. The children are given the freedom within the topic to further their learning in areas that interest them and planning by teachers responds to this. As in previous years, high levels of motivation, engagement and involvement have been observed. The children take ownership of their learning and can often be overheard chatting animatedly to each other about their topic outside of lessons.

The child-led topics also provide opportunities to further embed the thinking skills that are taught in discrete lessons across Byron House, covering questioning, information skills, critical thinking, creative thinking, decision-making and memory skills. The purpose of these lessons is to foster higher level thinking and encourage independent, active thinking and learning skills, skills that will serve the children for life.

Clockwise from top left: Form 2L’s trip to Chocolat Chocolat; T2B’s chocolate treats; Form 2L discovering plants at the Cambridge University Botanic Garden

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“Japan has been a great topic, my favourite part at the Kaetsu Centre was the tea tasting ceremony, where we had to take off our shoes and be really quiet.”

“Child-led topics make learning more interesting because they get voted for. I would like to do another one as I found the first one on Extreme Earth very fun.”

Clockwise from top left: Form 2S enjoying a tea ceremony at the Kaetsu Centre, Form 2D creating Extreme Earth in an art lesson and Form 1S at Tesco’s ‘Farm to Fork Trail’

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Enrichment Programme Forms 5 & 6 The Enrichment programme has continued this year, offering the children in Forms 5 and 6 the opportunity to undertake cross-curricular work in computing, music, art, design technology, science and creative writing. Working in groups on Thursday afternoons, the children have been able to spend time developing skills in areas that they particularly enjoy or those in which they are particularly able. Each project has ended with a presentation or final product, such as the Arts Award or music compositions that have been performed and recorded.

“I enjoyed art enrichment because we could decide which artists we wanted to study and what materials, colours etc. that we could use. I liked the refugee project we did and the sculpture project where we drew and sculpted different modern and old sculptures. It has probably been my favourite enrichment this year.”

“ICT enrichment is fun because it helps us to learn a modern programming language which is becoming increasingly useful as computers are coming into more aspects of our lives. We are using Python, a modern programming language that is similar to lots of other programming languages.”

Clockwise from top: John Virtue and Henry Moore Art Enrichment, Science Enrichment, classifying living things and Game Maker ICT Enrichment.

Opposite page: Philosophy talk by Dr Peter Kail and talk about racing and breeding thoroughbreds by Hugh Anderson, Godolphin

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Wonder Afternoons Forms 3 to 6 Thursday Wonder Afternoons for children in Forms 3 to 6 have covered a variety of subjects. A sample of some of the talks, trips, workshops and activities is shown below.

Michaelmas Term Art project visit to the Imperial War Museum at Duxford Art project visit to Wimpole Hall Farm Design technology trip to Oakham School Talk by Matthew Creasey, Behavioural Ecologist Geography trip to Wandlebury Country Park Philosophy talk by Dr Peter Kail Shakespeare workshops Talk by Ian Beaton, explorer Visit to the Cambridge Bharat Bhavan Hindu shrine Talk by Hugh Anderson, Godolphin Lent Term Geography trip to Epping Forest Visit to Cambridge Synagogue History trip to the Victorian village of Stibbington Senior House Literary Festival speakers Talk by Nick Butler, Tideway Tunnels civil engineer Talk by Dr Christie Marr, computer scientist and mathematician Talk by journalist Amanda Goodman The Science Dome Visit to the Cambridge Buddhist Centre Visit to Cambridge Gurdwara Summer Term House debating competitions Talk by Alex Welby (The Leys School) on Ancient Philosophy Talk by Dr Kate Robson Brown, professor of biological anthropology at Bristol University Visit to the University Museum of Classical Archaeology Visit to the Cambridge Mosque Visit to the Fitzwilliam Museum

“We have had some amazing speakers talking to us about their jobs and careers. I enjoyed the presentation about the evolution of the human species. We got to examine five skull impressions with Dr Robson Brown who is a biological anthropologist.�

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Poetry Evening & Art Exhibition This year’s 6th Form Poetry Evening featured poems written by the children in response to a wide variety of different sources, including Michael Morpurgo’s, Private Peaceful and World War One, Odes, Wick Court Farm visit, Refugee Day at school, the future, National Poetry Day’s ‘Messages’ theme and Betjeman Poetry Prize’s ‘Place’ theme, to name but a few. In addition to performing their own poetry, the children performed moving choral readings of six classic and modern poems in keeping with the overall theme of the evening. The evening also included an art exhibition, also in Hinsley Hall, which featured artwork by the 6th Form.

“Blood coursing through my veins, I stand up on the black stage, the darkness awaiting the light like a glistening night sky waiting for the dawn. The light comes up, the poems tick by like seconds on a clock. Finally I walk forward. I stare out into the sea of radiant light. My voice fills the empty hall and as quickly as it has started, I’ve said my last line. The lights fade and I smile.”

Artwork by Lara Grant

Form 6 ‘SOS’ Poetry Evening

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Betjeman Poetry Prize

National Poetry Day

Polly Fish was shortlisted for the Betjeman Poetry Prize 2016 and came in the top 50 out of over 2000 entries.

Her poem, Goodnight Farm, is in the annual Betjeman Anthology which is distributed to all 50 poets and their schools.

For this year’s National Poetry Day on the theme of ‘Messages’, Form 5 produced their own Dadaist collage poems. It is 100 years since the Dada art movement sprang up in Zurich as a protest to the horrors of the First World War. Artists, film-makers, sculptors, dancers, musicians and poets all collaborated to produce art characterised by anarchic and spontaneous juxtapositions, with thoughtprovoking and often absurd results.

The Betjeman Poetry competition invites entries from 10 -13 year olds across the UK to write on the theme of ‘place’.

As described on the competition website, “Students can choose anywhere that is important to them – from their bedroom to a larger landscape, from their local park to their favourite building. The subject of their poem could be a city, a garden, a beach or a street – whatever moves them to write.”

The children looked at Tristan Tzara’s poetry and his instructions for creating a Dada poem. They followed these instructions by cutting out words and images from newspapers and printed poems to develop a montage fuelled by chance discoveries. They were encouraged to forget the usual ‘rules’ of poetry and not to worry about logical sense, rhyme, rhythm or syntax. Simply the random act of putting one chanced-upon word, line or photo next to another is what helped to produce the poetry.

“After submitting my poem, I forgot about it and carried on with writing other things. When the results came back I was then so surprised to have been shortlisted and in the top 50. It was very exciting and has inspired me to carry on writing Messages poems, stories and descriptions.”

Goodnight Farm The shadows thrown like chicken feed, Flowing streams full of stars, The hills return Gentle blue breaths of soothing air Tucked in by a duvet of silence The night clock ticks its time The only sound is nature’s lullaby Goodnight farm, Sleep well.

Polly Fish

Some are with love That comes from above.

A few come with hate, Delivered to your gate.

Some with sorrow, Mailed tomorrow.

Some with hope For a girl that can’t cope.

Some from far away, Written on a cold winter’s day.

But the best from the start Have come from your heart.

Johnnie Rudd

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Literary Festival The Senior House Literary Festival welcomed five visitors in the Lent Term: Chris d’Lacey, Matt Dickinson, Marcus Sedgwick, the Heffers Book Fair and Will Mabbitt. The children also enjoyed an illustration workshop. There was also huge excitement as the winners of the School’s 500 word short story competition were announced.

Book Week Book Week is a celebration of authors, illustrators, books and, most importantly, of reading. Author and illustrator Chloe Inkpen inspired the Pre-Prep with her picture books workshop. Forms 1 and 2 developed their creative writing skills with author Helen Moss. The children also enjoyed inspiring talks from some of the Senior House Literary Festival authors. ‘Book at Bedtime’ was again a resounding success, as was the ‘Extreme Reading Competition’. The week closed with ‘Dress as a Book Character Day’ in aid of the charity Humanitas.

Byron House Extreme Reading Competition entries

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Mind’s Eye Creative Writing

Reciprocal Reading & Maths

Four St John’s 6th Form pupils have been selected to publish articles in this year’s edition of Mind’s Eye. Topics included child poverty and indian dance.

Following a successful trial in Kindergarten and T2, all the children in Byron House were introduced to reciprocal reading in their guided reading sessions last year, as a way of helping them become more actively engaged in the reading process and think more deeply about the text. This has continued this year, with the children being encouraged to guide the discussions themselves through the roles of predictor, questioner, clarifier and summariser and, for the older children, big boss.

Inspired by Prospect magazine, Mind’s Eye (www. mindseyemagazine.com) is a King’s School Canterbury annual magazine which first appeared in 2011. Each year a Sixth Form editor commissions articles from the school’s five year groups, Years 9 to 13, to produce a range of subject matter including art, science, technology, politics, history, sociology, sport, philosophy, literature, music, architecture, geology, fashion, psychology and linguistics. Every piece must have something interesting to say and meet the editor’s exacting standards. Each year there may also be one or more guest contributors, such as Sigrid Rausing, Swedish philanthropist, anthropologist and publisher and founder of the Sigrid Rausing Trust and celebrity interviews such Baroness Susan Greenfield in 2016. Mind’s Eye is unique because nowhere in its pages is the King’s School mentioned, either verbally or visually: every contribution has to be about the outside world.

“I discovered that child poverty doesn’t just occur in Third World countries. I found it really interesting and thought it would be good for others to know about it, so I wrote my article on it. I’m really excited that I’m getting my article published in the King’s Canterbury magazine because then everyone can see my work and learn about this important issue. This has helped my writing skills because I have learned how to write a good article and make it fun, interesting and engaging to the reader.”

Through reciprocal reading, the children have learned to co-ordinate, apply comprehension strategies and work in collaborative groups and engagement levels have increased.

Following on from its success, the use of reciprocal teaching has also been trialled this year to structure collaborative problem-solving in Maths with small groups. The children involved were taught to carry out investigations using the same four reciprocal teaching strategies. Teachers found that providing children with a structure and language for reasoning enabled them to use language more effectively, to articulate their own thought processes and share ideas and to work together more effectively on mathematical problems.

“It really helped me out with my maths problems and stepping out of my comfort zone gave me confidence.”

“I found out that working together was really useful because the others would help me understand more deeply the maths we were doing.”

“The language which the children used was far more detailed and their explanations supported what we were trying to do well.” (teacher)

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Science & Geography in Iceland During the Easter break, a group of Senior House Geographers and Scientists set out to explore the wonders of Iceland. The children investigated volcanic activity, lava fields, hot springs, geysers, stunning waterfalls and mysterious beaches. Scan the qr code below to find out more from a website created by some of children who went on the trip.

“The main highlights of the trip were the Blue Lagoon and the waterfalls we visited. One was surrounded on all sides by rock, with an opening at the bottom, where a river flowed. We went inside this cave and stood right next to the waterfall, even though we got very cold and wet it was amazing.�

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STEM STEM lessons (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) have continued for children in Form 2 this year, giving them the opportunity to take ownership of the curriculum and make connections across different disciplines with projects that often culminating in designing, building and testing a physical model.

“I have enjoyed designing our own bridges on ‘Bridge Builder’ on the Chromebooks.

One of my favourite parts of STEM has been making the bridges, testing them and taking snapshots of them.

We have learnt how to make a strong, big and cheap bridge.”

“We have been measuring liquids, solids and gases in STEM, as well as coding using the Scratch program. STEM is important because these subjects are such a vital part of the world we live in.”

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Design Technology Design Technology has continued to thrive with a wide range of exciting projects across all year groups; a sample of these is shown here.

Clockwise from top left: Form 1 Puppet Day workshop, Transition 2 Wind-up Nursery Rhymes, Senior House Food Technology Club and DT Air Boat Race

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Clockwise from top: Form 5 Jewellery Boxes, Form 3 Bloodhound -inspired racing vehicles, Form 4 Fairground Rides and Form 6 Acrylic Pen Holders

Senior House Art Outdoors Senior House children have benefitted from a new waterproof outside area for sculpting and carving, adjacent to the existing Art Room. The idea is for the children to work unconstrained by space restrictions and without causing a dusty atmosphere in the same lesson for others who are not using the same materials. The children have enjoyed working on a large scale with messy materials such as plaster.

The Fifth Form have created some sculptures of farm animals and highly imaginative mythical creatures which grew from their Art trip to Wimpole Farm. They used their observational drawings of farm animals as inspiration and a starting point to imagine and create mythical creatures such as a pegacorn( a cross between a unicorn and Pegasus) and a minotaur.

This space is also used for drawing, painting and creative writing and as an outside classroom and has widened the scope for Art possibilities within lessons, as a lunchtime open studio and also Art clubs.

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“We created a food survey to find out what we enjoy eating at school and also whether we could make any suggestions to the menus. We went through the results and discussed which could be changed and which not and why.”

Pupil Forum Listening to children and looking at the world through their eyes is at the heart of the St John’s ethos. This year, we have developed a new vehicle for both listening to children as well as developing leadership skills and a sense of agency in their school. At both Byron and Senior House we have started ‘Pupil Forums’. Representatives from each year group meet every week to discuss and plan ways of improvement to the school. There is an online suggestion box and there have so far been a large number of suggestions, ranging from issues around sustainability (such as having recycling bins in the playground), to learning (such as having the opportunity to learn about politics).

The Senior House Pupil Forum has discussed: improvements to lunches which have been implemented, such as having salad ingredients separated out; uniform for girls, including having pockets in skirts and the option of wearing trousers, which is being in investigated; expanding the range of sports on offer, which will be reviewed next year; developing the Piazza so that it can be used for more varied activities at playtime, which is a longer term project the children have begun to discuss.

Sculpture by Evie Marchant-Lane and Lucy Davies

“I really enjoyed working in the covered sculpture area because it is nice to work outside. It is relaxing and quiet and you can focus really well.

It is also good if you’re painting outside as you can be inspired by the garden.”

Some of the ideas the children in the Byron House Pupil Forum have discussed include: having a swimming pool at Byron House, improving the Dining Room, improving the locks on the toilet doors and developing the library. The children also ran their own Assembly to introduce some new ideas to the whole of Byron House.

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Charities Money has been raised this year for a variety of good causes.

An amazing £3,964 has been raised by the ‘Grow Your Money’ project since the Easter holidays. The money raised will go to Humanitas charity to support the building of a school in Ghana.

The retiring collection at the Services in Preparation for Christmas raised £1,651 for CLIC Sargent and the Cambridge, Ely and Newmarket branches of charity Little Miracles and the 4th Form Victorian Fayre raised £343 for Children in Need.

The Byron House Harvest Collection raised £124 for Children in Need.

The Byron House Easter Fair raised £242 for Humanitas.

The Byron House Summer Fair raised £1,286, split equally between Humanitas and Bridges to Belarus.

Dress as a Book Character Day raised £203 for Humanitas.

Christmas Jumper Day raised £573 for Humanitas.

The 3rd Form Drama production of Cinderella raised £624 for Coppafeel.

Refugee Day raised £231 for CamCRAG. Byron House Summer Fair

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Senior Citizens’ Christmas Party

Pensioners’ Parties The Charities and Community Links Committee hosted its annual Christmas and Summer Garden parties for elderly people living in the Cambridge area.

Committee members from both Byron House and Senior House provided entertainment for their guests.

“All the guests were smiling.

They loved the music, the choirs sang and we got to serve them drinks and food. They told us some stories from when they were younger. I think they all went home happy and feeling a bit more Christmassy!”

‘Grow Your Money’ The ‘Grow Your Money’ initiative, now in its fifth year, is designed to encourage each child to discover and develop their entrepreneurial skills, by converting the £1 they are each given into more money for charity. This year £3,964 was raised for Humanitas through the initiative.

“

“We started to get more and more customers and by mid morning we had sold out. We were very pleased as we raised £149 for Humanitas.”

Selling wands for ‘Grow Your Money’ initiative

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Parents’ Association The Parents’ Association have had a fun and busy year with sell out events from Choral Evensong to Fireworks to the fabulous Charity Fun Day. This year parents have raised over £9,500 for Power 2 Inspire, Eddie’s, Guide Dogs for the Blind, the Cambridge Cancer Help Centre, and Macmillan.

This page, clockwise from top left: Macmillan Coffee Morning; Lent Term Pub Event; Fireworks Night; PA Family Evensong. Opposite page: Charity Fun Day

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Music Music in the school goes from strength to strength and, through its many curricular and extracurricular strands, remains at the heart of the daily life of our community. 70% of children in T2 upwards are learning at least one instrument in school, and a good number of the remaining pupils learn outside school. Nearly 50% of children in T2 upwards are involved in optional weekly choral activities and 40% of the same year groups are involved in optional weekly instrumental ensembles.

We have staged over 50 concerts this year, including various evening concerts, fund-raising performances and an informal lunchtime concert series which continues to thrive. Approximately 220 children from T2 to Form 6 took part in the annual Summer Concert at the West Road Concert Hall, an event which richly reflects the school’s commitment to achieving enjoyment, inclusivity and excellence in musical activity.

Many children have taken part in musical workshops with leading musicians, including an orchestral workshop with one of the conductors of the National Children’s Orchestra and a Form 4 beatboxing workshop with Faz Shah.

George Balfour and Blake Chen (both Form 6) were hugely privileged to take part in a piano masterclass with the internationally acclaimed Peter Donohoe CBE in January. A recording of George’s performance made on the day later achieved 27k views on the Classic FM Facebook site.

Before Christmas, a small group of pianists attended a private rehearsal at West Road given by the legendary Murray Perahia and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.

In the Lent Term, Blake Chen became an Associate of the Royal Schools of Music, having gained a distinction in his ARSM diploma exam. There can be very few, if any, prep or choir schools with diploma holders amongst their number and one who provides such inspiration and models such humility to many younger musicians in their school.

Our young organists were privileged to be invited to perform again in the organ recital series at St Lawrence Jewry in the City of London. George Balfour and Blake Chen, Adam Chillingworth (Form 5), Alan Chen and Jaylen Cheng (both Form 4) gave an outstanding concert in a series which is otherwise offered by the leading senior public and specialist music schools.

Eloise Parton (Form 6) won the Recorder Solo class (any recorder, any age) in the Cambridge Competitive Music Festival for the second year running and also won the Ely Recorder Cup. Ed Kirker (Form 5), Vera Edgington and Toby L’Estrange (both Form 4) are members of the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain. Harry L’Estrange (Form 2) is a member of the National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain. Hugh Chippington (Form 4) and Adekoya Okusaga (Form 2) are members of the Jesus College Chapel Choir and Flora Harrison (Form 2) and Eliza Robson Brown (Form 1) are members of the St Catharine’s College Girls’ Choir.

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Services in Preparation for Christmas Our festive Services in Preparation for Christmas, held over two days in the chapel of St John’s College, once again heralded the start of the season with a range of carols and readings all delivered by the children. As ever, the 12 choral carols and congregational hymns were interspersed with readings involving every child in Form 6. The carols offered a wide selection of music performed beautifully by a range of choirs including the Choristers of the College Choir, 3rd and 4th Form Choir, Chapel Choir, Junior Choir and Byron House Chamber Choir. Amongst the highlights were the world premiere of a new setting of I sing of a maiden by Ian Shaw, performed by the Choristers, and the final carol, John Gardner’s The Holly and the Ivy, sung with great energy by all 130 children in the various choirs.

Before and after the services, organ music was played by Senior House pupils: Alan Chen, Jaylen Cheng (both Form 4), Adam Chillingworth (Form 5), George Balfour and Blake Chen (Form 6) performed seasonal repertoire by J S Bach, Ireland, Peeters et al.

Diploma Success Form 6 Chorister, Blake Chen, gave a lunchtime recital at school in March, performing Beethoven’s F major Sonata, Op. 10, no. 2 and Ravel’s Sonatine; his performances were characterised by technical mastery and an emotional maturity beyond his years. Later in the same month, performing the Beethoven, Ravel and a Chopin miniature, Blake sat the ARSM diploma exam and was rewarded for his performances with a distinction. Blake also gave an organ recital in the highly prestigious pre-Sunday Evensong recital series in the St John’s College Chapel, performing works by J S Bach (In dir ist Freude, O Mensch bewein and the first movement of the Eb Trio Sonata), Lennox Berkeley (Impromptu) and Sir Edward Elgar (Vesper Voluntary no. IV and Imperial March).

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Compositions Non-classical musical activity and pupil composition continue to develop and to bring new faces of performers and audience alike into our performance venues. Early in the Summer Term, the majority of pupils in Form 5 took part in an informal lunchtime concert to perform the group compositions they had created and practised during the Lent Term. Form 4 also had fabulous musical improvisation and rhythmic composition workshops using Beat Boxing with Faz Shah.

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Music Examination Results ARSM Diploma Blake Chen

Piano

Distinction

Piano Piano

Distinction Merit

Blake Chen Auriel Pawsey

Violin Piano

Distinction Merit

Violin

Merit

Alexander Tomkinson

Piano

Merit

Descant & Treble Recorder Piano Clarinet Piano

Distinction Merit Merit Pass

Isabel Millhouse Jessica Coates

Piano Clarinet

Merit Pass

Cello Trombone Cello Piano Theory Piano Piano Theory Theory Violin Piano Theory Theory

Distinction Distinction Distinction Distinction Distinction Distinction Merit Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass

Matthew Brown Polly Casey Charlotte Doggett Michael Gildenhard Alexander Tomkinson Miles Benyan Lucy St Clair Holborn Matthew Brown Leela Kainth Anna MacHale Bibi Parker Joshua Robson Brown Philip Tomkinson

Violin Descant Recorder Piano Violin Clarinet Violin Theory Theory Theory Flute Piano Cello Piano

Distinction Distinction Distinction Distinction Distinction Merit Merit Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass Pass

Distinctions Merits Passes

1 11 8

Grade 8 George Balfour David Bryson Grade 7 Vera Edgington Grade 6 Eloise Parton Ollie Brown Alexander Tomkinson Freddie Spence Grade 5 Cordelia Bargh Ollie Brown Alan Chen Vera Edgington James Lewis Thomas Watkin Arthur Smith Miles Benyan Adam Chillingworth Tor Lovell Susanna Millhouse Eloise Parton Alexander Tomkinson

Grade 4 Merits 6 Grade 3

Passes 5

Grades 1 & 2 Distinctions 12

Merits 29

Passes 22

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‘Ultio Deorum’ Latin Play Winners Maths Challenges A group of eighteen Form 6 pupils won the annual ‘Ludi Scaenici’ Latin Drama Competition at The Perse Upper School with their play entitled, Ultio Deorum (The Revenge of the Gods). A number of schools took part, each entering their own specially-created play, written and performed in Latin. The pupils involved are all in the early stages of learning Latin and the plays have to be crafted from language and situations that they have encountered while studying Cambridge Latin Course Book 1.

The Primary Maths Challenge is a national competition designed for pupils in Forms 3 and 4; Sebastian Newitt and Sam Blakesley achieved places in the final round. The Junior Mathematics challenge is designed for pupils in Forms 5 and 6. The following pupils were awarded a Gold certificate: Max Hitchin (best in school), Alex Winn, Luke Moran, Alex Timans, Charlie Wombwell, Sam Simons, George Hull, Blake Chen and Ben Shapiro.

Vocab Express Global Challenge Religious Studies Competition Pupils in Form 3 to 6 took part in the Vocab Express Global Challenge. St John’s came 4th in French in its class, competing against other schools with 151-500 pupils, which is the highest St John’s record ever achieved since the School began participating 5 years ago.

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Lara Grant (Form 6) won a prize in the Junior School section of the Independent Schools Religious Studies Association Competition with her essay on the topic “Why Religious Studies matters to me”, from 150 entries.

Shakespeare Schools Festival - ‘Twelfth Night’

A group of Form 6 pupils took part in the national Shakespeare Schools Festival for the fourth year running, performing Twelfth Night at Anglia Ruskin’s Mumford Theatre. Pupils involved have the opportunity to prepare and present their own approach to Shakespeare’s theatre as well as to watch and learn from productions offered by other schools. In the St John’s interpretation, the play was set in the roaring 1920s as a wild party including live music and Charleston dancing throughout. The addition of live music truly brought the party to life. A few members of cast stepped out of role to play the trumpet or the drums alongside Ms Harris on the piano. The players then seamlessly stepped back into role, a difficult skill to master. The musicians fully embodied the Duke’s line, ‘if music be the food of love, play on’.

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Drama In Drama we encourage the children to express themselves. Mistakes are seen as opportunities and improvisation is encouraged as part of the development of any play. The giving of a stunning performance, the mastery of oneself and the expression of oneself through a performance are all deeply memorable experiences that remain with children forever. The children learn the vital skills of collaboration and communication, resourcefulness, responsibility, rigour, resilience, risktaking. We utilise the collective imagination of the children and share and develop ideas, ending up with performances that are full of physical and visual energy and go far beyond words on a page.

Both pages: Form 5 - Ghost Writer and Ernie’s Incredible Illucinations

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Kindergarten - The Grumpy Sheep

Transition 1 - Babushka

Transition 2 - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Form 1 - Tuishi Pamoja

Form 2 - Amazing Africa

Form 3 - Cinderella

Form 4 - Three Greek Plays of Tragedy, Comedy and Temptation

Form 6 - Passion Play

Sports It has been another busy and successful year of sporting endeavour and attainment. The older children were involved in a wide range of tournaments and festivals in all major team sports. There have been some brilliant performances both collectively and individually this year. Junior (Forms 3 and 4) and Senior (Forms 5 and 6) House competitions in team sports are, as ever, a highlight of the year, full of competitiveness, talent and sportsmanship.

Main Team Sports

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Old Buckenham Hall Rugby Sevens Competition Finborough Under 12s Rugby Tournament Rugby 2nd Team Rugby Colts A & B Teams

1st VII Winners and Colts VII Plate Winners Plate Winners & Fair Play Winners Unbeaten season Unbeaten season

National Schools Rugby Tournament

Colts A Finalists

IAPS National Hockey Finals

Under 13A Girls hockey had an unbeaten season and reached the semi-final at the IAPS National Hockey Finals. This placed them in the top 6 schools in the country

Colts 3rd in IAPS Tournament and reached the National Finals

Eastern Region Hockey Tournament

Colts 2nd in County Tournament and 2nd in the Eastern Region Tournament

Old Buckenham Hall Hockey Festival

Under 13A Girls hockey won the Festival and Kate Ewbank won Player of the Tournament

IAPS Netball (Uppingham)

Under 13 Girls reached the Quarter-Finals of the regional qualifications

Colours and Individual Achievements Senior Rugby Colours Alex Winn, Tenison Prempeh, George Hull, Harry Boston, Tom McFarlane and Arthur Denison-Smith Colts Rugby Colours Alfie Cockburn, Ollie Brown, Seb Newitt, Edward MacLean and Hugh Aubrey Senior Girls’ Hockey Colours Anna MacHale, Eloise Parton, Laura Galbraith, Charlie Wombwell, Emily Collard, Kate Ewbank, Isabel Macintosh, Evie Marchant-Lane and Sienna Cutts. Charlie Wombwell, Anna MacHale, Emily Collard, Kate Ewbank, Isabel Macintosh, Sienna Cutts and Eloise Parton all attended the Junior Academy Centre for hockey.

Junior Girls’ Hockey Colours Nella Porritt and Audrey Galbraith Senior Boys’ Hockey Colours Harry Boston, Richard Bramley, Arthur Denison-Smith, Tom McFarlane, Tenison Prempeh, George Hull (re-awarded), Alex Winn (re-awarded). Alex Winn, Tom McFarlane, Harry Boston, Richard Bramley, Josh Fieth and George Hull all attended the Junior Academy Centre for hockey.

Colts Boys’ Hockey Colours Hugh Aubrey, Seb Newitt and Ollie Brown

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Senior Netball Colours Emily Collard, Laura Galbraith, Charlie Wombwell, Kate Ewbank, Anna MacHale, Isabel Macintosh and Eloise Parton.

Emily Collard and Laura Galbraith have played netball in the U13 Satellite Netball Academy for the County.

Junior Netball Colours Nella Porritt, Audrey Galbraith, Elizabeth Simpson and Vera Edgington Senior Cricket Colours (Boys) Richard Bramley, Harry Boston, George Hull and Alex Winn. They have also all played cricket for the County.

Colts Cricket Colours (Boys) Hugh Aubrey, Edward MacLean, Ollie Brown and Alfie Cockburn Senior Cricket Colours (Girls) Emily Collard, Kate Ewbank, Anna MacHale and Charlie Wombwell. Anna MacHale and Kate Ewbank have played in the County Girls U13 Cricket.

Junior Cricket Colours (Girls) Nella Porritt, Audrey Galbraith, Innes Lapraik, Abby Orchard, Elizabeth Simpson and Lucy Pettifer

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Swimming Children in Forms 3 to 5 had great success at the IAPS Swimming Regional round and in the National Final IAPS Swimming National Final

Swim England Summer National Championships

Henry Duncan – 6th 50m Backstroke Polly Fish – National Champion 25m Butterfly Isabel Macintosh 12th – 50m Backstroke Eloise Parton – 6th 50m Freestyle Final 3rd, 4 X 25m Medley relay (Eloise Parton, Ellie Beaton, Isabel Macintosh & Polly Fish) 5th, 4 X 25m Freestyle relay (Eloise Parton, Ellie Beaton, Isabel Macintosh & Polly Fish) Polly Fish qualified in the 100m Breaststroke

Swimming Colours

Polly Fish, Eloise Parton, Isabel Macintosh, Ellie Beaton and Henry Duncan

Athletics Stowe Athletics Competition

U11 Girls 3rd & U11 Boys 2nd, U12 Girls 2nd, U13 Girls 3rd & U14 Girls 2nd and overall the Girls came 3rd

National Prep Schools Championships The following have qualified for the Finals: Nella Porritt 200m,

Emily Collard 300m, Hugh Aubrey javelin and Abby Orchard shot Senior Athletics Colours

Isabel Macintosh, Laura Galbraith, Kate Ewbank, Harry Boston, Tom McFarlane, Anna MacHale, Charlie Wombwell, Emily Collard, Arthur Denison-Smith, Tenison Prempeh, Miles Benyan, Luca Vendruscolo and Honor Gordon

Junior Athletics Colours

Hugh Aubrey, Alfie Cockburn, Seb Newitt, Ollie Brown, Charlie Butler, Nella Porritt, Elizabeth Simpson, Vera Edgington and Abby Orchard 51

Squash and Eton Fives On a Wednesday afternoon there is the option for 5th and 6th Form pupils to opt for a different sport for the afternoon.

Children have the opportunity to use the new facilities at Cambridge University Sports Centre to learn to play Squash, Rugby and Eton Fives, or to take to the water and learn to row.

Leavers’ Destinations & Awards

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Sailing

Gymnastics

Electra Reeves (Form 4) won the Cam Shield and came second in two other race series as a member of Cam Sailing Club. Electra won the best Optimist of the year prize, the Munro Quaich Cup, in November 2016 and sailed the Cambridgeshire Youth League as part of her sailing last year. At the start of this sailing season she won first place in the Regatta Fleet Optimist Easter Egg Weekend 2017 at Grafham Water.

Ted Traynor (Form 5) won three silvers and a bronze in a Peterborough and Cambridge Gym competition in May. He competed on four apparatus and won medals for all: silver for Parallel Bars, High Bar and Floor and bronze for Vault.

Leavers’ Destinations & Awards 58 boys and girls are leaving for Senior Schools. They are proceeding as follows: 13 to The Perse Upper; 9 to The Leys; 8 each to King’s Ely and Stephen Perse Foundation; 6 to Oundle; 3 to St Mary’s Cambridge; 2 to Uppingham; 1 each to Bedford, Eton College, Cambridge Rindge and Latin School (USA); Haileybury, King’s Canterbury, Millfield, Rugby, Sancton Wood and St Christopher 30 awards were achieved as follows: George Balfour Music Scholarship Bedford Miles Benyan Art and Drama Scholarships The Leys Harry Boston Sport Scholarship Oundle Richard Bramley Sport Scholarship The Leys William Buckingham STEM Scholarship King’s Ely Blake Chen Music Scholarship Eton College Iona Cockburn Art Scholarship Rugby Emily Collard Sport Scholarship Oundle Arthur Denison-Smith General Scholarship Oundle Laura Galbraith Drama and Academic Scholarships King’s Canterbury Lara Grant Art Scholarship Stephen Perse Foundation Andrew Knight Drama Scholarship The Leys Zoë Leighton Mary Ward Community Award St Mary’s Isabel Macintosh Drama Scholarship Oundle Oliver Macdonald Free Lamda Award The Leys Zara Mann Governor Scholarship Stephen Perse Foundation Tom McFarlane Drama Scholarship The Leys

Academic Scholarship Perse Upper Eloise Parton Art, Music, Sport (hockey and swimming), Millfield

Dance, All Rounder Scholarships Louise Porritt Art Scholarship St Mary’s Alexander Tomkinson Music Exhibition Eton College Isabella Twigg Art Scholarship The Leys Luca Vendruscolo Academic Scholarship St Christopher Charlie Wombwell Academic Scholarship Perse Upper

Where a child has gained an award in the same discipline for more than one school, only the award for the destination school is recorded.

© St John’s College School 2017