School News

EXAM results Perse Upper Sixth students achieved exceptional A level and Pre U results this year, despite the disruption of the pandemic. 84% of grades achieved were A*/A (or Pre U equivalent), a truly impressive set of results.

Head Ed Elliott commented that “the students and their teachers have shown great resilience and determination to keep learning, teaching and succeeding in difficult circumstances.” Congratulations to our most recent OPs, 48 of which achieved offers from Oxbridge.

Our Year 11 pupils put in a similarly impressive performance, with 93% of results being 9–7 (the equivalent of A*/A on the old system). 14 pupils achieved a grade 9 in all of their subjects and 54 achieved an 8 or a 9 in every exam. SCULPTING SUCCESS for Perse student War Child, a ceramic work by Nicholas Malasiotis (Upper Sixth) was selected from over 21,000 submissions to be included in the Royal Academy of Arts’ Young Artists’ Summer Show. His touching piece was inspired by photographs of children whose lives had been torn apart by war.

War Child depicts a boy that stares directly at the viewer with a blank expression, poignantly expressing the feelings of emptiness and hope that children feel in such dire situations. Nicholas counts Magdalene Odundo and Henry Moore among his inspirations for the piece.

ATLAS Programme

Four bright young Perseans were chosen for a brand-new programme which brought together the cleverest minds of the younger generation to work on solutions to global issues. Emma Harris, Eduard Baroyan, Daniel Chen (all Upper Sixth) and Natalie Ronco (Lower Sixth) were given the chance to attend a 10-day Atlas Fellowship course in Silicon Valley, after a rigorous recruitment process. This included a written application filled with scientific and philosophical questions, followed by an online interview where students were asked to expand on their answers given in the written exam and tackle brand new, on-the-spot questions.

PERSE SECURES PERMISSION for new swimming pool The Perse has been granted planning permission for a new swimming pool, sports hall, and climbing wall. These will benefit Perse pupils and the local community. The new facilities are set to feature a six-lane, 25-metre pool, and will hopefully open in 2024. It is hoped the facility will secure a BREEAM “excellent” accreditation for energy efficiency. 2022 ROUSE AWARD winners Three students have won the Rouse Award school competition carried out in Lower Sixth for their independent research. Evelyn Marshall conducted a project examining how Charles V of France used visual culture to construct royal authority in Medieval Paris, Sophie Chiang carried out research on machine learning for table tennis match prediction, and Jemima Fung asked how biomimicry can be used in architecture to improve sustainability. The competition was judged by a panel of renowned academics, including OPs Dr Matthew Kenzie (2005) and Dr Alex Loktionov (2011).

PERSE RUNNER ranked top in the country Isaac Rothwell (Upper Sixth) was ranked first nationally in his year group for the men’s 1,500m after achieving a personal best of 3min 47.85sec. Isaac was happy with this result and said it has given him confidence going into 2023, but he hopes to keep improving. Isaac also ranked eighth overall in the U20 category for the men’s 1,500m.