Headmaster’s Newsletter
Week ending 29 June 2018 Dear Parents, So England are through to the knockout stages, and even as a Scotsman I am slightly excited by this. The loss yesterday means that they are in the better half of the draw, but it also means the next game is on at the same time as our 4th Year Parents’ Evening on Tuesday. Although your son or daughter – and perhaps you too - may be very disappointed about this, we do want to press on with the evening as it’s an important moment to review the year with you. We will encourage everyone to avoid referencing the score for those who want to watch it ‘live’ later on, and we look forward to seeing all 4th Year students and parents. This weekend marks the conclusion of this year’s Trinity Arts Festival. From karaoke at lunchtime yesterday, to a fantastic exhibition of our GCSE and A Level Art, with our Summer Concert, Just a Minute, the Film Festival and competition, a gig at Ronnie Scott’s, our Buskers’ Lunch and an outdoor production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in between (plus many more), we’ve had a great week celebrating the arts and seen many of our multi-talented students and staff take part. Thank you to everyone who has been involved and made this year’s festival such a success. Please see below for the results of this year’s Open Art Awards. First Year Economics Day Earlier this week our First Year students spent the day inventing and innovating educational products to assist school students, of any school age, that cost no more than £10. The boys researched various factors that would help determine the product’s success and presented their research to a board of investors. The teams were judged on their product idea, accuracy of research and presentation skills. The winning teams were: Joint 4th: 1B & 1D, 6th 1V & 7th 1P. 1st: 1J MagnaTidy Temi Asanbe Felix Gomulka Julian Holland Christian Pauling
2nd: 1C Gehitu Sam Adebajo Harry Ogden Lewis Tagg Ollie Veraas Brown
3rd: 1H Zip Drip Nathan Woodall Thomas Parry-Williams James Baxter
STEM Day This week's 2nd Year STEM day saw the whole year group off timetable for a series of sessions that explored the 'S', 'T' 'E' and 'M' of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths). In Biology students gleefully extracted their own DNA and preserved a sample for posterity, while in the Physics department a large Dewar of liquid nitrogen allowed them to explore the strange world of cryogenics and the joy of high-speed ice-cream. The Chemistry activity, meanwhile, was deliberately topical; against the background of concern relating to the environmental impact of plastic waste, the boys worked through the experimental steps that allowed them to make biodegradable plastics from starch. The afternoon's design-and-build challenge rounded off the day with teams trying to make a working reading lamp of significant height and reach from a limited range of basic materials. Tables quickly sprouted strange cardboard growths that were coaxed, taped and counter-balanced into successful structures – or teetered and folded in ignominious collapse. Torch bulbs connected by a tangle of wires augmented by aluminium foil strips shone upwards, downwards, outwards – or sometimes not at all. Well done to Form 2M who won the competition overall, and to their sub-team 2M2 who had the highest individual team total. 2R came second and 2E third, while 2D1 and 2V1 came second and third in the individual sub-team competition. Well done to all the teams for working so well together.