Arnold House Annual Review 2017

ANNUALREVIEW 2017 Academic Success

O

f the 237 Common Entrance and Scholarship exam scripts sent to senior schools to be marked for English, Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, French, Latin, History, Geography and Religious Studies, 91% were graded A* to B and 59% A* or A. This is a phenomenal achievement from all boys and staff. They have certainly done themselves proud whilst upholding the School’s strong academic traditions along the way.

Particular congratulations must go to a little over a third of the boys who had the honour of being entered for scholarships. For sport, William Shingles (Rugby), and on the academic side, Kaan Akyol (St Paul’s), Misha Alexandroff-Wilson (Westminster), Ben Bonas (St Paul’s), Monty Brown (St Paul’s), Akshay Khemaney (Eton), Alexander Koubaa (Westminster) and Saxon Stacey (Eton); all of whom acquitted themselves extremely well.

Three boys performed strongly enough to receive an award: Niki Ponticos (Mill Hill) and Joseph Wragg (Harrow) won music scholarships and for academic excellence, Mac Galatis won a ‘Paulatim Award’ to UCS. Several boys were also rewarded with prizes for outstanding

Year 8 Leavers 2017 ANNUAL REVIEW | AUGUST 2017

performance at Common Entrance: Johnny Elliott and Jack Jacobs came 1st and 2nd respectively out of the CE candidates to Radley and Johnny also received a prize for Religious Studies.

Harrow recognised Dimitri Samonas for Geography and Joseph Wragg for History, whilst William Shingles impressed the staff at Rugby by winning the Geography prize.

Whilst it is lovely to see that all the Year 8 boys’ hard work has paid-off, it should not be forgotten that they have contributed enormously to the wider life of the School throughout the year and taken these final exams largely in their stride. They end their prep school days in good heart and can look forward with confidence to

Year 8 Scholars 2017

five very rewarding and happy years at their chosen senior schools. Many congratulations to all of Year 8 and we wish you the very best of luck for the future!

Senior school destinations

Number of boys transferring

City of London

1

Eton

2

Harrow

2

Mill Hill

2

Radley

2

Rugby

1

St Paul’s

6

Tonbridge

1

UCS

5

Westminster

3

Curriculum Development and New Educational Opportunities As always, the new school magazine will paint a vivid picture of the exploits of the boys during an extremely busy and rewarding year. On top of this, staff spend a great deal of time behind the scenes reviewing their programmes to ensure that the boys’ experiences are fresh, relevant and well-designed to help them learn and progress.

The examples below give a flavour of that unseen but important work, that ensures we keep in touch with best practice and continue to set our sights high across the board.

French: The boys have been given exposure to authentic cultural resources from film and children’s literature, such as ‘Le Petit Nicolas’ in Year 4; the aim being to aid topic based language progression and maintain an equal balance between vocabulary and grammar.

Science: British Science week was celebrated with team challenges across Years 5 to 8 including the design and construction of a pulley system to transport tomatoes down a hill, as well as a parachute for the safe landing of an egg.

Reading: A review looked into how and when we assess the boys’ progress with their reading, as well as our use of phonics in the Pre-Prep. In the future, more information and guidance will be given to parents about our approach to reading at Weekly reading lesson in the Library Arnold House and what can be done to support the boys’ reading at home.

We now have a team of four Reading Volunteers (one for each Form in the Pre-Prep) who, in addition to the time spent on reading by the teachers and teaching assistants, will each read with individual boys twice a week. We also hope everyone will enjoy the refurbished facilities in the Pre-Prep hall to make the most of these changes.

The library ran its most successful competition ever with eighty four boys submitting entries for the Invent Your Own Magical Professor competition to celebrate twenty years of Harry Potter.

The ‘Invent your own magical professor’ competition winner

Science week e Year 5 Egg Parachute Challeng

Science week Year 6 Tomato Pulley Cha

llenge

ANNUAL REVIEW | AUGUST 2017

English: Much work has been done to review the teaching of Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG) throughout the School and the selection of new resources to help the boys practice and consolidate their learning.

Art and Design: A bank of high specification laptops have made a significant difference to the Art and Design department and in particular our ability to run Photoshop, the basics of which have been introduced to Year 4 for the first time. The laptops have become an important Art and Design tool where the more senior boys can work seamlessly from pen and paper to digital pixels, and can more easily be given extension work or undertake their own independent research. A great addition to the Artist in Residence Tom Berry working with Year 3

department has been our artist in residence, Tom Berry. He has brought a great deal to the department in terms of his experience as a practising artist, sharing all stages of his various projects with the boys and introducing us to new ways of utilising Photoshop and screen printing in repeat and two layers.

Religious Studies: A new course has been written for Arnold House boys, entitled “The World of Religion”. It focuses on saints and symbols, heroes of faith, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Eastern Religions will be added in from Summer 2018. In total across Years 5 to 8, a completely new set of notes has been produced of 110 handouts, equating to 250,000 words or 500 printed pages (quite an undertaking!) The notes are available on the Intranet as PDFs and are accompanied by audio video resources to add to the boys’ interest and understanding.

Drama / English: Cross-curricula work has been a feature this year, where the study of ‘Millions’ (Year 5), ‘Goodnight Mister Tom’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet’ (Year 6) in English lessons was designed to support and enhance the boys’ own performances in their drama productions on the stage.

Learning Support: The department has been boosted by the appointment of a second member of staff for one day a week, to work alongside Mrs Elena Gregoriou-Ostojic in organising the smooth running of the department.

With the increase in teaching assistants and three group teaching in English and Maths in recent years, we are now in an excellent position to give extra attention and confidence-building support to boys throughout the ability range, as and when it is needed.

Music: The Years 7&8 Music Technology curriculum continues to develop, and the boys have access to GarageBand, Logic Pro and Sibelius. By the time boys reach Year 8, they have an extremely competent working knowledge of GarageBand and a developing knowledge of Sibelius and Logic Pro. Introducing the boys to these more advanced programmes before they use them at their senior schools allows them to get something of a head start and gives them confidence in their composition and music technology skills.

Music technology

ance of Year 6 perform r Tom Goodnight M

Year 5 Performance of

Millions

Setting: Setting in English and Maths into three groups per year begins formally in Year 4 and continues through to Year 8. Year 8 Forms have also had both French specialist teachers timetabled to teach at the same time, allowing for a single French class to be split into two sets. With the appointment in September of two Science specialists we have been able to replicate this model in Science as well; although the boys generally do practicals in the Science Lab as a whole class.

The boys are introduced to Latin in Year 5. In the past it has been set in a similar way to French and Science in Years 7&8. As of last September, Year 6 boys have also enjoyed the benefit of setting in the subject and thereby able to learn at a pace which suits them best.

Activities: The activities programme continues to thrive and the range of shared endeavours the boys and staff can engage in outside the formal timetable is seemingly endless. Sixty clubs and activities were listed in the summer term calendar on top of our extensive sport and music programmes. Some new activities this year included: Knitting, Theatre Studies, Roman Model Building, Oriental Studies, Taekwon-do, Circuit Training, Young Explorers, Philosophy, Pokémon and Yoga.

Activities - Roman Model Building Club

Activities - Taekwon-do

ANNUAL REVIEW | AUGUST 2017

Development The Bursary Fund The School provided five bursary places this year funded through a combination of the School’s fee income and donations from current and former parents, old boys and friends of the School. In total, the School raised £80,000 for the Bursary Fund this academic year following the success of the inaugural Bursary Challenge Week and a number of generous donations from our current parent body and old boys.

A number of boys have been through the application process for a bursary place in Years 5 to 7. The application process is rigorous and demanding for both the boys and their families who go through a number of stages which include assessments and taster days. Four of the boys who are currently in the School on bursaries will continue with us next year and will be joined by a further three boys on full bursaries in Years 5 and 7 taking our total up to seven.

The Annual Fund The Annual Fund 2016 was a great success with every project being funded and now in place. Items included a Pollination and Fertilisation Model and eight Light reflection/refraction Power Units for the Science Lab, ten midi keyboards, thirty Chapel Choir music folders and an electric drum kit for the music department, a Phonics Set and a selection of educational games for Learning Support, six new football goals for the playground and an Artist-in-Residence for the Art and Design Department.

Raising Money for Charity Over the year the boys, staff and parents raised £8,832 for a variety of local, national and international worthy causes, including Plan International, the St John’s Hospice, the Royal British Legion, Marie Curie and towards the end of the year, the Grenfell Tower appeal.

Everyone was able to take part in a number of charity activities including a Book Characters’ Day, Funky Headgear Day and Pyjama Day as well as the Young Entrepreneurs’ Afternoon and a number of second hand uniform sales from which all proceeds were donated to charity.

New light boxes for

the Science Lab

Young Entrepreneurs raising money for Plan

Arnold House School 1 Loudoun Road St.John’s Wood, London NW8 0LH Telephone: 020 7266 4840 Email: office@arnoldhouse.co.uk Website: www.arnoldhouse.co.uk Arnold House School Ltd (Limited by Guarantee). Registered in London Number 889424. Educational Charitable Trust Number 312725

ANNUAL REVIEW | AUGUST 2017