Head's Newsletter 12 October 2018

The sporting season continues to go very well with the U13 Rugby team being the star team. A write-up of their matches so far is in the newsletter along with an account of the 1st XV successes so far. The Rugby teams appreciate parental support and you can also get involved in the Parents Rugby Association, TIPRA, whose contact details are in this newsletter. Cross country is also doing very well, and there is a first report this year on the success of our very good badminton teams. We are looking forward to the choir singing on Saturday evening at the Royal Festival Hall with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Next week we are also looking forward to the Year 7 inter-form singing competition on Thursday at All Saints Kingston; I do hope that all Year 7 parents will come along to this special event, where all the boys in Year 7 are engaged in singing. We are also very much looking forward to the Sixth Form play which I would urge parents to come to. In line with our changed term dates this year, having returned early for the Autumn Term, we are breaking up next Friday for the new two week Autumn half term holiday. Important dates are listed below, but I would remind parents that the calendar of events is available for parents to see on Insight. Yours, M D Gascoigne Headteacher

Dear Parents I do hope Year 11 students and their parents appreciated the opportunity last Thursday afternoon to listen to the talk on Sixth Form and attend talks on individual A Level courses as part of their transition and choices programme, as they consider life after GCSEs. Following on from this event, was our Open Evening for students from outside Tiffin who are considering joining our Sixth Form. Obviously, for the first time this was open to girls as well as boys as the Sixth Form goes mixed in September 2019. This was therefore a very exciting and important evening for the School, and I'm delighted that we had very large numbers interested in joining the Sixth Form, including large numbers of girls. We look forward to receiving their applications which can be made online through the Sixth Form Admissions page of the Tiffin School website. There have been many trips recently which you can read about in this newsletter. In particular, the Year 8s had an excellent trip away at Pompeii, and Year 10s have been involved in Geography trips, Art trips, and the Duke of Edinburgh expeditions. Currently the Sixth Form Geographers are away this week on their field trip to Devon, and Art pupils are looking forward to the Art trip to Venice at the end of next week. There is also a report here of the Sixth Formers involvement in the advertising industry as part of their careers programme.

IMPORTANT DATES

Thursday 18 October

Y7 Inter-form Choir Competition 7 pm All Saints’ Church

22 October—2 November

Half –term (return 5 November at 8.30 am)

Monday 19 November Sunday 25 November

Y13 Parents’ Consultation; school finishes at 2.40 pm

Oratorio Concert. 7 pm in the Sports Hall.

Friday 7 December

Professional Development Day; no boys in school

their cameras. We visited the Temperate House, just reopened after a five-year renovation. It is the largest Victorian glasshouse in the world. new bridge

In late September, the Year 10 GCSE Art students visited Kew Gardens to explore photography of natural forms. There were 67 art students on the trip, which was a brilliantly large GCSE Art group, enabling the students to inspire one another.

In the Art lessons leading up to the visit, the students had learnt about various photographic techniques: rule of thirds, depth of field and impressionist style photography. Further categories included structure, form, colour and texture. It was a delight to see the students so engaged in the botanical garden, using

After lunch, the students sat in corners of the Princess Diana glasshouse and sketched natural forms up close; exploring marking techniques. The students linked their photographs taken to the work of a chosen photographer after the trip, creating photos in a similar style to the photographer.

THE HIVE

Zameer Shahpurwala’s photos exploring form in natural forms. “10 of my best forms, they are taken from an angle/viewpoint that allows a good amount of sunlight to shine on the forms, resulting in a picture with vibrant colours accompanied by captivating, delicate forms of intricate details sharply captured.” (Zameer Shahpurwala}

Artist—Carol Sharp

Raul Sheth’s photos in the style of Carol Sharp

“These photos all have a shallow depth of field, directly inspired by Carol Sharp. These photos are centred in the frame and the flowers all represent soft textures, giving a very calm feeling.” (Raul Sheth)

Goodchild without whose time and hard work these trips would not be possible. Mrs O’Connell

POMPEII TRIP 47 boys participated in the annual Year 8 Classics Trip to the Bay of Naples at the end of September. Over the course of the 3 days, the boys visited all the major classical sites in the area, including Pompeii and Herculaneum as well as the lesser known gems of the amphitheatre at Pozzuoli and Nero’s wife’s holiday villa at Oplontis. The weather was very kind to us and the view from the crater of Mount Vesuvius after the hike to the top was spectacular in the glorious sunshine and Mediterranean heat. In addition to sightseeing, the boys sampled lots of delicious local cuisine and even made their own pizzas after a demonstration from a real pizzaiolo. Plenty of gelato was consumed as well! The boys were uncomplaining about the relentless schedule and really appreciated all we did and saw. My thanks go to them for their enthusiasm, endurance and humour as well as to my colleagues Mrs Attenborough, Mr Marley, Mr Bala and Mr

stumped but Mrs Wilberforce becomes wise to their ruse and Marcus concludes that there is only one way to keep the old lady quiet. With only her parrot, General Gordon, to help her, Mrs Wilberforce is alone with five desperate men. But who will be forced to face the music? The production starts at 7.00 pm in the drama studio and costs £8.00 for adults and £5.00 for concessions. Tickets are available through the following ticket source link.

GEOGRAPHY FIELD TRIP On Thursday 27 th and Friday 28 th September, the Geography department took Year 10 students to Christchurch Bay in Dorset. On both days, the sun was shining brightly, setting us up for an excellent couple of days at the coast. The trip is an integral part of the GCSE course, highlighting the importance of holistic coastal management, as well as preparing the boys for Paper 3: Geographical Applications. The boys’ enthusiasm and willingness to participate in all aspects of the day was heartwarming and made for an extremely successful trip.

BADMINTON

SIXTH FORM DRAMA PRODUCTION

The Tiffin Drama department are putting on their annual Sixth Form production from 15 th - 18 th October. This year’s production is The Ladykillers , a classic black comedy. A sweet little old lady, alone in her house, is pitted against a gang of criminal misfits who will stop at nothing. Posing as amateur musicians, Professor Marcus and his gang rent rooms in the lopsided house of sweet but strict Mrs Wilberforce. The villains plot to involve her, unwittingly, in Marcus' brilliantly conceived heist job. The police are left

The Under 19 Badminton XII made a brilliant start to the season beating Christ’s Hospital by an overall score line of 14 games to 4 as both A and B teams won comfortably. On the afternoon of Wednesday 10 October they take on Royal Grammar School in the sports hall.

U13 RUGBY The season has started well for the U13s and included comfortable wins over Reigate, Wallington, Emanuel, Christ’s Hospital and Gunnersbury. There was also a good win against a decent Halliford side. In the absence of a handful of players, who were away on a Classics trip to Pompeii, opportunity fell to some of the leading B team players. They rose to the challenge and looked anything but out of their depth in the 45 – 30 victory. In all these matches, Tiffin have played with good continuity and an impressive ability to move the ball wide quickly. What has been the most pleasing to see is the number of tries scored on the wing, following excellent ball handling from both backs and forwards. In particular, Ben Coats has been the primary beneficiary, scoring 16 tries in our 7 matches to date.

Noah Huntley on the charge

line was put under serious strain. David Grem, Max Symons and Aaron Houlder stood up to the test and put in numerous, brave tackles to keep their big runners out. Trailing by 2 scores, with only 15 minutes to play, Godwin Afreh had a tremendous impact on the match. A couple of huge tackles and strong runs led to important turnover ball and good line -breaks that, in turn, led to us scoring 4 tries in quick succession. Man-of- the match Godwin scored two of the tries himself including what turned to be the match winner. This successful run is the product of hard work on the training field and great cohesion in the team. Captain Kai Smith is doing a grand job leading the side and is being well-supported by all.

Leading try scorer Ben Coates in full flow

Our toughest test was against Grey Court School, where our defensive

Special mention must go to year 11 pupils Matt Cormack and Josh Clough who have both represented the 1 st XV this season; an impressive and rarely achieved accomplishment at a young age.

1 st XV Players Toby and Awsaf

David Grem breaking through a Halliford tackle

Captain and playmaker Kai Smith with Felix Turner in support against Gunnersbury

SENIOR RUGBY Senior rugby has had some positive results since a tough start to the season. Sam Gunman and Huw Morris have led the squad with impressive maturity aided by both year 12 and 13 stalwarts, notably Jai Long and Charlie Dore. The 1 st XV ran out 45 – 0 winners against Gunnersbury last weekend. Most pleasing about this was keeping Gunnersbury to a nil score. With a senior squad of low numbers this year it was always going to be a struggle to keep a consistent 2 nd XV but the boys have stepped up admirably, ably helped by some promising Year 11s and have a great record of two victories from three games.

Are you a year 7 Parent who would be interested in being year group rep for TIPRA (Tiffin Parents Rugby Association)? If you can help, please email ablackburn@tiffin.kingston.sch.uk Are you a TIPRA supporter yet: Tiffin parents supporting Tiffin school rugby? To find out who your TIPRA parent representative is please email ablackburn@tiffin.kingston.sch.uk Follow us on Twitter @tiffinrugby for updates on school rugby!

Samarth, Ben and Haotian won three out of the six prizes on offer in the investment session quiz (did you know that early Google was called BackRub?) and everyone contributed to a hands-on ‘stretch’ activity, coming up with no-holds-barred ideas for promoting the latest film in the ‘How to Train your Dragon’ series. With plenty of opportunities to ask questions of the new graduates, apprentices, the Chief Transformation Officer and the CEO, we all learned a lot about how advertising works and the pathways into it. On the way back to school, some of us had ruled media out and others were wanting to get some work experience and use the contacts at MediaCom to find out more. Either way, it was helpful to have gone behind the scenes in an industry that is usually hard to access. Hopefully Tiffin will take part again next year. LSE Undergraduate

WORKING IN ADVERTISING At the end of September, Tiffin School took part in AdUnlocked – a national initiative that gives sixth formers the chance to go behind the scenes at an advertising agency. Along with other schools and education groups, we were partnered with the London agency of global brand MediaCom – a giant in the industry and the biggest media agency in the UK – and fifteen Year 12 and 13 students put themselves forward to go along.

To kick off, we heard from ten different departments in the business, from the financial controller and business science team to the digital director of the entertainment division and the planning department, as well as learning how all the departments work together on campaigns. Between them, these staff members got the message across about the variety of roles in a media communications agency of that size and made it clear that everyone is welcome - highlighting how much they value the diversity of their workforce and the rich environment created by employees simply being themselves. Of course, for all of us, there were some jobs that sounded more interesting than others!

Political Review

2018 marked the inauguration of the LSE Undergraduate Political Review’s essay competition for Sixth Form Students. The competition drew worldwide submissions and Year 13 Tiffinian, Harjyot Anand’s essay, “What are the effects of China on the present world order” was highly commended by the judges. In his essay Harjyot considered the political economy of China’s recent growth and the implications of its growing global influence.

with sunny days and excellent conditions for walking. The students were responsible for walking their planned routes, carrying all their equipment and food, cooking for themselves and setting up and packing up camp. All teams were very successful and there were only a few reports of burnt pasta and teams walking a couple of kilometres out of their way. Most importantly the students learned how to live without their phones for a few days! They are all now working towards completing the rest of the award.

CROSS COUNTRY

The School won the first round of the English schools cup for the first time. The Intermediate team beat all schools on the Surbiton High School three-lap course with a powerful display of team running from Tom Armstrong, Will Murphy, Euan Sinclair, Joe Murphy, Matthew O’Donovan and Alistair Brendon. Connor Foley and Oscar Luck were placed in the top ten for the Junior team . A game performance by super-sub Arun Hunter pushed the other runners, Ben Coats, Max Symons and Elliot Rutt to a fine team display. Coming fourth was a great result for this emerging team and though they just missed out on the regional Final all could be rightly proud of such a great team effort. We look forward to seeing the Intermediate team at the regional final on Saturday 10 th November. It is taking place at Vizards Sports Ground, Tonbridge. From 28th September to 3rd October two Year 10 groups went on their Duke of Edinburgh Bronze practice expedition. The 145 students had a fantastic time getting to grips with maps, working as a team and camping in the outdoors. Although the nights were a bit cold, they were blessed DUKE OF EDINBURGH BRONZE PRACTICE EXPEDITION

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