Head's Newsletter 10 May 2019

Dear Parents With the late Easter, this half term is very short indeed. It is though, an extremely important half term for many of our students. All year groups take internal exams, but for Years 11 and 13, the public exams are about to begin. We said goodbye to Year 11 as they went on study leave last Friday, and we have this week said goodbye to Year 13 as they go on study leave for their A-level exams. Many of the Year 13 have been with us for 7 years, whilst others joined new in the Sixth Form, but we hope they all leave with a sense of fondness and affection for their time at Tiffin, as well as an excellent set of grades! We do wish all those students taking public exams best wishes for this time, and hope both their revision programmes and their actual exams go very well. Year 12 will be leaving us for their study leave next week, and although for the most part they are not taking public exams, the exams are an important staging post and indicator as they prepare for university and other applications later this year. After they return from their internal exams in June, much exciting work will be done as they look at and consider their futures. There have been a number of trips out recently, and in particular you can read in this newsletter about another superb Classics trip over Easter, this time to

Provence. Another notable trip was the day trip the Year 7 cricketers took to the Oval, where they met with Alec Stewart, former England cricket captain and Old Tiffinian, as well as Arun Harinath, current Surrey cricketer and another ex-pupil. We thank them both for giving up time to meet with our future cricket stars. It is certainly good to see the boys training so hard in the cricket nets and we are pleased that the new cricket season is now well underway. We hope that the weather continues to look favourably upon us! Also on the sports front you can read about cross country and boys participation in the mini marathon. It is also fantastic to see rowing competitions beginning again, and there is a report on the National Junior Sculling Head from March as well as the Kingston Small Boats Head. On the Performing Arts side, you can also see about the choir’s recent recording work on backing sound tracks for film and TV. Finally, I’m delighted that we managed to raise over £2000, at the School Council’s suggestion, for Muscular Dystrophy UK in memory of former Tiffin student Jonathan Holden, reminding us that education is far more than just what is learnt in the classroom. Yours, M D Gascoigne Headteacher

IMPORTANT DATES

Professional Development Day—no boys in school

Friday 24 May

Half term

27 May—31 May

First day back for Years 7-10

Monday 3 June

During the second week of the Easter holiday, 50 intrepid classicists embarked on a 4 day voyage of Provence, exploring the spectacular Roman architecture. Despite the 03:30 start, we delved straight into the action on the first day, visiting Vienne , near Lyon, where the pack of hungry boys (and teachers) devoured what tasted like the best lunch ever, before a tour of the Roman(esque) Cathedral (pictured below), ancient theatre and the stunning Temple of Augustus and Livia. We continued our journey by coach down the Rhone to Arles where we were based for the trip.

On our second day we visited the many sites in Arles, notably the splendid amphitheatre, but also the temple and the baths. Day 3 was probably the highlight of the trip, where we covered the show -stoppers, including the breath- taking Pont Du Gard (left), the best-preserved theatre in the world in Orange (complete with beautiful scaffolding and pictured right) and our return to Nimes, this time seeing its amphitheatre and stunning

Temple of Diana. The last day began with a slightly less leisurely 06:45 start, driving south towards the coast, stopping in Aix-en- Provence to visit the studio of Paul Cezanne (left and below) and to explore the affluent and picturesque town itself . Our final port of call was Marseille, where we acquainted ourselves with three millennia of French history in their colossal Musée histoire, before travelling to the airport with a heavy heart.

A big thanks must go to Mrs O’Connell and co. for organising and overseeing a great trip with great weather and for finding time in the packed schedule for us to sample delicious French cuisine in the local boulangeries! Alistair Brendon, 10CC

Vishal Mistry, a Year 13 A-Level Art student, who will be going on to study Architecture at Bath University, has been awarded first prize at The King- ston Artists Open Studios (KAOS) Art competition. He created a maquette of an auditori- um inspired by Frank Gehry and Santi- ago Calatrava (see below and right).

Vishal won £100 to spend on art materials and will have his work shown publicly at Kingston Artist Open Studios and it will be published in Kingston Artist Open Studios publicity materi- als/brochures and KAOS website page. Tristan Galvin-Sparks, a Year 11 Art GCSE stu- dent, received recognition and was highly com- mended on his architectural maquette inspired by Richard Rogers (see below).

Tiffin Art department, was also award- ed first prize last year, which makes the success even more notable. KAOS judging panel were exceptionally impressed this year with the volume of entries from Tiffin School and the ex- citing variety of artworks submitted and the range of materials used to create fabulous works of art. Well done Vishal and Tristan! Please visit this link to view the winning and the highly commended artworks.

BRITISH INFORMATICS OLYMPIAD On Wednesday 19 th December, 10 students took part in the British Informatics Olympiad, a 3 hour programming competition requiring students to produce code for 3 different problems of increasing difficulty. The competition is targeted at older students, but it was heartening to see so much enthusiasm with Years 8, 9, 10, 12 and 13 represented. The large quantity of fully working programs was incredibly encouraging, with some excellent scores achieved by many. Special congratulations should go to Ojas Gulati (Y8), who qualified for the National Final at Trinity College Cambridge, one of a select few. Ojas wrote about his experience there: " On Friday 29 March, I arrived at Trinity College, Cambridge. I had been invited as I was one of the top 15 students from the previous round, which was run across the country and included all students from sixth form and below. The final began with a series of preparation sessions, covering topics like Dynamic Programming and Graph Theory. The contest was an intense, 5-hour programming exam on Saturday, with awards given on Sunday. The event was really fun and I enjoyed the kind and highly talented (yet much older!) community that came there. I look forward to entering again next year. " Huge congratulations to Ojas. (sample question below!)

The last MUFTI day supported Muscular Dystrophy UK, in particular memory of former Tiffin student Jonathan Holden. Muscular Dystrophy UK helps those with over 60 muscle-wasting conditions and the relative rarity of such conditions means the charity's specialist services are crucial. Jonathan Holden, who suffered from Muscular Dystrophy, is remembered fondly by staff at Tiffin, particularly for his work in DT and his immense success, despite the challenges he faced. We raised the grand total of £2,077.42.

SCHOOL HEALTH SERVICES AT TIFFIN

Tiffin now has access to two members of the School Health team. We continue to have Veronica (School Health Practitioner), who is in school on Mondays and Thursdays. Additionally to this we have Jo (Specialist School Nurse) available on Mondays. Jo and Veronica will be based in the room opposite Room 17. There is a set drop in time of Monday lunchtime, though the boys can also attend at any other time on Mondays and Thursdays for support with their health and well-being by knocking on the door. Pupils can also be referred to the School Health Team via their form tutors or Heads of Year.

Our Year 9 Go4Set team were awarded Most Innovative Project at BP, Sunbury. In the past three months, a group of year 9 boys, Ojas Gulati, Aayush Kumar, Pavi Nanthakumar, Dylan Anton, Rory Dale, Sahaj Mishra, took part in the

Go4Set STEM programme, building and testing an impressive prototype robot aimed at placing and picking up chairs in the main hall and canteen. They worked in collaboration with two BP engineers, Lisa Darrant and Tim Elwin, and presented their work to parents, BP engineers and a panel of assessors at the BP Sunbury STEM Festival on 1 st May. For their great effort and the quality of their work, they won the trophy for most innovative project of the event. They also received a bronze Industrial Cadets Award, and will enter for a Silver Crest award. In the picture, the Tiffin Team with their BP Mentors at their stand.

The U17 team was 4 th overall with Ollie Coppellotti placing 45 th individual. The U13 team fared the best with Oscar Luck 30 th individual and the team 3 rd overall. Ollie also deserves congratulations for representing one of the strongest counties, Surrey, in the national English schools’ races in Yorkshire before Easter. The Surrey team were placed in the top third.

ROWING TSBC entered the National Junior Sculling Head on 18 th of March with both boys and girls crews. Always a strong field with usually over 50 boats per category, TSBC raced in some highly unfavourable conditions for light-weight rowers but were placed mid-table with some good rowing against much bigger competition. The Year 9 boat was the result of the day, coming an impressive 13 th overall up against the biggest national clubs and private schools. The Year 10s didn’t quite achieve their potential at the Sculling Head but went on to come an impressive 2 nd at Kingston Small Boats Head by a mere 2 seconds (photo below). Seniors and Year 9s came 4 th in their categories in a strong field.

Pictured below is Yoan Kuzmanov in Y13 who, with his team, Richmond Volleyball, won the National Volleyball Championship Under 18. Yoan was the team captain. A marvellous achievement!

CROSS-COUNTRY Congratulations to those who ran for Kingston Borough in the London mini- marathon event held over the last few kilometres of the adult course, the event Miss Rawlinson, teacher of Economics, covered in an impressive sub-4 hour time, running in aid of Mencap. Tom Armstrong was the first Kingston athlete home in 26 th for the U15 team with Alistair Brendon also running well.

BOYS’ CHOIR Recording the music for the enormously popular programme, Fleabag, Season 2, back in December.

Some time ago, the Choir recorded the sound track for Dumbo , Tim Burton's live-action remake of the 1941 classic, which has just been released. Shown below with the boys is the composer of the music, Danny Elfman, renowned American composer, singer, songwriter and record producer. One of his notable compositions is The Simpsons theme.

VISIT TO THE OVAL

Lovely day out for the hugely talented Year 7 cricket squad at the Oval with the added benefit of two ex-Tiffinians joining the boys for autographs and a chat at lunch. Pictured above and below with the boys, Mr Graham and Mr Balasubramaniam, who organised the trip, are Alec Stewart, former England captain and current Director of Cricket at Surrey, and Arun Harinath who plays for Surrey.

DUKE OF EDINBURGH EXPEDITIONS In the Easter holidays many students in Year 10 and Year 12 took part in expeditions towards their Duke of Edinburgh Schemes. The Year 12 students, pictured below, enjoyed a four day practice expedition to the Brecon Beacons in Wales. This was to prepare for their gold qualifying expedition in Snowdonia in late August. The requirements for the gold expedition are more stringent than silver so all boys were challenged in their navigating and walking across wild country.

DUKE OF EDINBURGH EXPEDITIONS The Year 10s went to the North Downs for their qualifying expedition. The students had to plan their routes in advance to walk for a minimum of six hours a day and camp in the evening. They were also in charge of planning and buying their own food so bags were packed full of pasta and biscuits for the two days. They were blessed with good weather and enjoyed the two days of outdoor activity with no technology. Now they just have to finish the volunteering, physical and skills section of their award. We look forward to lots of these students passing the award soon!