Head's Newsletter 13 July 2018

Dear Parents On Monday, it was a great pleasure to welcome Sir Edward Davey, Kingston and Surbiton MP, and former member of David Cameron's Coalition Cabinet, to officially open our new building, and unveil our plaque of donors. This was followed on Tuesday evening by our annual Open Evening, where once again we welcomed very large numbers of prospective pupils and their parents, to be given tours around the school by our Year 7s and 8s. The week continues to be very busy with our ‘ stop the clock day ’ trips yesterday, and the musical extravaganza which is Tiffin-in -the-Garden today; please do come along to what is always a most enjoyable occasion. This newsletter is packed full of reports. Year 10 have enjoyed the History trip to Berlin, as well as the new French trip to Angers, and they have also been engaged in the Year 10 special programme, focusing on careers and futures. Year 9 have been involved in the John Muir trips, and Sixth Form Biologists have been on the field trip to Wales. It was a great pleasure to also watch the junior school production of Watership Down in the Drama Studio; congratulations to all those who took part. In sport there are a number of reports, but I would particularly highlight the fantastic achievement of the Year 8 U13 cricketers who are the Surrey champions. Naturally, at this time of year we always have to say goodbye to a number of staff who are

moving on: Mrs Gibson (LRC), Mr Blundell (Drama Department), Ms Child (English), Mr Watkins (History), Mr Karski (Classics), Ms Witney-Smith (Biology), Mr Ferris (Music) and Ms Gallie (French). Finally, special mention goes to Mr Langrish who is retiring after 36 years of service to Tiffin school. We wish all these staff the best for their future. Next week is always very busy with House Rowing, the House Swimming Gala, and Sports Day, as well as our Founders Day service, commemorating the Tiffin brothers who founded the school. I am very pleased that the new Sixth Form area is almost complete, with just the furnishing and fit-out to be done in the Summer holiday. This new space significantly improves our facilities, and I am sure the Sixth Formers will appreciate it in September when they start to use it. Obviously, the cost is significant in providing first-class facilities, and we would request that parents of students in next year’s Sixth Form please give a voluntary contribution towards the costs, which can be made via ParentPay ; all donations greatly appreciated. As we look forward to next academic year, it was great to see the chrome books being distributed this week to Year 8 and 9 pupils. Prior to then, I wish all boys and their parents a fantastic summer break, and thank you all for your support for Tiffin throughout the year. Yours, M D Gascoigne, Headteacher

IMPORTANT DATES

Sports Day

Wednesday 18 July

Founders’ Day; last day for boys who are dismissed from the church at about 12.30 pm Rugby teams from Year 8 upwards at Grist’s from 2 pm; No other boys in School Year 7 and Year 12 required in School from 8.30 am Year 12 required at Grist’s from 8.45 am. Year 7 re- quired at School from 8.30 All year groups required in School for 8.30 am start

Thursday 19 July

Wednesday 29 August

Thursday 30 August

Friday 31 August

Monday 3 September

We all enjoyed a wonderful evening at the Official Opening of the new Building by Sir Ed Davey, MP for Kingston and Surbiton, pictured below with the Headteacher. Many donors and guests were welcomed to the event by Phil Phillips, below left, Chair of Governors. OFFICIAL OPENING OF NEW BUILDING

really enjoyed being up on stage and often forget that the audience were even there. I’ve been on stage many times now and all I can remember about my first time, was being excited. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity and don’t want it to end.” UPCOMING EVENTS A busy month in the music department with events such as ‘Tiffin in the Garden’ and the Choir Tour to Cambridge. Fri 13th July—Tiffin-in-the-Garden 5:30pm Sun 15th July—Frabjous Fantasies, Rose Theatre 7:30pm Tues 17th July—Choir Concert, All Saints Church 7:00pm 22-25th July—Gabrieli Roar Recording, Ely Cathedral Mon 23rd July—An English Coronation Concert, Ely Cathedral 7:30pm 16th/18th Sep—Britten Spring Symphony with the LSO, Barbican Hall 7:30pm Thur 27th Sep—Evensong, St. Luke’s Church 5:45pm

As part of the summer season of the Royal Opera House, a group from the Boys’ Choir and the Children’s Chorus performed in the production of Puccini’s La Boheme, directed by Richard Jones. From 16 June- 20 July, the children perform on stage with the Royal Opera Chorus in Act II as part of the great crowd. They have had great fun singing “ Aranci, datteri! Caldi i marroni! ” (Orange, dates and hot chestnuts). The Year 10 Tiffin boys also had a chance to attend one of the matinees in order to watch the performance and support the Tiffin boys and girls that were performing. The experience was purely magical. Michael Reinecke (7LF) adds: “The ROH is very beautiful and all the cast members and staff we were in contact with, were all very nice and helpful. I have

U13 CRICKET

A day of school cricket that will live long in the memory: our U13A cricket team have beaten the best around to become Surrey U13 Champions in the Watcyn Evans U13 Trophy. Eclipsing teams such as Hampton, KCS, Cumnor House, Wallington, Wilsons, Reigate Grammar, RGS Guildford, St Johns Leatherhead, Reeds, Caterham to name a few! And eventually cruising to victory in the final past a strong Trinity side who had beaten Whitgift in their semi-final! To put this competition in perspective, Whitgift

are in the National Cup final next week and are strong favourites to win! Congratulations to their coach, Mr Gnanendran, the boys on what has been an outstanding season and of course to Mr Williams for everything he puts into school cricket. The boys involved are a great credit to the school and have shown maturity, skill and grace well beyond their years.

U13 CRICKET continued

And they are Champions of the Rokeby 6s! Beat Cranmore (in group) Beat Shrewsbury House (Eventual finalists and surrey cup semi-finalists) Beat Summer Fields (Eventual Plate winners) Beat Farleigh (Within 3 overs in the semi- final!) Beat Shrewsbury House (For the second time, in the Final !)

The Widger Match We would like to extend a very warm invitation to all parents and friends who have supported school sport throughout the year to come along to Grist's for cricket on the afternoon of Thursday 19 July and tea from 4.30 pm onwards. This match, traditionally played between the School 1 st XI and The Staff, is played in memory of Widger Morley-Brown who played so brilliantly for the 1 st XI in the 1980s.

Year 10 Trip to Berlin 2018

On Thursday 21 st June, the History department took fifty year 10 historians to Berlin for three days. The aim of the trip was to provide an introduction to Weimar and Nazi Germany which the boys will study in depth next year. Berlin is a fascinating city for the historian not only because it was the capital of the Nazi regime but also because it also played a key role in the Cold War; another topic from our GCSE course.

a Nazi concentration camp. Built in 1936 this huge camp contained over 80 hectares prison barracks within its triangular walls.

Today its buildings serve as a museum to the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis and made for a grimly fascinating visit. After lunch we visited the SS museum, the Reichstag building and finished with a hunt for the remains of the Kroll Opera House, which housed the German parliament after the Reichstag fire. Our last day had perhaps the busiest itinerary of the trip. We started with a behind the scenes tour of the Olympic Stadium home to the 1936 ‘Nazi Olympics’. We then drove out to the abandoned Tempelhof airport where we walked down the runway that kept West Berlin free during the Berlin Blockade. Finally we drove out of the city to Potsdam and explored the Cecilienhof Palace, venue for the ‘Potsdam Conference’ between the UK, USA and USSR that is often cited as the starting point of the Cold War.

Save for some blustery turbulence that briefly turned the plane into a something akin to a ride in Thorpe Park, our trip was very smooth. Our first historical activity was a fascinating walking tour of central Berlin led by history students form Berlin’s Humboldt University. We took in sites such as Bebelplatz, where the Nazis burnt enormous piles of banned books in 1933; Checkpoint Charlie, the main crossing point between East and West Berlin during the Cold War before finishing on the former site of the Reich Chancellery, where Hitler made his final stand in 1945. On Day 2 we had a ‘lie in’ until 8.30am when we boarded our coach to a town 20 miles north of Berlin called Oranienburg. This was the location of Sachsenhausen, a

BIOLOGY FIELD TRIP

From the 2 nd to the 6 th July, the Year 12 Biology students travelled to Orielton Field Centre in Pembrokeshire, Wales, on a field trip to study the Ecology of sand dunes, rocky shores, and freshwater streams. The centre was developed from a Georgian mansion, and is surrounded by 100 acres of woodland, perfect for studying the changes in ecosystems and habitats of different species in light and shade. Along with all the working spaces, there were also many places where we could all gather to enjoy ourselves at break times and in the evenings, like the Ein Geddi games room and our own common room.

out ecological succession on the Broomhill Burrows sand dune system. investigations into

On the final working day, we learned about freshwater ecology in the morning and then moved on to independent investigations in the afternoon and evening, which are part of the AQA A-Level Biology practical endorsement. This involved formulating a hypothesis and then constructing a valid method for collecting data to test the hypothesis. The investigation could be related to anything we had done over the course of the trip so there were a wide variety of different activities going on concurrently; for example, some students looked at species diversity in relation to the light intensity, and compared two sites to see if the data demonstrated any significant difference. These investigations would then be written up to be marked by the biology teachers, and potentially checked by members of the AQA board. We thank all the field centre staff and Tiffin teachers for a lovely 5 days.

On the first day, we travelled to Sawdern Point on the Pembrokeshire coast, to study zonation on a rocky shore. In the classroom we developed and consolidated the different key skills required, such as the sampling techniques and statistical tests that we could use to test our hypotheses. Then, in the field, we investigated the species diversity at different heights on shore by using these newly acquired skills and creating transects to sample the area. On the second day, we visited the well- known Freshwater West beach; the site of “Shell Cottage”, of Harry Potter fame, and where “Dobby the house elf” was buried (not in real life of course!). Here we carried

Mohammed Al-Dubooni & Ahmed Al-Muttalibi - Year 12

Year 10 Trip to Angers

PHYSICS CHALLENGE

Taking 17 of our best Year 10 students to Angers in France for a week turned out to the one of the most unexpectedly fascinating school trips I’ve led in years. From scaling up the town’s medieval castle, to witnessing a whole village being looted by Vikings at Puy du Fou, the packed schedule was rich and varied. Our boys learned how to make champagne and sugar syrup (without indulging in the former), how to decipher and appreciate medieval and modern art, to tame falcons and other large feathered creatures, build and destroy castles, and even how to weave tapestries(!). And we made sure they also had the chance to showcase the best of Tiffin School, by presenting to the host students – in freshly polished French! I can’t sign off without thanking Ms Moore and Ms Bond for keeping an eye on the boys and am very much looking forward to a second run of the trip next year. Mr Courtin

26 students took part in the inaugural Year 10 Physics Challenge this year. Nationally over 6000 students took part with only the top 40% receiving certificates of any kind and the top 9% receiving a Gold certificate. Our students did very well with 8 awarded a gold certificate, 5 awarded silver and 8 awarded bronze. Well done to all who took part; however particular congratulations must go to the top two students from Tiffin, Geethaartha Vagga and Anupa Adikary (below) who scored 55 and 54 out

of 60 respectively, which secured them an invitation to the BPhO Masterclass at Oxford University. These invitations are only offered to the very top students nationally and as such this is a truly outstanding achievement.

For this year’s excursion into the wilderness as part of the John Muir Discovery award, 40 boys ventured into deepest, darkest East Sussex. Two groups of intrepid explorers took the opportunity to engage with life outside of the confines of the busy inner city by engaging with the natural world in a variety of ways. The boys learnt how to respect the natural world along with developing the skills and values necessary for them to live in a community. The programme of activities encouraged genuine communication and taught skills to negotiate diversity in a healthy and respectful way. The students’ completion of all tasks was rewarded with the John Muir Discovery Award, encouraging young people to: discover a wild place; explore it; conserve it and share one’s experiences. Both groups leant how to build fires, shelters, carve items safely out of wood, cook outdoors and built on their communication and team building skills. These trips were very successful and I look forward to more successful John Muir award trips next year.

This Summer term saw 17 students from Years 7 to 9 perform in Watership Down , written and directed by Mr Blundell. The boys worked very hard all term, from the very first rehearsal at the beginning of May up until the first night, turning this popular children’s classic story into an exciting visual performance. It was not easy for the boys to portray relatable well-known characters, especially as they were all animals, but Mr Blundell managed to create a storyline that was accessible to all students. George Prentice also did a fantastic job in turning the Drama Studio into the idyllic ‘English Downs’. The cast gave three exceptional evening performances in the last week of June. Here’s hoping that they enjoyed the whole experience and that we see these students in future Tiffin productions.

A vast array of aircraft thundered across the London sky in a spectacular flypast that marked the 100 th anniversary of the RAF. More than 100 jets and helicopters roared over the capital and a few of them came over School.

Joe Allgar in Year 9 also competed in the London Youth Games for the Royal Borough of Kingston at squash on Sunday 8 th July in the National Sports Centre in Crystal Palace and won a gold medal. Joe has competed in many squash tournaments and is currently No 2 in Surrey U15.

In the London Youth Games sailing competition at Queen Mary Reservoir on June 24 th , Magnus Handley, in Year 12, won a dominant gold in the Laser Radial class for Kingston. He won all three races; the first two were decisive victories, but he gave himself more of a challenge in the third race. An error in the pre-start resulted in him getting pushed over the line, so he had to come back to re-start. Starting 15 th , he sailed an excellent first beat, making his way up to 3 rd place by the top mark. By the end of the first lap, he was back in first again. This is Magnus's fourth consecutive gold medal at the London Youth Games, the best record by a male sailor since the games began.

TABLE TENNIS FINALS

Following his result in the U13 South London Individual Qualifier, Ashrith Behara earned an invite to the Jack Petchey London Schools’ Individual Finals on Saturday 9 th June. An outstanding effort and superb play helped him to reach the quarter final. Ashrith has been fully committed to the team this year and his result caps off a highly successful inaugural season for Tiffin Table Tennis.