Monday 21 June 2010

KEGS News Issue 12

KING EDWARD VI GRAMMAR SCHOOL www.kegs.org.uk

HEADTEACHER: Tom Sherrington

KEGS LOOKS EAST TO WUXI

AT HALF TERM I had the great pleasure of representing KEGS as part of an Essex programme linking schools with partners in the Chinese province of Jiang Su. KEGS has been partnered with Wuxi No 1 Senior High School and the main purpose of my trip was to visit the school, meet the Principal, Mr Hu Ping, and discuss ways in which we can forge a long-lasting relationship. The whole experience was fabulous and I

am very confident that we have the basis of a strong partnership linking students and teachers from both schools for years to come. Wuxi is a very large city of 9 million people, about 50 km from Shanghai. Wuxi and the neighbouring city of Suzhou have a long history and are well known in China for their scenic location on Lake Taihu. In common with other areas in Eastern China, they have experienced phenomenal development in recent years and though there are beautiful traditional ‘old town’ areas, they are growing rapidly as manufacturing centres for a range of international companies. I travelled through China for two months in 1991 and since then it has changed beyond all recognition. The scale of everything is extraordinary. The cities are huge, the population is

huge and the energy, communication, transport and housing infrastructure built to meet the needs of an in-creasingly sophisticated population is breath-taking. During the trip I was able to visit the Expo 2010 in Shanghai where, once again, the impressive scale of Chinese ambition was in evidence. Despite the differences in scale – Jiang Su province is about 40 times the size of Essex – the students in Wuxi are thrilled to be linked with a school in Chelmsford -

Tom Sherrington with Mr Hu Ping, Principal

The Emperor’s new clothes !

by Tom Sherrington

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especially after I told them that KEGS is one of the oldest schools in the world and is near London! English language learning is a key element in the Chinese secondary curriculum and, mainly for this reason, Jiang Su province is keen to support programmes that provide Chinese teachers and students with opportunities to engage with their English counterparts.

Wuxi Number 1 High School has 2000 students in years equivalent to our Year 11 – 13. It is a highly prestigious school that attracts over 5000 applicants for 650 places each year. They are building towards celebrating their 100

th anniversary next February with a

new swimming pool and dormitory block under construction adding to very impressive facilities including spectacular science labs. The school specialises in preparing students for elite universities in China and they even run an A level programme for students wishing to attend universities in the UK and Canada. The school is very much an outward looking school with a strong international perspective. I was impressed by how much the Chinese students knew about British politics and how engaged they were with global issues. We have already started a project in which students from KEGS and Wuxi have shared their views on a wide range of political and cultural issues. We hope this is just the beginning. Over the coming weeks I will be taking time in assemblies and lessons to tell students more about school and daily life in China. I very much hope that we will be able to run a

student and teacher exchange in the next 12-18 months.

This is still only our first year offering Mandarin as an extra-curricular learning opportunity; I hope that this will develop over the coming years so that more KEGS students begin to engage first-hand with Chinese language and culture. China simply cannot be ignored and I hope to help KEGS students develop an open positive attitude and even a familiarity with a country that will have a major influence on global economics, culture and politics for the rest of their lives.

Congratulations to Alison Brown, Head of Design & Technology, who has been elected as a teacher governor. She takes over from Mark Perrott.

Wuxi No 1 School campus

TEACHER GOVERNOR ELECTION RESULT

Back to class—the typical class size is 48 !

Ping-pong diplomacy !

SPORTS DAY

SATURDAY 26 JUNE

All parents are cordially invited to the inter-house Sports Day from 10.00 to 12.30 on Saturday 27 June. All year groups will be taking part and an exciting programme of track and field events will be taking place. Competitors are asked to arrive in good time. Come and support your House team !

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Good luck to our Year 7 spelling team ‘The Bees Knees’ who will be representing KEGS in the Grand Final of The Times Spelling Bee competition on Thursday 24 June. The team - WeiNan Zhou, Justice Akushie,

Nikhil Singh and Wiza Kaluba – have won their way through the Regional Semi Final which was held in Cambridge on 21 May and now meet the top 10 team from across the country in the Grand Final. 1000 schools were in the starting line-up so this is a huge victory for the young Year 7s. The boys were interviewed live on BBC Essex recently and if they become the outright winners, we understand that they may be on BBC Breakfast and The One Show! All the very best to the team !

Congratulations to Mohammed Akhtar of Year 8 who has won a place on the final shortlist of the Ready, Willing and Mobile competition, which is a national contest that seeks ideas to help improve the lives of young disabled people. This is the second year running that Mohammed has reached the final, and the third year running that a KEGS student is in the final !

Mohammed has designed ‘X-Vision’ a scanning device to be worn by visually impaired people to help them identify objects near to them as they move about. Textured switches and features aid its use.

In its sixth year, the Ready Willing & Mobile competition organised by the Mobility Roadshow seeks concepts from young people - both disabled and non-disabled aged 7 to 16 years - that will help others with disabilities to be more independent and join in more at home, at school and at play.

The winners and runners-up will be announced and prizes presented at the Mobility Roadshow 2010 at the East of England Showground, Peterborough on National Young Disabled Persons’ Day, Saturday 3 July. Good luck to Mohammed.

Our team, consisting of six students and two adults headed off to the Essex Library Book Service, for a talk by the author of the winning book in the Essex Book Awards - Jane Mitchell. When we arrived at the venue, Jane made a prompt start outlining how and why she came about writing her most recent book, called Chalkline. I thought that Chalkline deserved to win the Essex Book Award 2010 due to its very moving storyline and also due to the fabulous extent of fine

The Bees Knees pictured with their Semi Finalist medals

THE BEES KNEES REACH SPELLING BEE GRAND FINAL

ESSEX BOOK AWARDS

MOHAMMED THROUGH TO ‘READY WILLING & MOBILE’ FINAL

The KEGS team pictured with Chalkline author Jane Mitchell

by Deelan Vadher, Year 9

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details and descriptions. Her idea was prompted by two events, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the numerous conflicts between India and Pakistan. Jane then went on to talk about the places she visited, where she got her inspiration from. Such places included Rajasthan (in India) where the setting of her book originated. Chalkline is about a 10 year old boy living in Kashmir (on the border of India and Pakistan), and explains descriptively how he is grabbed from his class by Kashmiri Separatist soldiers and forced to join their army. He is taken through forests and driven up mountains, fighting for the Separatists. At the end of the book, Rafiq reunites with his family in Kashmir after a devastating experience fighting on the front line. The author gave a speech on how she began writing and tips on writing a book which were very useful. I think the highlight of the trip was learning about the various ideas and interpretations going through the authors mind whilst writing this moving novel. It was an enjoyable read and I would thoroughly recommend it to children of all ages.

At the end of April students in Year 8, along with twenty invited students from Year 7, took part in the UKMT Junior Maths Challenge. What an excellent performance! We have just received the results and are delighted to report we were awarded 53 gold certificates, 36 silver and 21 Bronze. Not only that, we have six students Timothy Havard, Alex Cowell, Matthew Harris and George Metson, in Year 8, and Ben Russell and Edward Dixon in Year 7, who have made it through to the Junior Maths Olympiad. Congratulations to all who took part and we wish the students well in their Olympiad quest on the 15 June.

Congratulations to the following students who have attained a 10 point Open University module in their chosen science subjects. CHANCE, RISK AND HEALTH Rosa Sun 13F FOSSILS AND THE HISTORY OF LIFE James Campen 13F, Rosanna de Courtenay Wellum 13C HOW THE UNIVERSE WORKS Grace Wood 13B, Joshua McCann 13F HUMAN GENETICS AND HEALTH Florence Roycroft 13B, Thomas Fryer 13F, Timothy Drury 13G, Joseph Gafton 13G LIFE IN THE OCEANS, EXPLORING OUR BLUE PLANET Andrew Bagshaw 13B, Peter Hawkings 13C, Ning Yu 13C, Lauren Marshall 13F

MATHS FOR SCIENCE Simon DeBere 13E MOLECULES, MEDICINES AND DRUGS Luke Anderson 13A, James Ashbolt 13 B, Hyon-Mok Sohn13D ROBOTICS AND THE MEANING OF LIFE Simon Schofield 12A, James Donovan 12B, Ciaran Sanford 12G UNDERSTANDING THE WEATHER Mark Wilkes 13E, Harry Hodges 13F David Symonds 13G, Nicholas Davis 13D VOLCANOES, EARTHQUAKES AND TSUNAMIS John Luk 13D

Jaccaidi Hypolite Dyer of Year 13 has been selected to have her art work exhibited in the Royal Academy's A level Summer Exhibition Online. Fifty six pieces were chosen from over 1300 submissions from schools and colleges across the country; another piece of Jaccaidi's work was also shortlisted. Her work forms part of her AS and A2 portfolio units where she looked specifically at the portrayal of women in Art. The show is live on www.royalacademy.org.uk/alevel

‘Be-

by Helen Wiltshire, Head of Sixth Form

ROYAL ACADEMY SUCCESS FOR JACCAIDI

YASS 2010

UK MATHS TRUST JUNIOR MATHS CHALLENGE

by Lynn Mepham, Science College Administrator

HAVE YOU GOT NEWS FOR US? NEWSLETTER 13

PUBLICATION DATE: MONDAY 12 JULY 2010

All copy should be sent to Lindsey Thompson (lthompson@kegs.org.uk) by 10.00am on

Monday 5 July

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Despite a month of cold weather and frosts after the Easter holiday we are starting to harvest produce from the allotment ready for Jim’s expertise in the kitchen. Everything planted or grown has been organic; with no fertilisers used (I even purchased organic slug pellets). Most of the leeks made it through the winter and were used for a risotto, followed by a leek and bacon tart. The broad beans were used in the salad as well as quiche. A bumper crop of radishes were then collected, as well as the first strawberries. The last plants have finally germinated and been dug in. We have added tomatoes, cucumbers, runner beans, marrows and pumpkins. Weeding and watering now occupies Monday to Friday, before school, at lunch with students and after school. Anyone who would like to lend a hand at any time is more than welcome to join myself and Mr Crook. Feel free to get in touch.

Congratulations to Ben Kimberley (10Y) who has reached the final of the Royal College of Music’s ‘Marjorie Humby Memorial Competition’ which took place on Saturday 22 May. In the final, Ben, playing oboe, was commended. Congratulations also to Brian Chan (11V) who has come first in the Under 16 section of the Essex

Megafinal of the British Land Chess Challenge in May. He will compete in the Southern Counties Gigafinal in July – good luck to Brian for then !

KAYAKING Congratulations to Peter and Mark Wilkes on their success in the Boulogne Regatta recently.. The highlight was that their K2 (kayak) made it through the heat and semi-final to the 500m final and they finished sixth. Their K2 also reached the 1000m final where they were 5th. Peter also achieved second position in the 1000m final B in his K1 and fifth in the 500m final B where Mark was ninth. The K4 that Peter was one of the crew members of was fourth in the 1000m final and Mark’s K4 was 7

th in

the 500m final. Peter has now been selected to race in Bochum (Germany) and is expecting to race 500m K1. COUNTY ATHLETICS CHAMPIONSHIPS Well done and congratulations to Brody Andrews for winning the 400m at the County Athletic Championships. He completed the race in 56.23 seconds and is now the County 400m champion. Congratulations !

Friday 25 June – Year 8 reports out Saturday 26 June – Sports Day Monday 28 June - Year 11 work experience to Friday 9 July Wednesday 30 June – Summer Concert Friday 2 July – Year 10 reports out Wednesday 7 July – New Year 12 familiarisation event Thursday 8/Friday 9 July – Year 12 Challenge of Management event Friday 9 July – Year 7 reports out Monday 12 July – Newsletter 13

FORTHCOMING EVENTS

ORGANIC PRODUCE MAKES IT TO THE KITCHEN !

Julie was overjoyed at the thought of more leeks to prepare !

CONGRATULATIONS

SPORTS REPORT by Jon Levitt, Head of Year 10

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PA Contact David Scogings 07725 881160 david.scogings@sky.com SUMMER FAYRE By the time you read this the Summer Fayre will be over. Thank you to everyone who supported the event – helping out, coming along on the day, and donating items. I will update you in the next newsletter as to how much was raised and who the prizewinners were. ROBBIE WILLIAMS & RAT PACK TRIBUTE ACT We have arranged a tribute singer who performs Robbie Williams and Rat Pack songs to put on a show for us on Friday July 2. We hope this will prove very successful and look forward to filling the hall for the show. We will arrange tables so you can bring drinks and nibbles. Fill in the attached form to book your tickets and return to the school office. The cost of the evening will be £10.00 per head and space is limited so please book as soon as possible. GOLF DAY SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 11 I would very much like to say that this event is open to all players of all abilities and any age. The only qualification is that you want to enjoy yourself. We can only have 10 teams so please let me know as soon as possible if you want a registration pack NEXT MEETING Our next meeting will be held on Thursday June 24 at 7.30. All are welcome and should you wish to attend the venue is room 6. Please let me know if you are coming so we can look out for you.

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