Head's Newsletter 27 April 2018

Dear Parents It has been a wonderful start to the Summer Term with the school finally able to move into our new building. Having watched the construction over the last 16 months it is marvellous to see the fantastic building which has now been created.

Along with the surrounding landscaping, it has transformed the School facilities, and ultimately the educational experience for the boys. It was great to see the excited reaction of the boys when we took them into the new building for the first time last week, and it has been even better this week with them now using the dining facilities as well as the 5 new classrooms and IT suite.

The new pupil entrance is also now in operation on the London Road, as is our new delivery entrance on the Queen Elizabeth Road. The new building has actually led to an increase in outdoor space for the boys, and we have also created a new picnic area. Although mostly funded by the government grant, the building would not have been

IMPORTANT DATES

School Concert, All Saints Kingston at 7 pm

Thursday 3 May

BANK HOLIDAY

Monday 7 May

Professional Development Day— no boys in school Twilight Professional Development — school finishes at 1 pm

Friday 25 May

Wednesday 27 June (moved from 13 June)

possible without the donations of parents, alumni and others. I'm delighted to report that we have succeeded in hitting our target of raising £200,000 towards the building and I am very grateful to all parents who donated to this project, enabling its fulfilment. When you are next on site, or indeed when you're driving round Kingston, you will be able to see what a terrific building and space has been created. Later this term we will have an official opening ceremony to celebrate the completion of the project.

the sixth form from 2019. These comments were overwhelmingly positive and we look forward to pressing on with our preparations for this important change. In addition, as Key Stage 3 parents will already know, there are exciting changes for current Years 7 to 9 next year with the introduction of Chromebooks, and more information will be coming out shortly about this significant development. In this newsletter you can also read about some of the other exciting things which have occurred over the past few weeks. In particular, we thank Mrs O'Connell and the Classics Department for leading another superb Classics trip, this time to Rome. You can also read about individual successes, as well as sporting successes from the end of last season in Rugby and Cross Country. I'm delighted that the sun is shining for the start of the cricket season! Grist’s is looking fantastic and we are grateful to the work of the grounds team who got it into such condition. We warmly welcome parents to Grists to watch their sons playing cricket; bring your deckchair, and hopefully a sun hat, and enjoy the matches.

Damian Hinds with Head Boy, Nathan Langford, and DHBs George Neville-White and Narmathan Rajeswaran.

It was a great pleasure on the last day of the Easter Term to welcome the Secretary of State for Education, Damian Hinds, to Tiffin. We were able to show him the new building which was then nearing completion, as well as discuss with him future plans and other issues around education at the moment, in particular around funding. We are most grateful that he took the time to pay Tiffin a visit and to listen. (See photo right with Kevin Davis, Leader of the Council, and Simon Tupper of IID Architects.) Tiffin has many exciting plans for the future, in order to always continually improve further the overall educational provision that the School can offer. The Governors are grateful for the comments received from parents regarding the admission of girls to

In further news on the building front, I am excited to report that we are now pressing on with the next phase of our site and fa- cilities master plan, converting some of our ground floor space into a new sixth form area, thereby vastly improving the facilities for the sixth form students. Work will be starting on these new facilities at the end of May, and they will be ready for this Sep- tember.

IMPORTANT NOTICE—CAR PARKING AND VISITING THE SCHOOL Parents cannot park or drive onto the school site during the day before 4.30 pm. If parents are visiting school, please park in one of the town centre car parks or on me- tered bays on Birkenhead Avenue and en- ter the school through the Hilmy Gate, ringing the entrance bell. The new London Road pedestrian entrance is meant for pu- pils only. Although most pupils come to school by public transport, if you do drop your son off at school please consider our neighbours and do not block entrances, driveways or turning bays in the surround- ing roads. If a boy is being dropped at school it is far preferable for him to be let out further away so that he can walk the last part. In exceptional cases, when the office asks a parent to collect their son who is poorly, the office will let the parent know where they can park. Yours, M D Gascoigne Headteacher

Sixth Form Centre—as proposed

Sixth Form Centre—as proposed

CLASSICS TRIP TO ROME

19 senior Classicists spent the latter part of the Easter holiday exploring the Eternal City. The punishing schedule meant that the boys saw and did far more than most people would cover in 4 days – as the wearied limbs and blistered feet can attest! Highlights of the trip included the Colosseum, Trajan’s Markets and the Circus Maximus – the latter of which involved a very entertaining and competitive race from which some of the party are still recovering! In addition to the standard classical delights, boys were treated to a day in Tivoli to the Renaissance pleasure palace that is the Villa d’Este, a hike through the staggeringly beautiful Villa Gregoriana, as well as a tour of Hadrian’s spectacular imperial palace. The final afternoon constituted a visit to Rome’s ancient port of Ostia which was a real revelation after its multi-million pound restoration. No Classics Trip would be complete without mountains of gelato, endless plates of pasta pomodoro and the perennial delight that is the Tiffin Classics Talent Show. My thanks as ever go to Mr Karski and Mrs Attenborough for giving of their time so generously and to the boys themselves whose enthusiasm, interest and good humour made for a most enjoyable and valuable trip for all.

Our own player of the day was undeniably Alex Cormack – his performance throughout was magnificent – but captain Sam Clough collected the award for Tournament player of the day, as nominated by the London Scottish representatives present. NATIONAL VOLLEYBALL CHAMPION

U13 Isleworth 7s Tournament In hideously cold and wet conditions, the U13s beat Heathlands and Orleans park to progress to the semi-final of the Isleworth and Syon 7s tournament. Continuation of their confident ball handling and good defensive shape and discipline led to a 5 tries to nil victory and safe passage to the final. Having already been beaten by a large and powerful Gunnersbury side in the group stage, the Tiffin squad were fired up to gain revenge. Excellent organisation defensively and superb tackling forced handling errors and turnovers and by half time we led 3 tries to nil. The second half saw us continue to apply pressure to Gunnersbury, forcing and capitalising on more handling errors and eventually winning the final by 5 tries to 2. This was a huge team effort and all of the 12-man squad contributed significantly to a very deserving victory; they also played with superb attitude and spirit. Standing from L to R; Mr O’Connell, Daniyal Haider, Alex Cormack, Rory Dale, Luka Mar- kovic, Hector Mizukubo Watanabe, Daniel Moffatt, Hashim Tahir

Yoan Kuzmanov In Year 12 won the gold medal with his team, Richmond Volleyball, in the National Volleyball Championship Under 18. They are the new champions in the UK. His coach commented, “Yoan, who is part of the National Team pathway, has

become a great example for his peers and the younger players in the Club because of his technique, hard work and dedication, as well as his leadership skills”.

of the NSEC was calculated. Dhruv’s excellent scores in the strengths assessments, alongside a strong contribution to his group’s proposal, meant that he was awarded the trophy (photo below), displaying his new title. He also won an iPad Mini and a coveted place on PwC’s Business Insight Week paid work experience.

NATIONAL SCHOOLS EMPLOYABILITY CHALLENGE On Monday 26 th March, PwC and RateMyApprenticeship crowned Dhruv Sengupta (Year 12) ‘The Most Employable Student in the UK’, after he won the final stage of the National Schools Employability Challenge (NSEC). Having competed in the initial rounds of the challenge online, Dhruv was one of sixty students selected from thousands of applicants to participate in the final at PwC’s More London office at London Bridge. The final began with a round of assessments to examine all-round aptitude, including reasoning, core employment competencies and commercial and market awareness. It concluded with a final challenge - to work in small, randomly assigned groups and, within an hour, create a business plan for a health and wellbeing app. Each group was expected to present an app concept, a design for the app’s main pages, a profitability progression and ideas for funding to a panel of judges from PwC executive management. Dhruv’s group presented a meal-planning app, which was especially well commended by the judges. The day itself comprised more than just assessments though. Finalists attended talks on interview techniques and had an opportunity to network with PwC employees. They also took a tour of the offices, including a visit to the More London Frontier Lab to experience the forefront of innovation in the industry. During more talks from RateMyApprenticeship and Head of Community Affairs, David Adair, the winner

Congratulations also go to Shiv Kapila, who has been successful in his application to join the McKinsey Leadership Academy this year, securing one of 100 places for Year 13s across the UK. The academy, which aims to develop future leaders, offers an excellent opportunity for networking with similarly impressive students and receiving training, mentoring and advice from McKinsey staff over the next two years. GRIST’S IN ALL ITS GLORY!

I firstly need to emphasise to all physicists out there, that if you think you have an idea at the moment of what goes on behind the gates of the RAL, you would be simply left in awe if you were to step inside. When we think of particle accelerators, we often consider just the event of the collision. However, as we were given tours of the different buildings and listened to various lectures, we became aware of just how much thought and engineering work is put into creating the right conditions for the particles to be accelerated in the first place. Nevertheless, the collision itself is what most of us get excited about, so towards the end of the day, we got the chance of looking at real images from the Large Hadron Collider on a computer, just like real researchers would do, with the objective of finding out what particles are created. One of the images included the actual snapshot which led to the discovery of the Higgs boson! To conclude, it was a unique day and I would recommend this experience to any particle physics enthusiasts; if someone is considering studying this for a degree, the RAL even offers weeks of work experience during the summer! Eduard Bruchner Y12

The Tiffin Under 13 rounded off a fine indoor campaign by finishing as Surrey Indoor Champions. This was a marvellous team performance in which all 8 of those who represented the school had a major hand in winning the trophy. Farhaan Shaikh; Chirag Patel; Ashwin Bosé; Alex Cormack; Iain Westbrook; Shivan Aggarwal; Harshil Shah; Datta Vasireddy (Captain) RUTHERFORD APPLETON LABORATORY On Wednesday 14 th March, Charlie Rogers and I visited the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, accompanied by Mr Rennie.

The first Thursday back saw the House Number Brain Competition completed with the high energy and highly engaging Junior Number Brain. Ms Bickerstaff has organised it superbly broadly following the format of the UK Team Maths Challenge. The photo shows the relay round where pairs from the same house work on opposite sides of the room but running backwards and forwards to collect questions and pass on answers. The Junior Number Brain was shared by Scott and Darwin Wilberforce who both finished a single point ahead of Churchill Gordon. Scott won the Number Brain title overall due to the strong performance of their Seniors earlier in the year.

One Year 10 boy describes his weekend: ‘Our DofE expedition not only tired us all, but we had a great deal of fun too. We got to know our peers better and tested our orienteering skills. There was an adventurous feeling we might get lost, although once this actually happened, and it did happen at some point to our group, we weren't feeling too adventurous. Overall, we learned so many new skills from this that I think a lot of us can take forward to Silver or Gold, or in general everyday life, if we choose to go camping at some point in the future.’

Over a hundred Year 10s and a dozen Year 12s went out on Duke of Edinburgh expeditions in April. They all had varying weather conditions, some experienced the heatwave and thunderstorms last weekend and the Gold expedition was not able to see a single view in five days due to heavy fog, such is the nature of trekking and camping. Most of the boys had lots of fun and enjoyed the experience of being away and navigating for themselves.

Now they all have the task of finishing their volunteering, skill and physical sections to complete the award.

CROSSCOUNTRYREPORT

The Tiffin Cross country team ended the season in strong style with 14 athletes competing in the Ranelagh Cup held in Richmond Park. The Captain, Humphrey Allen, led the team home with Kai Pischke, one of the senior finds of the season, close behind. Euan Sinclair powered home followed by Y7s Connor Foley and Oscar Luck. George Neville White closed out his Tiffin career in fine style putting in yet another gutsy performance. He was just ahead of Jamie Krammer, another one of the other lower sixth progeny. The top Saturday performers from Years 7 and 8, Amadeus Lang, Dominic Virley, Thomas Latimer, Jonny Schafer and Kavin Ravishankar ,all ran well. Arun Hunter also lent much appreciated support. The sight of the day had to be the barn-storming school colour winner run from Aiden Porter. The team position of 5 th against the South of England’s best, showed the excellent progress made by the team over the season. This was thanks in part to the leadership of Humphrey, George and Aiden who made the most of the School’s growing talent in this field. The other part is due to the staff: Mr Russell, Miss Nava, Miss Caudwell and Mr Costello who have given freely of their time for practices and matches. The progress from a top 10 position in the southern King’s trophy at the start of the season has been most pleasing. From King’s to this season-ending performance via a grand slam of Borough titles, the senior school Surrey relay and long course

titles coupled with a fine bronze at Charterhouse for the seniors, the team has moved up further in the national rankings. We are now well within the top 20 in the country in terms of senior results, up from just sneaking in the top twenty last year. The top 10 looks within the grasp of the group with further development of a fine lower sixth squad this year along with the top year 11, Eric Williams, the senior squad looks good. Eric, being a great individual age group winner at Charterhouse, underlines this point. This talent along with the new year 7s and strong middle years should see the sport in good health for another year. Mr Shaw KINGSTONMINI MARATHONTEAM Congratulations to Kai Pischke 12AC, Tom Armstrong 9GB, Euan Sinclair 9GB, Alistair Brendon 9RC, Eric Williams 11EWS and Kieran Desmond 12MKY on being selected for the London Mini Marathon. All had to post fast times on a 5K Park run to qualify against the strongest opposition for places to date. Tom Armstrong also had a speedy 2.15 clocking in the St Mary’s invitation 800m race at the end of March. A great opening time for the season.