Head's Newsletter 31 March 2021

Dear Parents It has been great to see all the students back at school, and even though it has only been three weeks, it feels as if we are getting back to some level of normality. I’m very pleased the number of Covid cases is extremely low and this is thanks in part to the control measures in place, and the precautions that everybody is taking. All students have been fantastic at sticking to the rules, including the wearing of facemasks. I’m also delighted that the students are engaging with the testing. Having completed three tests at school, staff and students are now regularly testing at home. This is simple to do and the students are very quickly getting used to it. By regularly testing, we hope to pick up any cases of Covid, and through isolation prevent those cases spreading infection to others. Testing is therefore a vital way of keeping the community safe. Please do continue to test during the holidays, and in particular please test the night before we are due to return. Even though we have been in lockdown, there are many things to report on in this newsletter. A number of competitions and events are taking place online, including excellent participation in both chess and debating, as well as some terrific individual achievements to report. It is fantastic in particular to get back to sport. We have been running house competitions, and there is a report here on cross country successes. We have just started going out on the river with our rowers, and the cricketers are making full use of the indoor nets. Having been named as one of the top schools in the country for cricket by ‘The Cricketer’ magazine, and with the sudden warm weather, we are certainly looking forward to a full

cricket season and hope it will not be interrupted. Unquestionably, the new gym is fully supporting our sports provision. I’m delighted that it was officially opened by the ex-England and Surrey cricket captain Alec Stewart, who is also an old Tiffinian. Although with Covid the opening was a virtual event, you can watch the opening, and see him and the new facilities in the film that our students made. In particular in this newsletter there is a section on each of the Jack Petchey award winners. It is truly inspiring to read these testimonies about our young people and the fantastic work they have done for others. It is also pleasing to know that this is recognised by their peers, as the students concerned have been nominated by them for these awards. As Spring has arrived, I’m very pleased that we have been able to plant new trees in the garden as a permanent memory of Tiffin student Rohan Godhania who tragically passed away last summer. The thoughts and prayers of the whole Tiffin community remain with Rohan’s parents and loved ones. We look forward to the Summer Term, the better weather, and especially getting back to a whole host of activities that we like to run. Hopefully, with the incredible work on vaccinations, and the declining rates of Covid, we can all begin to look forward to better times again. I hope all students and their families have a lovely break over Easter.

Yours, MD Gascoigne, Headteacher

IMPORTANT DATES

Thursday 1 April

Break up for Easter holiday: School finishes at 12.30 pm for Years 10-13 and 1.20pm for Years 7-9. Start of Summer term — (week A) 8.30am start Years 7 -9 and 9.20am start Years 10-13.

Monday 19 April

Monday 3 May

Bank Holiday—School closed.

WOMENS HISTORY MONTH

Students embraced the opportunity to nominate their own ‘History Heroine’ in the last week of Women’s History Month with great enthusiasm. It was brilliant to see so many suggestions flooding in with explanations of their significance. The winning entry was Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the deadly Soviet sniper who dominated her field and challenged Western ideas of femininity. In light of International Women’s Day 2021, we encourage all students to ‘choose to challenge’ gender based discrimination and we hope these stories have empowered them to do so.

March saw the celebration of Women’s History Month in the History Department and across the school. Weekly bulletins provided a spotlight on ‘History Heroines’ throughout history who had defied social expectations and played a major role in cultural, technological and political developments. From Joan of Arc and Catherine the Great to Bessie Coleman the pilot, students were encouraged to consider stories of women who had been excluded from the wider narrative and how they had been remembered. It was fantastic to see the discussions these profiles created across the school and we hope this focus has peaked interest to research other lesser known characters.

INTERNATIONAL SONG WRITING COMPETITION

Congratulations to Daniel (11JAF) who is a finalist in the International Songwriting Competition. ‘Stonewall’ is the name of Daniel’s song which recently reached the finals of the ISC based in America. Less than 1% of over 26,000 entrants have reached this stage. All finalists' songs have now been sent to a panel of judges made up of celebrity artists (including Dua Lipa, Coldplay, Tom Waits & Bebe Rexha) and music industry executives who will select the winners by early May. Daniel is the only Brit finalist in the ‘Teen Category’ and he is just delighted to have got this far! More details can be found at: https:// songwritingcompetition.com/winners. Daniel’s debut album (of 10 songs) and will be coming out later in 2021, but he has already started releasing a few singles from it. His next single is called ‘Friend of a Friend’ and will be out on 2nd April.

Daniel’s Social Media You can find out more about Daniel via his Instagram page and please be sure to follow him on Spotify and YouTube to hear his latest tracks. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=f_5bJT8-o-I Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ danny_mccarthy_ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ Danny_McC_Music Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/

JACK PETCHEY AWARDS

Winner : Benedek Szilvasy Reason for award : Benedek has been part of the Transport for London Youth Travel Ambassador Scheme. He put an extraordinary amount of effort into writing the code that allowed the team's project to work. He was the only one in the project with the expertise to pull it off but even so he had to learn many new things. After many months of painstaking coding and bug checking he delivered an excellent final product. TFL were hugely impressed by his skills, as were the other members of the group. Was spent on : Plants and trees to be planted round Tiffin School to enhance the environment for pupils. Some tools for the Gardening society to use to plant and care for them. Costing : £250 Winner : Aakars Venogaran Reason for award : Aakars has demonstrated extraordinary kindness, selfless friendship and particularly supported one boy with very specific needs in his form. The number of nominations from the other students in his form and the esteem in which they hold Aakars is remarkable. He is described as: 'a truly good friend and role model', 'someone who helps many people to feel comfortable and fit in', 'someone who helps people who are feeling down and makes them laugh', 'willing to give up his ime for others'. The tributes go on and the message is clear - this wonderful young man is thoroughly deserving of a Jack Petchey Award. Equipment bought : Football Equipment. Costing : £250

On Thursday 18th March nine Tiffin students were honoured for their achievements by the Jack Petchey Foundation. Due to Covid restrictions the annual Awards Ceremony for the year september 2019-June 2020 took place in a digital format which was in no way less special. The winners (listed below) along with their parents were able to tune in to watch a personalised Tiffin Ceremony in which the students' achievements were lauded through various accolades. Details of the students' wins and how they chose to spend their prize money can be found below. Congratulations again to Tim, Benedek, Aakars, Daniel, Shreyas, Sakshee, Darshan, Nouman and Bulcsu! Winner : Tim Jones Reason for award : In his final year, Tim has put more of his own time, effort and enthusiasm into Tiffin School than almost anyone else. His contributions to cricket (as 1st XI captain) the orchestra, the choir and the house system (as House Captain) and the school (as Deputy Head Boy) have enriched the lives of so many. One Student who nominated him described him as the quintessential Tiffinian - it would be hard to imagine a nicer young man. Was spent on : Cricket equipment

Winner : Daniel Blaze Reason for award : Daniel is not just an outstanding musician but someone who leads, promotes the enjoyment of music and brings others along with him. One boy who nominated him wrote: "Daniel has been instrumental in keeping Tiffin School's student music going on throughout the lockdown period. He has taken it upon himself to organise a virtual jazz band, as a continuation of Tiffin Swing Band, which has provided its members with something to occupy themselves. These have featured in Tiffin's weekly virtual concert series" another wrote: "his organisation and selflessness is a musical benefit to the whole Tiffin community." Bought: Musical equipment Winner : Shreyas Suwarnkar Reason for award : One nominator writes: "Shreyas stepped in to support a boy who was the target of an unpleasant attack. Another group of boys were throwing food at the victim, who happened to suffer from severe allergies. Shreyas, was not afraid to tell the perpetrators to stop, stand up for the victim and maturity take him away from the situation." Another describes him as "a nice guy who always makes people smile" Equipment bought : Basketball Equipment. Winner : Sakshee Ramakirshnan Reason for award : One nominator writes: "Sakshee was selfless during lockdown volunteering at a hospital and still finding time to put together out reach programs so we can communicate with one another, such as the Spanish pen pals." Equipment bought : Netball kit for the new netball team. Costing : £250

Winner : Darshan Kumaresan Reason for award : Dashan has been nominated by more than half the school chess team - one writes: "Darshan has brilliant leadership skills and participates in many clubs and societies around school. This includes chess, badminton and table tennis. He has shown particular leadership in chess across the school, helping to organise many house chess competitions and supervising chess club." another says: "He is a great chess coach and super supportive" a third points out his consistent record for the school team helping them reach the Finals of the National School Championships. He also gets a completely different nomination for his contribution to school table tennis including reaching the Semi-finals of the Boys U19 Jack Petchey South London nominated by several different people who, described him as: "kind, selfless, willing to help, someone who happily shares his revision material, makes a consistent effort and was particularly effective keeping his classes’ spirits high during lockdown. Equipment bought : Gardening equipment and consumables to improve the school garden. Winner : Bulcsu Diossi Reason for award : Bulcsu is an excellent positive, contributing student in so many ways. For example, he organised online debating for Y11 students during lockdown. Equipment bought : Books for the Learning Resource Centre Schools™ Individual Championship. Equipment bought : Chess Clocks & Coaching Winner : Nouman Sami Reason for award : Nouman was

Participation at an all time high: The number of students attending all sports lunchtime and after school sessions has been at an all-time high. This coupled with the hard work that sports teams have been putting into their strength and conditioning sessions is a sure recipe for success. We hope these high levels of participation and enjoyment during sessions continues into the summer and beyond and leads to greater performances on the field. As always you can keep up to date with what’s going on @tiffinsport on instagram and twitter

With the return of all pupils it has been fantastic to see such high attendances across all sports and year groups. Everyone has clearly missed the buzz of competing and playing with their friends, and we are delighted to be back enjoying sport once again. House Competitions: House competitions have returned with a vengeance this term and it has been fantastic to see the collective effort and enthusiasm of all houses. It has been somewhat a logistical nightmare for the PE department and supporting members of staff to catch up with the house competitions missed due to the lockdown.However, after a fantastic team effort we have so far provided house games in a variety of sports, including; Rugby, football, basketball, badminton and the much loved house run! Cricket Season Is Nearly Here: The first days of spring and longer sunnier days can only mean one thing; cricket season is nearly here. It has been great to see the commitment from all cricket squads who have been turning out in force to practice during their early morning nets sessions, every day from 7.15am. We are all excited to see this hard work pay off when fixtures return next term.

Mr Thomas explaining the ‘core finisher’ to the year 10 rugby team at the end of their Strength and Conditioning session

RUNNIING CLUB SUCCESS

South East of England (virtual) Fixture

The virtual South East of England cross- country championships took place on Wednesday 24th March. The course was 5km long and headed out and back along the towpath towards Teddington Lock. Tiffin was represented by 8 male athletes and 5 female athletes. Everyone put in an excellent performance, with notable mentions going to debut runners, Matthew, Tong, Pollyanna, Freya and Sarah.

The men’s team placed 7th. In joint-first place for the men’s team were Jack Hartrey and Gianluca Maffi, followed by Euan Sinclair ,Charlie Krammer and Eyoel Abebaw-Mesfin in 3 rd , 4 th and 5 th place respectively. With Matthew Gibson, Tong Wu and Jonny Schafer all running valiantly to round out the team with a strong finish. Overall, everyone ran superbly and a great team effort by all. Report By Sarah Kenny and Jack Hartrey

The women’s team placed 5th. In first place was Neve Husaini, second Freya John ,third was Lottie Fry, fourth Pollyanna Roberts and fifth Sarah Kenny. With all runners demonstrating excellent team work and dedication throughout, ensuring a great outcome.

Many congratulation to Bulcsu Diossi in 12GT who has won the St John’s College Oxford Classics and Ancient History Essay Competition. He submitted an outstanding piece of work on Plato and democracy. He is a very deserving winner of this very prestigious prize.

The Tiffin Chess team has been competing online fortnightly on Friday Evenings since September against the top chess schools in the country. After narrowly missing out on victory on several occasions the Tiffin team finally triumphed on 26th February with a spectacular performance in the Inter School Fast team battle (where each player has on- ly 3 minutes to make all their moves). Four of Tiffin's players (Sagnik, Sid, Darshan and Ron) all finished among the top ten finishers in the tournament with Sagnik achieving the highest individual score. Inspired by this the 'B team' (those with Lichess ratings un- der 1300) then won their tournaments on both 12th March and 26th March to fill up the virtual trophy cabinet. Henry, Rojan and Masroor achieved top five finishes in these tournaments. With over 300 members it is fair to say Tiffin Chess is thriving; the team page can be found here: https://lichess.org/team/tiffin-school .

The Tiffin debating teams have had their busiest seasons of competition for decades. This weekend four teams of Year 12 students 'travelled' to Durham for the prestigeous Durham Schools Debating Competition. Each competitor spoke in five different debates totalling about ten hours of debating over the weekend - a phenomenal effort.

Maths Challenge Success

In the middle of lockdown, on 2nd February, 518 Tiffin students, largely from years 9 to 11, took part in the UK Maths Trust Intermediate Maths Challenge. Nationally, just 40% of participants are awarded certificates but our students' outstanding performance earned them 125 Gold, 153 Silver and 138 Bronze certificates. 172 students qualified for follow-on rounds including 22 for the prestigious Olympiads. Special mention must go to Ojas Gulati and Nathaniel Johnson in Year 11 who both achieved full marks. Congratulations to all the students for their enthusiasm and the hard work behind such fantastic results - our best ever! HOUSE UPDATE Another term, another challenge for all houses to adapt to challenge for glory this summer! The recent return to school has been welcomed by all and has seen a flourish of sport. Badminton, Basketball, Football, Rugby and the House Run across all year groups have kept the PE department suitably busy who deserve a special thanks for literally getting the ball rolling once more on the House Competition. With some rounds left to play in most of these competitions, we only saw a final overall victory in Badminton go to a resurgent Livingstone who add it to House Chess in their trophy cabinet for the year. This leaves the Championship delicately poised with DW currently holding a narrow lead but just 12 points separating the top 5 houses (CG, DW, KM, L & R). Mr. Brown, Principal Head of House

The extension to the Tiffin Sports Centre is now complete and was declared officially open by Old Tiffinian and Ex-England Cricket Captain, Alec Stewart OBE on 20 February 2021. In the current circumstances, it was not possible to invite everyone to the opening, but you can still share the experience: if you click this link you will see a video, filmed by our students, of the official opening by Alec Stewart. Generous donations from parents and alumni enabled us to complete this fantastic new building. Our School now has a large gym, filled with the latest exercise equipment, modern changing rooms and two fitness suites. On behalf of all current and future students who will benefit from this new facility, I would like to thank donors for their support.

A record-breaking 31 Tiffin students put their chemistry to the test in the preliminary round of the UK Chemistry Olympiad, run by the Royal Society of Chemistry. Students across Years 12 and 13, and one student from Year 11, took part in the challenge on Friday 22 January with excellent results. An amazing six students across Year 11-13 secured themselves a Gold Award, placing themselves in the top 8.9% of entrants across the UK: Maya Bertacche, Kush Kale, Ojas Gulati, Krish Walia, Sebastian Pereira, and Gianluca Maffi. Well done to all the students who took part, and congratulations to the lucky nineteen who secured an award.

The Rohan Godhania (2004—2020) Memorial Tree and Tenor Saxophone have both arrived at Tiffin School. Rohan was a keen musician and thanks to the generous donations of the Tiffin Community his love of music will live on.