Head's Newsletter 11 November 2016

Year 9 Trip report to Queen Mary’s University

The 16 who travelled represented Tiffin impeccably and showed the organisers how insightful and astute they can be. All seemed to enjoy themselves and took a great deal away from what was a well organised and fascinating day. MATHS—TIFFIN BOYS COME FIRST! On Thursday 3 rd November, an elite team of some of our best senior mathematicians, Hosouk Lee, Jim Tse (both Y13), Maxi Purewal (Y12) and Navonil Neogi (Y11) competed in the Regional Final of the Senior Team Maths Challenge. On paper it was our strongest team yet and our reputation clearly preceded us after our perfect score of 180/180 last year, with Wellington looking downcast after they enquired what school we were from. The event consisted of 3 rounds: a group round consisting of 10 difficult maths problems for the team to solve together, a cross number (the maths equivalent of a crossword), and the dreaded 'relay', where students have to work against the clock and where each answer feeds in to the next question. The boys lived up to their reputation, with a commanding performance that saw them achieving 1 st place and hence a place in the National Final in February. Tiffin saw off competition from Wellington College (in 2 nd place) among other schools such as St Paul's Girls’ and Tiffin Girls’. Congratulations to the four of them.

16 Year 9 pupils travelled to Queen Mary’s University, in Mile End London, on November 8 th to take part in a day of workshops laid on by the British Institute of Human Rights to introduce a joint project with Surbiton High School.

The project is designed not only to help pupils’ understanding of the importance of British Human Rights and the work done by the BIHR, but also to help their ability to collaborate with others, present their ideas in front of large audiences and to write a joint dissertation that is thoroughly researched and clearly structured. The day at Queen Mary’s involved numerous activities and talks set up by the BIHR and gave the boys an opportunity to work with and share ideas with the girls from Surbiton High. It was a fantastic introduction to the themes involved and has given the boys, in their four groups of four, a number of ideas about how to select a topic to study and how to write a discursive essay together. Serious themes such as immigration, euthanasia and child abuse were covered sensitively and maturely by all involved.