Head's Newsletter 19 January 2018

Dear Parents, Welcome to the first newsletter of 2018, and may I wish a Happy New Year to all pupils and parents. It seems a long time ago now but I must commend the incredible choir as they sang in our School and Guest Carol Services just before Christmas. It was particularly good to see so many current and former pupils, parents and staff attending, including two past heads, Hilda Clarke and Tony Dempsey. University offers have started to come in, and I'm very pleased that 18 sixth formers have received offers from Oxford or Cambridge; we look forward to all the University offers being made in what is a very exciting time for Year 13. Year 11 mock exams were completed before Christmas, when the boys received their results. I hope that Year 11 parents found the consultations with teachers last week useful. As the Year 11s meet senior staff to discuss their sixth form options, it is good to see them very focused, with only four months to go before the first GCSEs. There is of course much activity at School as usual. A number of trips have either gone, or are going out during this half term, including the current trip to Berlin and also the German exchange next week. The Rugby season has recommenced and

so far not been disrupted by weather. It was also good to be at the Boathouse on Saturday with Ian Keary, Head of Tiffin Girls’ School, to see our rowers training. A significant number of girls from TGS are members of our Rowing Club and it was good to see our new boat being named after last year’s Girls’ Captain of Boats. We look forward to the School play being put on in the Drama Studio, The Madness of George III , and also to the boys performing in the House Singing during this term. Following her talk given to year 11s before Christmas, it was good to see many parents at the inspirational talk on drugs on Monday given by Fiona Spargo-Mabbs, whose son tragically died as a result of drugs four years ago. At the start of this new term we welcome two new teachers to the school. Mr Haley joins the RP Department, and Mr Blundell joins Drama to cover the absence of Ms Hughes while she's on maternity leave. Miss O'Connell also becomes Acting Head of Drama, and Mr Brown becomes Acting Head of Year 12. We wish them great success. The new canteen/classroom building is coming on very well and we look forward to its completion, hopefully this term. We are a little short of our target of £200,000

IMPORTANT DATES

Tuesday 23 January

Y9 Parents’ Consultations: School finishes at 2 pm

Twilight PDD—school finishes at 2 pm

Tuesday 30 January

House Singing Final, Sports Hall at 7 pm

Wednesday 31 January

School Play: The Madness of George III at 7 pm

5 February to 8 February

Friday 9 February

Professional Development Day: no boys in school

10 –18 February

Half Term. Boys return Monday, 19 January at 8.30 am

to fit out the building, but there is still time to donate towards it. All contributions would be most welcome, and any donations of £500 or more will ensure your name is listed on the commemorative plaque. I would encourage parents to donate to this fantastic project so that we can continue to create the best possible working environment for your sons. To donate to the New Building Fund, simply log in to ParentPay , choose a ‘Voluntary Donation - New Building Appeal’ option and put in the amount you wish to donate. Alternatively, you can donate by bank transfer or cheque; please see the form to

TOP OF THE BENCH COMPETITION For the second year in a row the finest Chemists from Years 9, 10 and 11, facing stiff competition, went on to win the regional heat of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Top of the Bench competition. The event on the 16 January at Reed’s School in Cobham consisted of a practical test and written quiz sat individually by all the boys. The winning team not only beat the next nearest team by 12 marks but also Linn Lu was the first boy this year to get full marks on one round! We are waiting to see if the boys will progress to the next round (it’s looking likely!) but what a fantastic result! Congratulations to Jack Yu 9CCC, Alistair Brendon 9RC, Jacob Maynard 10KB and Linn Lu 11AN.

do so. Please also remember to tick the Gift Aid consent if you are eligible to do so as we are able to then claim back from the Government 25p in every £1 donated. I wish all pupils a very successful term. Yours, M D Gascoigne Headteacher

On Wednesday, 22 November Tiffin’s Jack Petchey award winners were presented with their awards by the Mayor of King- ston, Councillor Julie Pickering, at the Rich- mond Theatre. These boys were nominat- ed by their peers and chosen by the school council for these awards based on their significant contributions to the Tiffin com- munity. Dr Frost was also given the prestigious Jack Petchey Leader Award for his phenomenal contribution to Tiffin through his excellent teaching and the provision of his website www.drfrostmaths.com , which receives about 50,000 hits a day and is having a ma- jor impact on maths teaching around the globe. Dr Frost is pictured to the right.

link: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/ event/221979

Tickets are priced at £8 for adults and £5 for concessions. Alternatively, students can bring cash to the Drama Office and buy tickets at school. British Physics Olympiad Congratulations to the boys below who sat the British Physics Olympiad. This year over 1,740 students participated. The paper was designed to stretch and challenge the top young physicists in the country in a national competition, so congratulations to our students for participating. Every question was indeed a real challenge. The papers have now been marked and I am delighted to report that two of our boys achieved a silver and bronze medal, placing them in the top 300 students in the country. MORE COMPETITION SUCCESS Congratulations to a team of Year 10 students who entered the European Astro Pi Mission Zero Challenge competition. They successfully designed and wrote a computer program that will be run on a Raspberry Pi in the international space station in early 2018. The students involved were: Kaylan Bakrania, Priyansh Mahajan, Anupa Adikary, Ravi Parmar, Vishal Kumar, and Druhan Mewasingh. NAME AWARD Chinmay Joylear Silver Sathanan Pathmanathan Bronze 1

Tickets are now on sale for this year’s main school production ‘The Madness of George III’ by Alan Bennett. George III’s behaviour has often been odd, but now he is deranged, with rumours circulating that he has even addressed an oak tree as the King of Prussia. Doctors are brought in, the government wavers and the Prince Regent manoeuvres himself into power. Alan Bennett’s play explores the court of a mad king and the fearful treatments he was forced to undergo. It is about the nature of kingship itself, showing how by subtle degrees the ruler’s delirium erodes his authority and status. The play is taking place from 5–8 February at 7 pm in the Drama Studio, and tickets can be bought online from the following

UKMT Senior Maths Challenges

The large quantity of fully working pro- grams was incredibly encouraging, with some excellent scores achieved by many. Special congratulations should go to Vin- cent Trieu (Yr12) and Ojas Gulati (Yr8) achieving 86% and 84% respectively, clearly not content with their recent Distinctions in the British Maths Olympiad. These marks we hope will result in invitations to the Na- tional Final in Cambridge later in the year. CROSS COUNTRY On Saturday 13th January the Knole Run took place at Sevenoaks in Kent. This is a tough race; aside from being the longest, it includes a number of challenging hills with very muddy terrain. Despite this challenge and three of our leading runners impeded by illness or injury we finished 6 places up from last year! Our first runner over the line was Eric Williams (11EWS) who was 32 nd out of more than 200 runners. He was followed by Aaron Bruce (13HB), Kai Pisch- ke (12 AC), Kieran Desmond (12MKY) and Jamie Krammer (12 MKY). A top 14 place in the country was a great result.

On Tuesday 7 November 118 Tiffinians sat the UKMT Senior Maths Challenge. We have become accustomed to excellent re- sults and this year was no exception with 41 boys qualifying for the two prestigious follow on rounds. In addition Vincent Trieu achieved full marks on this paper – a very rare feat. This week we have received the results back from the UKMT Kangaroo competition (one of the follow-on rounds). A remarkable 13 boys have achieved a cer- tificate of merit – the highest possible achievement in the Kangaroo paper and roughly equivalent to being in the top 2000 Sixth Form mathematicians national- ly. The results from the 9 boys who quali- fied for the other follow-on round, The British Maths Olympiad, are still awaited. On Monday 8 January, 10 students took part in the British Informatics Olympiad, a 3 hour programming competition requiring students to produce code for 3 different problems of increasing difficulty. The com- petition is targeted at older students, but it was heartening to see so much enthusiasm from a number of year groups, with years 8, 9, 10 and 12 represented. British Informatics Olympiad

On January 14 th Will Potter 13MH, aka Cor- poral Will Potter, represented Kingston Air Training Corps as a senior (17½ yrs +) in the Surrey Wing Cross Country competition at Kenley Airfield. After finishing in first place he was requested to represent Surrey at the London and South East Region (LASER) Cross Country competition on January 28 th . Many congratulations to him.

University of East London on 13 January. As South London champions, the team, con- sisting of Ashrith Behara, Harshil Shah, Oli- ver Cheung and Aarya Karthik, competed against London’s finest teams to progress to the Regional Finals. Tiffin played superbly in their first match of the group stage, beating Burlington Danes 7-1. In the second match against City of London School impressive victories from all players secured a 5-3 win and guaranteed Tiffin a place in the semi-finals. In the final group match they faced tough opposition from University College School and despite some outstanding performances, suffered their first loss as a team. Second place in the group stages, meant that Tiffin faced the top team in the other half of the draw, Sacred Hearts, in the semi -finals. All matches were close, but Sacred Hearts pulled through. Despite narrowly missing qualification for the Regional Finals, there was still the Bronze medal to be decided. In the 3rd place play-off, Tiffin faced London Acade- my. With four 5-game matches and two 4- game matches it was one of the closest and most thrilling contests of the competition. All players showed tremendous skill and determination in claiming a 5-3 victory and a medal. They are a credit to Tiffin. Fan- tastic job boys!

MUSIC NEWS The annual Service of Lessons and Carols at Kingston Parish Church celebrated the Christmas story through the traditional structure of readings and choral and con- gregational carols. One boy from each year of the school read a lesson, and there were many excellent solos from within the choir, including an extremely fluent rendition of some 16th century Spanish from Euan O’Connor and Kiran Dasani. Daniel Blaze sang his last solo as Head Chorister, ending his time as a Boys' Choir treble on a high (and very beautiful) note. On the final night of term, the main hall was transformed into a festive jazz venue, complete with a bar run by the Friends of Tiffin Music, and fantastic performances from Swing Band, Jazz Combo and TYJO.

Just a few hours before this, the ABRSM exam results came through to reveal a 100% pass rate, with 51% of the boys who entered reaching Distinction, and Ben Gib- son achieving 91% in his Grade 8 Singing. This cohort also included Tiffin’s very first ARSM candidate (a new diploma offered by the ABRSM), and Henry Saywell (guitar) rose through the challenge with flying col- ours. MORE MEDALS FOR TIFFIN TABLE TENNIS The Butterfly National Schools Team Cham- pionships Zone Finals took place at the

Wycombe eight tries to three. If they can keep on improving whilst keeping their feet on the ground they will become a force to be reckoned with. Are you a TIPRA supporter yet: Tiffin parents supporting Tiffin school rugby? To find out who your TIPRA parent representative is please email ablackburn@tiffin.kingston.sch.uk. Follow us on Twitter @tiffinrugby for up- dates on school rugby!

The Senior squad have a had brutal start to 2018, with two games in 4 days against strong opposition. Wednesday 10 January saw the annual U21s Old Boys fixture un- der floodlights and whilst the school team put up an admirable fight, noticeably in the first half, a bigger and stronger Old Boys outfit simply over powered them. It is a great sign of ex-pupils continuing to play the game and at a high standard too. Due to injuries sustained, Tiffin were then only able to field one senior team against RGS High Wycombe, a fixture that had not been played for five years. On a cold day, with yet more injuries increasing the odds against Tiffin, Daniel Morlans-Whitehead led by example, played as good a game as a Tiffin fly-half has for some time and steered the team home to a 7 – 5 victory, scoring all Tiffin’s points in the process. This was an admirable performance and the boys, rightfully proud, are now looking to finish the season strongly. Whilst this will be a big task, the squad spirit will see them through. Elsewhere in school rugby there have been other notable successes. The U12A side are becoming a seriously exciting prospect. They have now not lost since October 6 th last year and claimed another impressive scalp on Saturday beating RGS High

What do Economists do? The A Level Economics lecture series fin- ished in December with a fascinating in- sight into the day- to-day work of profes- sional economists. Marie Clark, economist at the Competition and Markets Authority talked students through the CMA’s recent investigation into the UK Energy Market. In her talk, Mrs Clark outlined the reasons why Ofgem had requested the CMA to in- vestigate the industry and she then gave a comprehensive analysis of the extent to which the energy market was working in the interests of all domestic consumers in the UK. She closed with her thoughts on the future direction of the energy market, the role of the regulator and the wider im- pact of the CMA. Throughout her talk, Mrs Clark demonstrated to our students that although economists must be numerate, the skilled economist has to be able to communicate their findings to a non- specialist audience whilst showing sensitiv- ity to the political context of economic poli- cy-making.

The School XV and the Old Boys U21 XV, under lights at Imber Court

On Thursday 18 January Year 10 GCSE students and the Year 9 Junior Dance Company visited the Royal Ballet School in Covent Garden. The day started with a tour of the build- ing followed by the demonstration ballet class. Tiffin students got a unique oppor- tunity to gain an insight into the ballet training of some of the best young danc- ers in the world.

The Royal Ballet School is one of the world’s greatest centres of classical ballet training. The School’s aim is to train and educate outstanding classical ballet danc- ers. The Royal Ballet School has, for gener- ations, produced dancers and choreogra- phers of international renown.