Head's Newsletter 23 March 2018

Dear Parents As the year speeds on, it seems incredible that we are approaching the end of another term! The Year 11s and Year 13s are now approaching the final leg of their courses, and their exams will soon be upon us; indeed the Year 11s will only have three further weeks after Easter before the commencement of their study leave, with the Year 13s leaving shortly after. We obviously wish them all the best as they focus their efforts in the approach to the final exams. I'm very excited that we are on course to open the new building after Easter. There will inevitably be some disruption as we move the catering out of the Main Hall and into the new building. The new building is looking great and it is very exciting to now see the final finishes going on. I am sure the boys will love the new facilities which of course have been made possible partly through the generosity of parents giving to the building fund. We are grateful indeed for all donations that have been received. This newsletter once again reflects the wide diversity of activity that Tiffin school encourages. It's always amazing to see just what our boys are involved in. As a School we consider the wider opportunities that we offer as important in fostering the

attributes and skills necessary for success in life, and developing our students as rounded young people. In sport, we've had some fantastic success in Basketball recently, as well as some of the Rugby Sevens. There is also a report on the first Rowing Regattas of the season. Alongside this, you will see an updated report on our Duke of Edinburgh programme. There are also reports on a number of competitions and activities in recent weeks including the regional ‘Lit Quiz’ which Tiffin host, the debating competitions that we have entered, the TFL Youth Project which we are part of and have successfully won a bid for, and the Classical Reading competition. In the performing arts we had a very successful concert on Tuesday, and our dancers paid a visit to the Barbican and also performed at School. We also highlight in this newsletter the School play and the success of our art teachers’ own exhibitions. I wish you, your families and all the Tiffin students an excellent Easter break and look forward to our return on the 16 th April. Yours, M D Gascoigne, Headteacher

IMPORTANT DATES

Break up for Easter—School finishes just after midday

Thursday 29 March

Monday 16 April

Start of Summer term—usual 8.30 start (week A)

Wednesday 25 April

Y10 Parents’ Consultations: School finishes at 2.40 pm

Thursday 3 May

School Concert, All Saints Kingston at 7 pm

Y11 Study Leave commences from 3.30 pm

Friday 4 May

Monday 7 May

Bank Holiday—School closed

On Tuesday 13 th March TSBC raced at The Scullery at Eton Dorney Lake. We fielded crews across the year groups and came away with results to be respected. Our senior boat came 10 th overall in Junior 18 quads. In a quality field they did well to place this high. J15 boys and girls put in a decent performance coming mid-table in what was the hardest and most subscribed event. The most notable result, in the first ever race was the J14 boys quad that place a strong 14 th in a field of 50 boats. ( See photo below)

Tiffin School has received a Commendation in the ESU Debating Culture Award! The judges remarked that they enjoyed reading our application, and were impressed with our school’s initiatives that celebrate a whole-school debating culture. Well done to the Debating Society (which is 100% student run).

In exciting news, the casting director of The Crown, the highly regarded series on Netflix, came to Tiffin on 14 March to audition some boys to play the part of Prince Charles as a teenager in the forthcoming series. We wait to hear if one of them has been successful! Old Tiffinian, James Lawn, competed in the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) Head on the Tyne in Newcastle. He was rowing in the Championship Lightweight Quads for Nottingham University and his crew won bronze. Very well done. James’ crew pictured right ROWING

Our next race will be Chiswick regatta on the 5 th May where we hope to field more

Miss Nava, the Head of Art, was proud to have a collection of her artwork installed at the Herrick Gallery on Piccadilly. The exhibition comprised of 6 female artists who were raising money for the fight against cervical cancer, as the proceeds went to charity.

Sam Read, the Art Technician, was chosen from The Affordable Art Fair (AAF), UK, to represent female artists. The piece, ’Halcyon’ below, was the Gallery stand favourite. Her paintings are being exhibited on the ‘Prince & Pilgrim Gallery’ stand at the fair.

‘Beside’ (below) was chosen for the AAF display .

dominated drove towards the basket at every opportunity. Even the re-introduction of Coombe’s no.11 could not slow the Tiffin onslaught to the point that by the end of the 3 rd quarter Tiffin had established a slim 2- point lead, 58-56. A nervy 4 th quarter followed where both teams struggled to stem the other’s attack but Gideon Afreh (9RH) used his stamina and athleticism to force Coombe’s prolific PG into more and more contested shots. With less than a minute to go Tiffin held the lead by a single point. Crucially the Coombe’s and

On Thursday 15 th March, the 14-man U14 Basketball squad travelled to Surrey Sports Park at the University of Surrey to compete in the finals of the Surrey Cup. Having qualified via wins against Glenthorne High School (41-26), Wimbledon College (49-29) and St. John the Baptist School (37-30) the boys were cautiously optimistic as they prepared to face up against a strong Coombe Boys’ team they had edged out earlier in the year (50-43). However, from that win the boys were all too aware of the danger posed by

Coombe’s outstanding point-guard (no.11) who would prove to be a key player once again. By the end of the first quarter, Coombe had established a solid 20-14 lead that they managed to extend to a 42-28 point lead by half time. This lead was built on the exceptional play of

no.11 committed his fifth foul that saw him fouled out of the game and Tiffin secure two free throws of which one was converted. This gave Tiffin a 2- point lead that they managed to

the Coombe PG whose consistency of shooting made him almost impossible to stop. At half time the boys were noticeably frustrated with their inability to shut down the prolific no.11 but having already turned around a half time double-digit deficit earlier in the season, remained confident they could do the same this time. Forced to rest their no.11 due to an accumulation of fouls, the Tiffin boys made hay by shutting down the Coombe offence and going on a scoring run of their own, thanks in large part to the outstandingly aggressive play of Roman Price (8RG) who, despite playing up a year, physically

defend with great aggression and energy shutting out the Coombe attack once more to hold out for a magnificent 73-71 win (64 of their points scored by their PG!). Throughout a fantastically well-fought match, the Tiffin boys demonstrated superb determination, persistence and athletic ability. It was a fantastically fitting way to end a great season that saw the team lose just a single game. They should be as proud of their achievements as I am to coach them. Mr D Brown

DANCE TRIP

MATHS NEWS Back in January, a number of Tiffinians took part in the British Informatics Olympiad, a 3 hour exam involving the writing of code to solve 3 difficult algorithmic problems. We are delighted to hear that Vincent Trieu (Year 12) has been invited to to the National Final, a feat achieved by only the top 15 students in the country. He will be given a VIP treatment at Trinity College, Cambridge University in April, where he will spend 3 days for this final stage of the competition. We wish Vincent every success as he competes. This adds to his continued success in the British Maths Olympiad, where he has previously reached the exclusive Round 2 (top 100 students nationally). Special mention should go to Ojas Gulati (Year 8), who narrowly missed the top 15 in the BIO by a couple of marks. BOROUGH LIT QUIZ On Thursday 8 th March, six Year 7 boys competed in the finals of the Borough Lit Quiz. They showed excellent team work and were a credit to Tiffin. They were up against stiff competition and came a commendable 4 th . Well done Boys!' Photo from left to right: Neel Podder, Tom Ryan, Krish Chohan, Ben-Luca Atassi- Quinton, Meet Thakkar & Charles Sauve

Year 10 GCSE dancers had a rare opportunity to watch an open rehearsal of Ballet Black at the Barbican on Thursday 15 th March. Boys watched 2 pieces ‘The Suit’ and ‘A Dream within Midsummer Night’s Dream’. It was an inspiring experience for all.

DUKE OF EDINBURGH AWARD

Participation has been very high in the Duke of Edinburgh Award Schemes this year with over 200 students signing up to complete the bronze, silver or gold award.

route, map read, put up a tent, basic first aid and all did very well keeping up with the physical demands of carrying all their kit. They also learnt from various mistakes so that next time they will not be carrying 10 chocolate bars each a day but will bring good waterproofs.

The schemes involve students taking part in service to the community, a physical recreation, learning a skill and going on expeditions. Students organise and choose what they would like to do for these sections. Students have chosen an impressive variety of things, including volunteering in charity shops across Surrey and Middlesex, helping out with Park Run, learning how to code, woodwork carving and taking part in karate, football and of course rugby.

This term the students have been busy planning their qualifying expeditions. For this they have to plan their routes to make sure they walk for the required number of hours a day and can get to their campsites on time. Only one group so far has been told their route is too short! The bronze expeditions are taking place in the Easter holidays on the North Downs, let’s hope for sunny weather!

Their favourite part of the scheme is usually the expedition. The bronze and silver cohorts both had successful practice expeditions last term to the North and South Downs. The bronze groups, who are new to expeditions, learnt how to plan a

The scheme is aimed at highlighting and encouraging ‘Safer, Greener’ travel around the capital. They were successful in their bid and received over £230 to fund their ambitious scheme this year. Well done to Gurshant Jnagal, Navjot Flora, Shreyan Singh and Varun Tiwari. Elsewhere in school rugby and with the most success were the U13s who after winning all of their Surrey 7s group games went into the top tier of the ‘waterfall competition’. Two more wins out of the four games played in the afternoon meant Tiffin finished a hugely impressive joint 3 rd place. These wins include scalps over the lieks of John Fisher and tournament favourites, Trinity. A truly fantastic achievement. Well done to the whole squad and notably Sam Clough (who must also be congratulated on his selection for the London Irish Academy squad), Alex Cormack and player of the tournament, Hector Mizukubo. Sam Clough gets an outrageous offload away for Hector to score on the corner

Classical Reading Competition

Congratulations to Duncan Tarboton who came second in the Senior Section of the prestigious ARLT Latin Reading Competition and to Euan O’Connor, Georgiy Lesyuk and Will Tillotson who were all highly commended in their sections. A large number of students participated in this national event so the boys did extremely well in what was Tiffin’s first entry into such a competition in some time. Thanks go to Mr Karski for organising this and for preparing the boys so well. TFL’s ‘YOUTH TRAVEL’ PROGRAMME This year’s Transport for London ‘Youth Travel Ambassador’ programme is up and running with four keen year 10 students.

They pitched their ideas to a dragon’s den panel comprised of TFL and Local Council experts.

The Senior squad finished their season with a good day out at the National 7s hosted by Rosslyn Park. Aiming to repeat last year’s squad heroics the boys trained hard and were in good form. A strong start against Milton Abbey School saw Tiffin run out comfortable winners. In their second game, despite tries from Captain fantastic Gavin Griffith and Jielong Yong, the boys took their foot off the gas and conceded a late try to lose the game and essentially rule themselves out from progressing in the tournament. Two more tough games including a live-streamed game on the main pitch against Daily Mail Cup finalists, Blundells School saw the boys finish fourth in their group but all had a good day. As Mr Watkins put it ‘we won the last 30 seconds of the last game you will play in the shirt’. Fittingly the last try of the game was scored by Rory Coats who has been a stalwart of the 1 st XV this year. Well done and my thanks to all the boys who committed to the team ethic this year and turned out week in week out to train and play with their peers as a team unit.

The 1 st VII Squad

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 updates on school rugby!

GCSE Dance evening took place on Thursday 22 nd March in the Drama Studio. It involved set phrases, group performances and choreographies from Year 10 and 11 dancers and some year 9’s. Well done to all who participated.

In February this year’s main school production – The Madness of George III—was staged in the Drama studio, which was arranged in an end-on style with an impressive staircase and balcony in the centre of the stage. Audience members have praised the high standard of acting shown by the cast, which included boys from Year 7 to Year 13 as well as girls from Tiffin Girls School. In particular, Ben Willows excelled in the role of King George, gradually becoming more and more delusional to the point of insanity. Despite there being a slightly different cast each night, all four shows were flawlessly performed with moments of intense drama and hilarious comedy throughout. Thanks to the efforts of Ms Harris for her sewing skills, all the actors were beautifully dressed in regal robes, waistcoats, corsets and more, with professional props and costumes also hired from the National Theatre. The great success of this play reflects the hard work of Ms O’Connell since auditions began in October and the many hours invested in this play by her and all members of the cast.