Head's Newsletter 3 March 2017

from a wide range of different backgrounds is one of the things that makes the Tiffin Sixth Form so special. This newsletter once again shows the range of activities that our boys have been involved in. The Rugby season has come to an end in terms of the regular Saturday fixtures, but we are now in the Rugby Sevens season, with lots of competitions for different year groups. It was a great pleasure to host our annual Year 7 Browne Trophy last Friday, when we had 12 schools competing at Grist’s in that competition. I'm delighted that the Year 7 U12 team also won the Ibstock Sevens competition, defeating Hampton in the final. Also on the sports front very special mention must go to the Basketball U15 team who defeated Harris Crystal Palace to become Surrey League Champions: a fantastic achievement. The U14s are also doing very well in their league. As we start some of the cricket nets again, it acts as a reminder to us that summer is on its way! On Music, there's lots to read about and plenty of events that are coming up soon. I would also make mention of the terrific performances in Maths competitions, and in our new number brain house competition. Do also read about the Art and other trips. Yours, M D Gascoigne

Dear Parents It's been good to see the boys back after the half term break for what will undoubtedly be a very busy few weeks. For Year 11 and Year 13, this next half term will be very important, as the exams approach. It's great to see so many of Year 13 holding excellent university offers including a good number for Oxford and Cambridge. In the lower years it's been good to see parents at the recent Parents’ Consultations which I hope you have found useful. The building work is coming on very well. Following demolition in January, the piling was completed over half term, and the construction company are currently working on the rest of the foundations. It will be very exciting to see the building go up. The fundraising for the building is going well and we are well over halfway towards our £200,000 target. If you have not been able to contribute yet, please do so, ideally through ParentPay , to enable us to give the best possible facilities to our boys. It is also that time of the academic year when we start to look forward to new generations of Tiffinians joining the school. We are shortly starting our meetings with the many new boys who are wanting to join our Sixth Form. With about 35-40% of the Sixth Form new to the school, the blend of our old Year 11 with lots of new students

IMPORTANT DATES

Y12 Higher Education Evening, JLT, 7 pm

Tuesday 7 March

Chamber Music Concert, Walden Hall, 7 pm

Wednesday 15 March

Thursday 30 March

The School Concert, All Saints’ Church, Kingston, 7 pm

Friday 7 April

Break up for Easter holiday

Monday 24 April

Start of Summer term

Y10 Parents’ Consultations: School finishes at 1 pm

Wednesday 26 April

Bank Holiday

Monday 1 May

Y11 Study Leave commences

Friday 5 May

The Art Department have had a very busy Spring term conducting learning beyond the classroom. Recently, year groups 10, 11, 12 & 13 visited Tate Modern and Tate Britain. Year 10 are currently exploring man-made structures and studying Architecture and learning about Modernism. The Southbank provided an excellent opportunity to conduct brutalist photography shoots. The Art Department gallery trips provide essential inspiration and research for students to begin their exam topics.

A level work by Omar El Amine

Students from the Year 12 and 13 Art Group on their way to Tate Modern

A mixed media Art Club has been running since October, in which Key Stage 3 pupils have created Frank Stella style installations, experimenting with new materials. The Art Department has been involved in a Drawing Matters Programme, in which local artist, Stuart Simler, comes in and delivers high quality weekly after school workshops on experimental drawing techniques to Key Stage 3 students.

On 23 rd February, a selection of Tiffin Art Students from GCSE and A-Level were fortunate to attend Kingston Grammar’s Visual Arts Careers evening. The careers event was attended by their former Alumni with careers in Architecture, Interior Design, Photography, Fashion, Illustration, Film directing and Writing.

This cardboard sculpture is aYear 10 GCSE project based on Robert Delaunay “Red Eiffel Tower” (1911)

Inspiring work by Inigo Archer, Year 13

The Art Department has recently started a Twitter Account, “Tiffin Art 2017”, please follow the Twitter account to see the students’ latest art works and hear of current art events that students from all Year groups could enjoy to expand their learning in Art, beyond the classroom.

This was an outstanding opportunity for students to network with professionals. Even at 9.40 pm, Tiffin students were still deeply engaged in discussions. The students learnt how they can utilise their current Art skills to develop future careers in the Arts and were guided on how to gain work experience in these highly competitive fields.

VISIT TO ROYAL HOLLOWAY UNIVERSITY

On 24 th February, 13 Year 12 students attended an immersion day at Royal Holloway University of London in celebration of Rare Disease Day. The day is used to bring awareness to the number of rare genetic diseases that have been discovered to date, but also to those that have not yet been discovered. Many charities use the day to raise awareness, but to also fundraise for research, which is vital for the progression of knowledge and understanding of these diseases, as well as medical advances.

inheritance and some lab techniques to determine the genotype of offspring from parents with specific rare diseases.

After lunch, the students went round a carousel of university life information, specifically about Royal Holloway, but there was also information about Biology based degrees. The final task of the day was aptly named “DNA Detectives”. The students were given fact files about certain diseases and patient symptoms, and then had to match the patient to fact file. The Tiffin students worked very well in their groups, and both groups scored 10/10. They all thoroughly enjoyed their prize of a bag of Haribo on the minibus drive back to school!

The day started with a series of lectures from Dr Rafael Yàñez-Muñoz (Reader in Advanced Therapy), and Dr Alberto Malerba (Project manager for Ocularpharyngeal Muscular Dystrophy), as well as talks from both the SWAN UK and Action for A-T foundations. These not only informed the students of the research that is currently happening, but also enlightened them to the symptoms and prognosis for some of the diseases that are known. We then moved onto a practical session in one of Royal Holloway's biomedical labs, where the students used their knowledge of X-linked disease

MATHEMATICS NEWS

UKMT Intermediate Maths Challenge Most UK schools now enter their best students for the UKMT Intermediate Maths challenge and this year on 2 nd February about quarter of a million boys and girls in Years 9 to 11 sat this exam. Tiffin entered just over 200 boys. Very few schools, if any, can match the results that this year’s Tiffin cohort achieved; 94 boys achieved Gold certificates (placing them in the top 7% of all those sitting the paper); 24 boys qualified for the Olympiad competitions (which the top 500 students in each of years 9, 10 and 11 are invited to sit) and a further 76 were invited to sit the Kangaroo competitions (for those who just miss out on Olympiad qualification). These follow- on competitions all take place on Thursday 16 th March. These are the best results Tiffin has ever achieved in this competition (see table below) and testify to the enormous amount of hard work and ambition put in by the maths team and the boys alike. Special congratulations should go to Navonil Neogi, who achieved a perfect score of 135, and Year 7 student, Nathaniel Johnson, who achieved 121 despite entering two years early.

and 9 boys. The competition which took place in the dance studio at lunch time involved a group round, a shuttle round and a relay round based on the well- established UKMT Team Maths Challenge. The competition had a real buzz and ran very smoothly. It was won by Kingsley Montgomery’s team of Arnav Jadhav and Darshan Kumaresan (Y9), Matthew O’Donovan (Y8) and Nathaniel Johnson (Y7) who maintained a narrow lead from the first round.

Tiffin Boy Invited to UK Maths Team Training Camp

In advance of the International Maths Olympiad in Brazil this summer, the best 22 school-age mathematicians in the UK gather at Trinity College, Cambridge over Easter for a four day training camp. Last week Navonil Neogi (still in year 11) received an invitation to join the squad. The Maths Department are hugely proud of Navonil’s achievement which follows on from his performance in the second round of the British Maths Olympiad in which he achieved a Distinction.

Junior house Number Brain On Wednesday 1 st March Ms Bickerstaff organised the inaugural Tiffin Junior House Number Brain Competition for 32 year 7, 8

U15S BASKETBALL

Surrey League Champions The U15s finished the school basketball season unbeaten on Tuesday 28 February winning the Surrey League play-off final 52-44, defeating top schools along the way such as Richard Challoner, St Andrews, Carshalton Boys Sports College and Harris Academy Crystal Palace.

They have shown amazing teamwork and resilience throughout the season and the extra hours before school have worked in their favour when faced with tough opposition. The team have suffered many injuries during the season but always came together to win tough games away from home. The U15s are also competing in a strong fielded Surrey U16s CVL (Central Venue League) which take place on Sundays at Stanley Park School and Horley Leisure Centre. They are currently sitting in third place behind Kingston Wildcats and Richmond Knights which is a great achievement considering all teams feature players a year older than them from many different schools combined into one team. With 17 games under their belt this season and the CVL play-offs

approaching in four weeks, the U15s have won their last six games, gained in confidence, picked up another trophy and have become a dominant team in Surrey.

Mr Martin Head of PE

YEAR 9 BASKETBALL

though defensively we still have some work to do. I am impressed with the level of commitment to training and how the boys conduct themselves at these tournaments. It was also great to see some parents showing their

The Year 9 basketball team played their second tournament on Sunday 26 th February at ACS Cobham; what a performance they put in! Our first match was against Woking Blackhawks U16 girls’ , a team containing a number of experienced players and possessing a height advantage; despite this it was a very close match which we narrowly lost by one point.

support and I look forward to the next tournament with high hopes. Mr Shepherd Year 9 basketball coach

Our second match was against Surrey Rams, again very evenly matched and a hard fought game which we lost by only three points. I am very happy with the team’s improvement; we now look and play like a team that can create space and opportunities for each other to score,

MUSIC

Tiffin Oratorio ‘Come and Sing’ Mozart Requiem

House Singing

Further to the report in the last newsletter the overall winners (by some margin) were Scott House followed by Raleigh and Drake.

Over 100 singers, adults and boys, took part in a terrific day of preparing and singing the Mozart Requiem at St Luke’s Church, Kingston. Directed by James Day, with piano accompaniment provided by Simon Ferris, this was an opportunity for the Oratorio choir to reunite and raise over £1,700 for the forthcoming choir tour to Spain this summer.

Milo Morrod (CG); treble solo winner

Tristan McElderry (KM); ATB solo winner

Forthcoming concerts: Chamber Music Concert on Wed 15 th March, Walden Hall, 7.00 pm Involving the school’s smaller instrumental ensembles Choir Concert on Wed 22 nd March, All Saints’ Church, Kingston, 7.00 pm Tiffin Boys’ Choir, Choirs from The Tiffin Girls’ School, Oratorio trebles, Cambiata and Tiffin Children’s Chorus sing Fauré Requiem , Tallis Lamentations and more School Concert on Thurs 30 th March, All Saints’ Church, Kingston, 7.00 pm Involving the school’s larger instrumental ensembles alongside all pupils in Year 7 who will perform the jazz cantata ‘Assyria’s Concern’, written by the school’s Composer in Residence, Simon Ferris.

Edwin

Jarratt

Barnham

(S);

conductor’s baton & best unison song

RUGBY REPORT

U12 RUGBY SUCCESS

The Saturday Tiffin rugby season ended with a block fixture against St George’s Harpenden. Results are always close against them and this season was no different (see below for scores). The 1 st XV had an extraordinary game with Reigate, losing to a penalty in the last minute to go down 21–20 so numerous boys missed out on the opportunity of a red (10 wins) or gold (25 wins) tie. Hopefully these boys can get over the last hurdle in the final 15-aside game of the season versus Harrodian next week. The 7s season has also started with aplomb. The 1 st VII entered a very strong Middlesex 7s tournament and ended as runners up in the Plate Competition. Strong performances from Captain Will Sharp, Stefan Frost and Hayden Hyde were key to this achievement. The U12s won the Ibstock Place tournament beating local rivals Hampton 25 – 10 in the final. This year’s Browne Trophy was also a resounding success. Tiffin ended a respectable 6 th ; the winners were Wimbledon College who beat Richard Challoner in a pulsating final. We look forward to ending the 7s season on a high before the Senior Leavers meal on March 24 th (see Mr Blackburn for details).

The U12s competed in the Ibstock Place School 7s on Tuesday. We scored 25 tries in the group stages beating Hampton, Kew House, Ibstock Place, Grey Court and Rutlish, earning a place in the final against Hampton again.

A fabulous first half performance saw us take a commanding 4 try lead, allowing the whole squad to play a part, as we ran out winners by 5 tries to 3. The boys were magnificent, both in attack and defence and were very worthy winners.