Head's Newsletter 4 October 2019

significant and exciting development of sport at Tiffin. Please do go to the website through the links on page 2, and please donate what you can. Very large numbers took the 11+ this week and next week we are holding our Sixth Form Open Evening. Each year, approximately 40% of Sixth Formers are new to the School, and the Sixth Form Open Evening is therefore a popular event, even more so now that the Sixth Form is mixed. The Open Evening is replicated in the Open Afternoon for our own Year 11 and their parents, and I hope they will also be inspired to study in our Sixth Form. The rugby teams have made a good start and there is also a report on our very successful running club and badminton team. In other areas we also had a very successful Year 8 dance day, and soon we have the Year 7 inter-form singing competition. We look forward to seeing all Year 7 perform in front of their parents; please do come along to support. We are also particularly looking forward to the Sixth Form play, which promises to be an excellent occasion. Now that term has settled, we have a number of trips that are going out at the moment: Year 11 historians are currently in Berlin, Year 12 geographers go to Dartmoor soon, and Year 10 students have been doing Duke of Edinburgh expeditions. I look forward to seeing parents at the forthcoming events. Yours, M D Gascoigne, Headteacher

Dear Parents It’s been great to see parents at the Parents’ Information Evenings which we have now run for every year group. I hope that it has been useful for you to catch up, or meet, the tutors and heads of year. It has been very exciting to see the new building rising from the ground. The steel frame is now almost complete and soon the roof will go on. I’ve mentioned at all the parents’ information evenings that we are building this facility with the government grant that we won, but that we also need to raise £200,000 in order to fit and finish the completed building. We are very grateful to all parents who regularly give to the Tiffin Education Fund , which allows us to provide the fantastic Tiffin education. In addition, we are running a separate fundraising campaign to raise the £200,000. We successfully raised significantly more than this for the last building 2 years ago, and I’m confident that with the help of the whole Tiffin community we will meet this target as well. Thank you to those parents who have already donated. All parents in Years 8-13, were written to in July requesting donations, and I would ask parents to donate what they can so that we can once again create more excellent facilities for the students. A separate letter will go out to new parents who joined us this September. The new gym will be superb, along with new changing facilities and 2 new fitness rooms. It will represent a

IMPORTANT DATES

Thursday 10 October

Sixth Form Open Afternoon and Evening; school closes 1 pm

15-18 October

Sixth Form Drama Production at 7 pm

Thursday 17 October

Y7 Inter-form Choir Competition 7 pm All Saints’ Church Half–term (return Monday 4 Nov.—normal start 8.30 am)

21 October—1 November

The Tiffin School 2019 Gym Appeal We are excited at the progress of the new Sports Centre Extension. The foundations have been completed and part of the supporting metal frame has already been assembled. We are very grateful for the donations we’ve already received towards its cost, but need further donations to fit and furnish it as we would wish. To donate online, please use the ‘ DONATE: GYM APPEAL ’ button on the School’s website; to see other ways of giving please download the donation form on the Fundraising page of the School’s website.

James Day, Director of the Choir—arrowed

We were delighted to host a very informative evening given by Janet Irons, Head of Admissions at Harvard and Keith Light, Head of Admissions at Yale, who talked to both Tiffin students and those from other invited schools. They explained how to apply and the financial help to pay to study in the US. On Thursday 26th September all year 8s participated in a Capoeira workshop. Capoeira is a Brazilian martial art disguised as a dance and performed to musical instruments and traditional Brazilian songs. It is comprised of specific defensive and offensive movements and, unlike other martial arts, the participant is constantly in motion. The boys learned about Capoeira history and explored different attack and defence actions as well as some acrobatics. The most impressive part of the workshop was the presentation at the end of each class by workshop leaders.

country, badminton, basketball are all-flourishing and with the addition of the girls it is brilliant to see the interest in netball and girls rugby along with all other activities! Tiffin is currently fielding an incredible 20 rugby teams across all years – but with that, comes extra demand on resources, kit, transport, first aid, Refs … which is why we’re reaching out to you to become part of #TeamTIPRA (Tiffin Parent Rugby Association). A one-off, annual payment of £40 or a monthly standing order of £4 can make a HUGE difference to the amount of additional support we can provide for our boys. So, why not sign up this term (referencing your son’s name and year group)? table tennis,

SCHOOL SPORT The rugby season is well under way and three long-standing fixtures have been played. Honours relatively even over the last two weekends after a disappointing start in the first weekend against Reigate. The standout game in week two was the 1 st XV turning around a 17-0 deficit at half- time to win 19-17, giving them a belief in their ability which was needed after a shock defeat the week before. Week 3 saw Tiffin take on Emmanuel which year on year is always a good contest. The U14’s were back on winning ways and the U16’s narrowly lost out at Grists 17-19 while the 1 st XV lost away needing to show more desire and effort. All other winter activities are thriving, even with disturbances currently with the sports hall looking more like a building site! Teams are filled and clubs bursting at the seams with every space available looking to be utilised by some sort of activity ensuring there are as many students involved in sport as possible. Cross-

Thank you!!

Account Name –TIPRA Account No – 43474585 Sort Code – 20-46-76

YEAR 7 SUCCESSES The new boys who have joined us this September are already showing great promise in other fields (see also Cross- Country report). Ethan O'Keeffe has received an Arts Richmond Swan Award nomination for Best Boy Performer aged 14 and Under. This is for his role as the Sultan in the recent production of Aladdin Jr. at Hampton Hill Theatre. Do read the interview with Ethan. Thomas Powell competed in the South East England Regional championships in the Elite 3 division for Men’s Artistic Gymnastics today at Pegasus Gym in Maidstone. He finished in 2nd place, earning his place to represent South East England in the National finals in Birmingham in November.

BADMINTON The Senior A and B badminton teams got off to a brilliant start to the season, beating Reed’s by 7 games to 2 and 9 games to 0 respectively. Many congratulations to the captain, Aaran Suriyakumaran and his first pair partner Mehul Arora who won all 3 of their games.

from Eyoel Abebaw-Mesfin, Jack Hartrey, Euan Sinclair and Harshil Shah made sure the school closed out 4th in the South East; a very creditable performance.

RUNNING CLUB The first league fixture of the season was held at Grist’s on Saturday, with one of the highest turnouts of Tiffin students in recent years. It was also the inaugural running of the Year 7 inter-form competition, with 22 Year 7s representing both their form and their school. Oxted School dominated the top end of the junior race, securing 1st and 2nd place, but a brilliant run by Jesper Naisby on his first performance for Tiffin saw him come home in 3rd place after completing the 2.5 km course. Excellent packing by the rest of the Tiffin students saw Yannis, Hugo, Chadi and Cathal finish in 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th respectively, which was enough to secure the overall race win for Tiffin, ahead of Oxted and John Fisher. Josh Clinton, Tom Nelson and Toby Nieva completed the Tiffin B team, and they were also the first B team on the day, comfortably finishing ahead of John Fisher.

In the Tiffin interform competition, the results were as follows: 6th place - MRL; 5th - RG; 4th - SM; 3rd - AH. But 1st place went to KB, with MMB finishing in 2nd place. Well done to KB, but also to AH, who had the most representatives competing for their form on the day with 6.

Tiffin returned to compete for the Kings Trophy with a fundamental difference: the newly mixed status of the Sixth Form. This ensured that we were competitive in both types of competition over the 4.75 mile Wimbledon Common course. With results still to be formalised due to some slight course variation, the provisional results show a great 7th for the men’s team. This was more than matched by a provisional 3rd place for the very strong and determined women’s team. Neve Husaini was 4th in her category and Eyoel Abebaw- Mesfin 22nd in a field of around 170 of the South East’s best athletes. Congratulations to all who have trained, run and coached the squad. It is great to have such success on our first fixture for all of our sporting Sixth Form.

The first meeting at Charterhouse saw Oscar Luck crossing the line in first place with an injury blighted-Connor Foley carrying his left leg over the line to an inspirational 3rd. The B team of Josh Clinton, Chadi Falla, Karam Bhandari and Yanis Falla were first against the other B teams; a great debut for all year 7s. The inters and seniors saw barn-storming debuts by Rishon Rajkumar in Year 11 and Charlie Krammer in Year 12 and the strong performance of the day from Bertie Panicucci in Year 13. Other performances

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