Head's Newsletter 6 March 2020

drama production of ‘Around the World in 80 days’. Well done to all involved. Meanwhile over half term, the choir were filming their part in a major feature film to be released next year. It was also a pleasure to hear the chamber choir sing at St Martin-in-the-Fields. We are very much looking forward to what will be a superb occasion when our orchestras and bands play at St John’s Smith Square this Tuesday. Do make sure you get your tickets as it is selling out quickly. In addition, the choir are taking part in the Barnes Festival performing Handel’s Messiah on Friday. Special mention must also go to our fantastic dancers who competed at the London Youth Games dance competition at the Copper Box, Olympic Park: achieving 3 rd place out of 25 schools is a testimony to the strength of Tiffin Dance. There are of course other trips to report on in the newsletter including the excellent trip to Austria, as well as other competitions we have seen success in, such as the human rights competition and the Jack Petchey speak out. The sports hall extension is coming on well and is scheduled to open around June. However, we are still needing to raise more funds, and parents will receive a further newsletter about this: please give generously so we can create the best facilities for all Tiffin students to enjoy. Yours, M D Gascoigne, Headteacher

Dear Parents, In a bumper edition, there is lots to report on, demonstrating the wide range of activities that our students have been involved in. Special mention must go to the amazing cricket tour to Dubai and the UAE. Undoubtedly one of the most successful tours the school has done, the U15 and U14 cricket sides had a fantastic experience playing in great venues and experiencing a different culture and lifestyle. Great credit and thanks must go to Mr Balasubramaniam and the other staff for organising such a fantastic trip. This was followed up by the rugby tour to Wales. Although sadly disrupted by the weather, the boys got to play some decent rugby as well as experience the Principality Stadium. In other sports news, our badminton team has been having a fantastic season with some great wins over prestigious schools. In addition the rugby sevens tournaments have started with the U12s achieving some fine wins. I’m also delighted that we had our first netball win of the year with the girls in the new official Tiffin netball kit! The girls have also been training hard and will be competing in their first rugby sevens competition next week. Just before half term we witnessed some splendid performances in the school

IMPORTANT DATES

Orchestra and Bands Concert, St John’s Smith Square 7 pm Handels Messiah, Barnes music Festival 7.30pm

Tuesday 10 March

Friday 13 March

Y10 Parents’ Consultations: School finishes at 1 pm

Tuesday 31 March

Friday 3 April

Break up for Easter holiday: School finishes by noon

Monday 20 April

Start of Summer term: normal 8.30 am start

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 days

The annual Main School Production took place just before the February Half Term. This year 40 students participated in a 5 week rehearsal period producing a fun, col- ourful and energetic show. Students were involved in all aspects of the production from choreographing dances, building sets, being technical support and of course acting the roles of Jules Verne’s fictional classic, adapted by Laura Eason. The Main Hall was once again transformed for a short period into an array of colour and cast, crew and members of staff thoroughly enjoyed the inventive use of the revolving stage. Around the World in 80 days was a huge success and thank you to all who came to watch. The next Drama production will be the Lower School Production in the Summer Term.

GERMAN SIXTH FORM TRIP TO VIENNA

The German Department decided to explore a new destination and this year’s Sixth form trip was to Vienna, the capital of Austria. Thirteen year 12 & 13 pupils headed to Gatwick early on the 10 th February and were happy that storm Ciara had somewhat subsided when their plane left for Vienna.

Day three saw us head-out to the Hundertwasser village – this colourful set of flats in Vienna not only features in our German textbook but is also much more quirky in real life. The other main attraction we visited was the Sigmund Freud house., where Dr Freud had his surgery and he developed psychoanalysis. We started

our final day in Vienna at the Schloss Schönnbrunn the main summer residence of the Habsburg rulers. An

From Vienna after check in at the hotel we headed out to see the Stephansdom and the Mozarthaus. The Mozarthaus gave us insights into the famous composer’s life and how his story mirrored many of the aspects of Vienna. We started Tuesday by exploring the Naschmarkt with all its food stalls – ( naschen means to secretively eat sweets in German) and we can confirm that the Naschmarkt is suitably named. Having finally weaned ourselves of the Naschmarkt we visited the Schloss Belvedere. Schloss Belvedere was built as a summer palace in baroque style during the 18 th century and in addition to its marvellous exterior, features an extensive art collection with works by Pacher, Klimt and Schiele amongst many others. We continued our busy Tuesday by seeing the Austrian parliament, currently under renovation, and a tour of the temporary parliament in the famous Hofburg. We were also lucky enough to be allowed a glimpse into the world famous Spanish Riding school and the the Jewish museum of Vienna.

imposing structure and featuring their original furniture of the Habsburgs, it was definitely impressive. Our final attr action was the Karlskirche. This magnificent and imposing baroque church is beautifully decorated and currently features an art exhibition that includes a lift all the way up the church. We took this vertigo inducing trip to a platform right at the top of the interior, the change of perspective was worth it and further increased our admiration of this beautiful building. After that we headed off to the airport and flew home to Gatwick. The trip was a great success and we were all impressed how clean, friendly and beautiful Vienna is.

HUMAN RIGHTS

FIRST WIN FOR NETBALL TEAM

Great for the netball team to have their first win under their belt and play in the new Tiffin kit. 10-3 excellent result!

Year 9 boys took part in the Human Rights Research Project presentation evening which is the culmination of our annual Young Human Rights Researcher Project. Back in October, the students visited Queen Mary University Law School for a human rights education day, where they learned about human rights in the UK. After visiting at BIHR, the students then worked in small groups to pick a human rights topic to research. The students completed both primary and secondary research to a really high level. We were also pleased to see all the boys speak with such interest, confidence and clarity on their chosen topics. All of the students did amazingly well but a special congratulations to our prize winners! Ben Luca, Austin and Sayanen from Tiffin School. Their report " POLICING PROTEST: Did the Extinction Rebellion Autumn Uprising protest, and its policing, violate Human Rights?" which won three awards!: Best Written, Best Presentation, Audience Choice

BIKE SAFETY Tiffin School recently invited the Crime Prevention Team based in Kingston Police Station (funded by Kingston Council) to register pupils and staff bikes in a bid to prevent bike theft. Alongside this event a Dr Bike event was held where pupils and staff were able to mend their bikes making for a safer, healthier commute to school.

DANCE

TABLE TENNIS

Tiffin Junior and Tiffin Dance Company performed at a Dance Festival at Surbiton High School Assembly Rooms on Thursday 20th February . Both companies performed their news pieces ‘Premena- Transformation’ and Martial Arts inspired piece.

On 11-Feb Darshan Kumaresan, Ashrith Behara, Harshil Shah, Oliver Cheung, Aarya Karthik, Parin Shah and Ewan Brett headed to Wallington to take part in the South London individual championships. The standard was exceptional and all players were very impressive against some tough opposition, with Ashrith, Harshil and Darshan progressing to the knockout stages. In the U19 Darshan made it to the semi-final and played the number 1 seed. Both players produced some brilliant shots, but Darshan missed out on a place in the final. He has still qualified for the London Championships. Congratulations Darshan! To be fielding the same number of players as Wallington, national finalists in the team competition, was fantastic. Well done to all competitors! Mr Fletcher and Mrs Crossley

Tiffin Junior Dance Company (year 9 students) competed at London Youth Games Dance Competition at the Copper Box, Olympic Park. Out of 25 schools representing different London Borough we came 3rd!!!!

CLASSICS TRIP

MUSICAL EVENTS

10/03 7:00pm Orchestras and Bands Concert, St. John’s Smith Square 13/03 7:30pm Handel Messiah, Tiffin Boys' Choir, Barnes Music Festival, St. Mary's Barnes 17/03 6:00pm Soloists’ Recital, Walden Hall 20/037:00pm Friends of Tiffin Music Quiz, Main Hall 23/03/2020-25/03/2020 ABRSM Music Exams 25/03 7:00pm Spring Ensembles Concert, Main Hall 27/03 10:30pm The Mayor's Annual Charity Ball, Swing Band & Jazz Combo Performance, DoubleTree Hotel Kingston 01/046:00pm A level Music Final Recital 10/04 Bach St. John Passion, Tiffin Chorus, St. Gabriel's Pimlico 30/04 7:00pm The School Concert, All Saints’ Church Kingston 16/06 6:00pm Soloists’ Recital, Walden Hall 08/07 6:00pm Battle of the Bands Final, Main Hall 10/07 5:30pm Tiffin in the Garden, The Head’s Garden 14/07 7:00pm Tiffin Boys’ Choir Summer Concert, All Saints’ Church Kingston 16/07 11:30am Founders’ Day Service, Tiffin Boys’ Choir, All Saints’ Church Kingston 17/07-22/07 Tiffin Boys’ Choir Latvia Tour For more details click here:

The recent Classics trip to Westminster School and the Guildhall Art Gallery and Roman Amphitheatre, which 35 year 11 Classicists attended just before half term, was a great success. The lectures delivered by scholars from prestigious universities delivered on both the Greek and Latin literature were very interesting and allowed us to explore the wider context of our GCSE texts; the depth of their analysis was fascinating. This was then topped off by a trip to the gallery, which had an amazing underground amphitheatre, an astounding piece of architectural history. Overall the day was excellent, filled to the brim with exciting events.

Haseeb Rahman 11KEH

SPORTS REPORT MARCH 2020

We have reached a mid-point in the sporting calendar with the rugby season drawing to a close and only the seven a side tournaments to play, those that have- n’t been affected by the weather any way. This is a period where house events are squeezed in at every break in the clouds and Grists looks more like a swimming pool than a playing field. Next week brings about our first girls 7 a side rugby competi- tion and we wish them the best of luck. The U12’s kicked off the sevens season with great performances at the Ibstock sevens winning all four of their group games and losing in the semi-final to a powerful Gunnersbury side. We hope to get more tournaments played in the com- ing weeks and more success to share. The senior badminton side travelled to Kings College Wimbledon including a cou- ple of mixed doubles pairs and won all twenty of their matches. It has been a very successful season with the only blip a loss to a very strong Wilson’s team. Well done to all involved.

30 boys in Year 10 took part in Speaking workshops, delivered by a representative from The Speaker's Trust. The day con- cluded with each pupil delivering a speech to the group, which also served as their entry for the Jack Petchey Speakout Chal- lenge. To say that the standard of engage- ment and quality of delivery was impres- sive would be an understatement and it was so impressive to see boys grow in con- fidence and competence as the day went on. Miss Garrib and I had the impossible task of selecting six students from the group to speak in a Y10 assembly, from which the best two would be chosen to represent the school in the next round of the competition. From the shortlist of six, Connor Tidswell and Colin Kang were cho- sen to represent Tiffin at the regional fi- nals, which will take place at Hollyfield Sixth Form Centre at 6pm on Thursday 29th March. Congratulations to all who took part in what was a tremendously en- joyable and fruitful day and best of luck to Colin and Connor in the regional finals.

Mr O'Connell

Uae cricket tour 2020

It gives me great pleasure to tell you about what was a magnificent week in eve- ry way. During the spring half term, 28 stu- dents and 5 staff members travelled to the UAE on a cricket tour to remember! To take students away to play cricket in condi- tions some of them may never play in again and expose them to a completely different culture, in sport and life, and to see them grow was a great privilege. Two years planning filled with risk assessments, itinerary tweaking, kit orders and training was all worth it.

more competitive fixtures, again under lights, and the boys showed signs that they

were adapting to the style of cricket with some hard hitting of their own, most nota- bly from Alex Holmes (37) and Sam Jenkins (41) in the U14s and Jaiveer Johal (46) in the U15s. With nets sessions and beach cricket squeezed in between games there was al- ways something to look forward to. Two matches highlighted how special this tour was, both played on first class grounds. The first came at Sharjah Stadium, which holds the world record for the most amount of one-day games played at one venue. The boys made full use of the home

With storm Ciara in full force departure was touch and go but we eventually set off and were Dubai bound. What followed was four days of cricket for both the U14 and U15 side in some jaw dropping settings. Our first venue the Vision Cricket Centre was an oasis of green grass surrounded by rolling sand dunes and state of the art floodlights lit up the ground in the cool de- sert night. The boys were introduced to the hard-hitting, loud and abrasive nature of the pitch and opposition and both teams came off second best. The second game was played at the Ajman Oval in two

Uae cricket tour 2020

The fourth game was held at the state of th art ICC global academy, used by profes- sionals from around the world. Both teams had a chance to train in the nets on a track prepared to imitate one in Lahore, but the real magic was witnessed in the middle. The U15 side came up against the side that had beaten them in the very first game. A little wiser now and a little more prepared they set about trying to set a decent total. The top order struggled to get going and wickets fell at regular intervals but the tail was to wag. Iain Westbrook and Lucas Murtagh added fifty runs between them and Tiffin posted a decent total of 165. Tiffin started well with Rasnaam picking up a wicket of his first ball and that was the story of the innings. Wickets falling and pressure building and an incredible win recorded demonstrating what had been learnt over the week.

Dune bashing and an interclub seven a side competition in the desert on the last day followed, with a trip to Dubai Mall and the awe inspiring Burj Khalifa to finish. A great week where all the plans set out to be achieved had been.

We look forward to organising more tours of this nature as the benefits far outweigh any cost or opposition. The growth of all involved was there to witness and hopeful- ly the effects will be felt for years to come.

WALES RUGBY TOUR 2020

Tiffin U15s were given a sterner test against Madrid and had to play exception- ally well in tough conditions to win by five scores to one in the end. After a generous feed laid on by St Brendan’s RFC we made the short journey over to Cardiff and check in to our YHA. The next day was filled with activities in- cluding mini golf, bowling, laser quest and, the highlight, a tour of the Principality. Storm Jorge had the last word that night and our last fixture, due to be played in Cardiff, was called off. We managed to get time on the 4G at Bristol grammar school on the way home to play an inter club game which saw the boys from two differ- ent ages group compete well and learn more about each other’s playing style which will prove invaluable in the future. Exciting times lay ahead for both of these teams and what a side they should make come the top end of the school.

It was exciting to take away, for the first time in a long time, a junior rugby squad to the sunny climes of Wales. We set off with 42 boys from the U14 and U15 sides and 4 staff members on a wet and gloomy Friday afternoon. Our first stop was Bristol Uni- versity sports ground where we were due to play two touring sides from Madrid. The U14 s, who are as strong as we’ve had in recent times, proved to be far too strong for the two time Madrid league champions and cruised to victory in their game.

REDUCING VIOLENCE EVENT

As you may be aware, the Mayor of London’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) is tasked with reducing all forms of violence in the cap- ital. As part of our approach, we are committed to supporting par- ents and carers who may be concerned about their children and their peers. There is a free parent and carers information event in conjunc- tion with Achieving for Children at York House, Twickenham, on Monday, 16 March at 5pm. The event will provide the opportunity for attendees to:

 Ask questions to a panel of experts

 Hear from Lib Peck, the Director of the Mayor of London’s VRU

 Get information, advice, and guidance from organisations that work in this area

 Speak to other attendees and share experiences

To book, follow this link: https://www.london.gov.uk/events/2019-10- 28/violence-reduction-unit-young-people-open-day/keeping-our- children-safe-event