This year’s Fright Night production took us to the circus with some chilling performances by the Ringmaster and his acts. The audience met the Dolls in the Auden Theatre and braved a trip into the woods to meet the rest of the weird and wonderful circus performers, experiencing their terrifying tales and scares along the way. The makeup team truly excelled themselves, creating some truly horrifying and detailed makeup designs and the production was expertly supported by a circus themed soundscape which provided a chilling atmosphere throughout. A huge thank you goes to all of the Fright Night performers, makeup team, lighting team and the Music Tech students and staff who all contributed to a fantastic set of performances. Will you be brave enough to join us next year? 

We were delighted to welcome enriching speaker Jess Roper to talk to current Year 13 pupils. This was thanks to Marcus Maddison-White, a former pupil of the school, who had heard Jess speak at Sandhurst College and highly recommended her talk for current pupils.

Jess’s talk was inspirational and gave insight to her beginnings and personal journey that led her to kickboxing and how with her motto of ‘Dream BIG, start small and NEVER GIVE UP’ led to her becoming a 2 x English kickboxing champion and 2nd-degree blackbelt.

It was a superb talk giving such encouragement to the pupil audience on becoming the best they can be with empowered action, increasing aspiration, health, wellbeing and raising resilience.

The Senior School marked All Saints Day in Chapel with a mini-revolution! The Headmaster was (temporarily) overthrown by water pistol wielding Sixth-formers. Rev Jack and Mr Gates also joined in the fun, illustrating the point that peaceful revolutions of thought in which all people are treated as ‘saints’, are ultimately more effective in changing the world than violence.

A group of 24 Year 11 & 12 cadets spent the first day of the October half term break on the CCF Junior Leadership Course. In an intense day of activity they were all introduced to leadership in practical tasks, taking command of teams in scenarios that varied from saving casualties, crossing simulated minefields, building watercourses and re-constructing sabotaged information. They all performed at a very high standard and the future looks very bright for CCF leaders in the future.

Last week, 8 Gresham’s CCF (RAF) Cadets from Years 10 – 13 managed to get airborne at 7 AEF, RAF Cranwell.

Each Cadet got a 25-35 minute flight in a Grob Tutor with an experienced RAF pilot around the area local to RAF Cranwell. They were learning the principles of flight, how to control an aircraft and some even opted to experience the thrill of aerobatics such as loop the loops! All of the Cadets took control of the aircraft and flew the aircraft for themselves under the watchful eye of their pilots.

Flying is a core activity to the RAF Section and experiencing the thrill of flight helps foster an interest in aviation as well as develop Cadets’ confidence and knowledge of the basic physics behind flight.

For most of the Cadets, it was their first RAF Air Experience Flight, which means that they have earnt their blue wings to wear on their uniform. What a brilliant way to end the term!

This term we were visited by performance poet Harry Baker, which was a great opportunity to experience poetry outside of the classroom and in spoken word form. As a UK Slam Poetry Champion, published author and regular at festivals across the country, we knew we were in for a treat! Harry was with us all day, performing to the Year 9, 10 and 11 pupils and performing and workshopping with the Sixth Form. Harry’s skill and catalogue of material was incredible – after four hours he had only repeated one poem twice and he had also managed to seriously impress the Year 9s with his ability to create a poem up on the spot using random words they gave him. This poetry day was also a great launchpad for the Gresham’s Poetry Recital Competition and all the pupils were able to pick up some valuable hints and tips from Harry on how to elevate their own poetry performances. If you’d like to know more about Harry’s work please do follow him @harrybakerpoet on Instagram.

Three pupils from Year 10 have been selected to take part in the renewed Exchange Programme with schools in Australia and South Africa. Daniel will be travelling to Johannesburg to study at St John’s college for the Lent term. He will follow a path well-trodden by Gresham’s boys over the years and will no doubt have a tremendous experience at that prestigious school. His is the return leg of the exchange; Ethan R is the St John’s boy currently boarding in Farfield this term. Edie and Lottie are the first 2 girls to be selected for a new exchange with an independent day and boarding school called Abbotsleigh (…Glorious things of Thee are spoken…) which is situated in the beautiful North Shore district of Sydney, Australia. The girls’ exchange is for 6 weeks, at the latter end of the Lent term; we will host the Australian girls in May and June next year.  

We wish them all the very best and a wonderful and memorable experience.

army section

There was a wide range of activities for our CCF Army Section cadets over the recent field days. Junior cadets went to the Muckleburgh training area and followed a circuit of activities to develop basic fieldcraft skills, including camouflage, navigation, patrolling & first aid. They also spent half a day on-site on a specially constructed outdoor air rifle range and doing a paintball activity to practise fire and movement.

Senior cadets conducted an overnight field patrol exercise designed to enhance their skills of shelter construction, night navigation and tactical manoeuvres as a platoon. Some also conducted advanced fieldcraft training, firing at a more complex target on the air rifle range and carrying out building assault tactics using the paintball weapons in a purpose-built compound in the school woods.

raf section

On Thursday the RAF section took to a day of activities on school grounds. During the morning, Year 10 completed their basic radio training with Flt Lt Matt Williams and learnt some basic field living skills such as how to cook in the field, while Year 12 were completing leadership activities, led by Sgt Nik P, Sgt Erik T and Sgt Karl T. After a ration pack lunch, the Sixth Form took part in a ‘downed pilot’ rescue mission involving cadets finding clues to rescue the pilot, a role excellently played by Sgt Harry P, while avoiding the other cadets.

Year 10 ended the day with basha building in the woods to see who could create the driest shelter and in the evening, cadets in Year 12 and Year 13 were invited to an RAF Section BBQ outside the HQ, a great opportunity to develop a strong team bond.

On Friday, Years 12 and 13 took part in the ‘ultimate warrior challenge’ where cadets were tested on a variety of military exercises individually. These included basha building, searching tasks and ambush procedures. During this time Year 11 were completing leadership activities in the woods under the watchful eye of Corporal Ella J and Corporal Joe H. The day concluded with all cadets designing and building solid fuel rockets which they later launched out on the school fields, reaching an altitude of around 1000 feet. Whilst many rockets lost parts during the ascent due to some dodgy gluing efforts, they all came parachuting back down to earth with some landing on the playing fields and some in the woods. 

services

Pupils were also involved in many difference Services activities:

The first Page to Stage evening took place on Friday 29^th September, the event so early in the term demanded a high level of commitment and focus from all pupils who had to ensure they had a clear understanding of what their character had to say and how they as performers could communicate this to the audience through their choice of: costume, props and set, in the delivery of lines and staging of their moment with movement, lights and sound. The range of performances was exciting as we moved from an original short film to a dramatic adaptation of a song, from Noel Coward to William Shakespeare interspersed with comic direct address and hard hitting, direct and sparse modern tragedy. We travelled through Barbie land to the violent and murky streets of Victorian London, visited an Alchemist’s laboratory ending in the woods outside of Athens. The audience was impressively navigated through the evening by Year 9 Drama scholars Isaac B and Hennie D. A dramatic start to the year.