Strathmore Records was launched at the end of September. The new record label aims to support our budding young artists by giving them a platform to record and release their music. Year 12 pupil Ruby performed at the launch event, alongside fellow pupil Jake, and will soon be releasing her EP through the studio. Another Sixth Form pupil, who goes by the name 4-Entrial, recorded the first official release which is a four-track EP heavily influenced by 80s cinematic electronica and her love of classic video games.

The launch of the label follows the opening of the Britten Building, home to our Music Department, by the Princess Royal in 2017. The £6.5m centre, named after composer and OG Benjamin Britten, provides facilities to enhance pupils’ learning and includes a recording studio, a live room and a 140-seater recital hall, in which lies a Steinway C Grand Piano. Pupils at Gresham’s can study Music throughout their time at the school, and have the option of studying BTEC Digital Music Production in Sixth Form.

Mrs Wolfe, Director of Music, said “the studio and record label have provided a great opportunity to provide real-world experience for our pupils and a great platform to share the incredible and exciting work being produced.”

Music from the label is available on Spotify and other digital platforms. Other output from the studio, including the annual Gresham’s Girls’ and Gresham’s Guys’ Christmas singles, can be found on the Gresham’s Media YouTube Channel.

IN THE NEWS

The first Music and Munch of the year was a wonderful occasion. Seven brave Year 9 pupils performed solo pieces to our lovely audience, in what is hopefully their first concert of many at Gresham’s! The programme was varied, encompassing vocal and instrumental music across classical, musical theatre, pop and jazz genres. Thank you to all who attended, the Music Department hopes to see you again at the next Music and Munch on Friday 11th November. 

On Thursday 29th September the Senior School enjoyed a fun morning in Chapel celebrating Michaelmas (St Michael and All Angels) Day. Our heavenly trumpeters filled the building with wonderful music, playing above the heads of the congregation from the West Window. The Chaplain then challenged the pupils to be angelic messengers of love, hope and peace in our world. Drawing on the Parable of the Talents, he gave each House a small amount of money to ‘invest’ in projects which will make a positive difference to others.

Gresham’s Senior School has once again achieved the Green Flag Award but this time with distinction.  We received wonderful feedback from the charity, who were impressed by the dedication and organisation of our Eco Committee. They said that the planning and evidence for the award was conducted by our students in a mature and professional manner.

The Green Flag Team were impressed by the different measures the school has in place to be more sustainable. We now have more recycling bins in our school and less general waste bins. The site team are installing more LED’s and sensor lights to help reduce our electricity consumption. We have built bird boxes and feeders and are creating more biodiversity. The Queen’s House beehives were also highlighted by the judges as well as the school’s ban on plastic bottles. They were also really impressed at how staff have linked environmental issues to a variety of curriculum areas in their lesson plans. It has been wonderful as a whole school to work towards a common goal.

There are still more improvements which can be made, and this year’s Team Eco have already been meeting to discuss ways of promoting more green agendas in our school. We welcome any ideas for our parental body too. If you would like to be involved, please contact [email protected] .

In a venue befitting the talent of our musicians, the stunning Marble Hall at Holkham Hall proved a magical setting for the Scholars and Choirs concert on Wednesday 21st September. Scholars from Years 9-13 took to the stately stage to perform a variety of instrumental and vocal solos, while Schola Cantorum, joined by pupils heading to Malta for a Half Term Choir tour, gave the large and appreciative audience a flavour of their a cappella programme.

The evening opened with the Choir circling the audience, making use of the upper balconies, to sing Mozart’s V’amo di core, a piece sung in canon, which was followed by pieces from Bruckner, Walton and a wonderful setting of Shenandoah by Erb. The first half continued with a duet from Ruby S, Year 12 (voice) and Isadora A Year 10 (violin), and solos from Isadora A, Rose T Year 10 (piano), Zinnia-Claire B Year 10 (cello), Julius R Year 13 (voice), William J Year 13 (trombone) and Freddie S Year 13 (trumpet). Brass Ensemble, consisting of William J, Levin R Year 13 (trombone), Freddie S, Freddie G Year 12 (trumpet), and George B Year 12 (cornet) gave a rousing rendition of Pastime with Good Company as part of their set under the direction of Prep School Director of Music Lynne Roberts playing French Horn.

An interval in the beautiful salon above the Marble Hall allowed the audience time to enjoy their surrounding further before returning to their seats for a series of solos and further pieces from the Choir. An encore of May the Lord Bless You and Keep You from Choir and final bows from the performers was met with rapturous applause, and concluded what was a memorable concert to start the new academic year. Soloists following the interval were Year 13s Tavi P (voice), Hannah B (piano), Johnny D (voice), Raphael C (voice) and Grace H (flute), Year 12 Jimmy T (voice) and Naomi H-S Year 10 (oboe). 

The U15A girls hosted Norwich school in the first round of the Independent Schools National Cup on Thursday. The match got off to a tense start with Gresham’s missing a host of chances and Norwich going close once. Gresham’s took the lead in the 19^th minute and from there did not look back, scoring two more in quick succession to cruise into a 3-0 lead. Norwich converted a penalty corner on the stroke of half time to set up an exciting second half. Grace H-K took the bull by the horns and with some excellent play by Drew W and Georgia D Gresham’s scored 3 goals in 5 minutes to take a 6-1 lead. Phoebe B and Darcey F continued to run at the Norwich defence and created a host of chances in the latter stages which Georgia lapped. An excellent display by the whole team saw us run away 9-1 winners on the day, and the girls head into the next round with their tails up looking for more goals!

On Saturday 17th September, we celebrated Harvest Festival in style. A tractor stood proudly outside of the Chapel and inside our staff and pupils had a great time celebrating all things food! An enormous amount of produce was collected for the North Norfolk Foodbank which will go to support families in need across the local area.

On Sunday our Chapel Choir sang at our first service of Choral Evensong this academic year. The stunning music they produced created a moving atmosphere of calm reflection for everyone present in Chapel on the eve of Her Late Majesty The Queen’s funeral. We are so proud of our wonderful choir and grateful for all they do to keep the ancient tradition of Choral music at the heart of our school life.

Y13 Law Trip to the Central Criminal Court

The Old Greshamian Club linked the Careers Department with OG Paul Mylvaganam (c & W 1977 – 84), practising Criminal Barrister, which resulted in Paul doing a Teams call in the summer term with five keen y13 pupils with a strong interest in Law study and career.

From the pupils’ keenness, interest and questions, Paul Mylvaganam offered the opportunity of a trip to The Old Bailey. The trip was organised and lead by Mrs Osborne, who together with Mrs O’Donnell, Teacher of English, took 5 x y13 pupils to meet Paul Mylvaganam, where we enjoyed a fantastic visit to The Central Criminal Court, Royal Courts of Justice, Middle Temple and Southwark Crown Court.

Pupil feedback from the day –

I learnt that every barrister in England is assigned to an Inn whose patron is a member of the Royal Family. Sitting in on the court I found a love for criminal law which is definitely what I want to go into now, my choice was confirmed by this trip and the excitement of putting forward a convincing argument. – Lara K 13/Oakeley

It was incredibly eye-opening to see the legal system within the UK in action, and it was enlightening to speak to barristers as well as a judge about the law. The trip reconfirmed my interest to become a solicitor and assured my longing to study the law, particularly the areas of European/International law and commercial law – Emil S 13/Tallis

I really enjoyed the trip and found it fascinating to be able to see a variety of court cases and see the barristers at work. It assured me that I would like to become a solicitor, however, it made me think of a change from family law to commercial as I found the fraud case especially interesting – Toby P-R 13/Tallis

It was really a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me. Being able to go from one court to the next and seeing the different cases and barristers was amazing. It gave me a better understanding of how the legal world looks like and assured me that this is what I want to do. Talking to the judge was extremely helpful as it also gave me an insight as to what judges do – Xenia P 13/Edinburgh

I really enjoyed the trip and found the cases that we were able to listen to were very complex and interesting. I saw parts of the court procedure and the general working of court which I found very interesting. I enjoyed the civil case most of all as I understood what they were talking about but also it was interesting to see how much evidence there is involved in a large fraud case. I also really enjoyed listening to what the judge had to say about how court is changing with the use of technology by the court and jury – Henry F 13/Woodlands 

Gresham’s Careers

Several pupils did summer work experience to gain insight to the workplace and to broaden knowledge, contacts and build on communication and digital skills. This is some of their feedback –

Thomas L (F 2017 – 22)

“I headed to Norwich to take part in a structured work experience week at Barratt & Cooke Stockbrokers.

The week started off in the deep end with an interview-style meeting with Will Barratt, before I was able to spend time with different people, doing different roles throughout the business, over the course of the week. This allowed me to learn all about the specific services Barratt & Cooke offer their clients and more broadly, the type of work stockbrokers do.

During the week, I was able to see all aspects of the stockbroking industry, from the initial research into companies, all the way to the back-end processes. This has opened my eyes to the many career opportunities in this industry.

The work experience week concluded with me giving a mock presentation about two companies to the advisory team, using the skills I had learnt to determine whether or not they were good investments.

I would like to thank everyone at Barratt & Cooke for putting on such an amazing week and for making it all possible”.

Alice S 13/Queens’

Alice was successful in her application for the 4-day under-18 Pathology Summer School Placement at the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital where she was able to gain further understanding and insight to help with her next step interest in studying biomedical science at university. Alice is particularly interested in diseases. This placement gave her great insight in to the differences between and NHS diagnostic lab and a scientific research lab.

She had a superb placement which will help her with insight and contacts for going forward with her next steps.

Rose T 11/Queens’

Rose is very interested in engineering and did her work experience placement with Canham Consulting in Norwich. Rose says she found her placement useful and inspiring and gives feedback

Over the summer holidays, I had the amazing opportunity to visit Canham Consulting in Norwich where I did two days of work experience. The first day was based in the civil engineering department where I learnt about the importance of flood zone maps in construction planning. I also looked at vehicle tracking on CAD, where I could manoeuvre various vehicles in different situations to see if they could operate there. This ranged from a standard sized British car to an Airbus A380.

My second day at Canham Consulting was in the structural engineering department. I created the floor plan of a house on CAD and then worked out the load on the ground created by the house, using the different densities of the materials used. I also drew the foundations for the house to support it, and learnt how this was a really crucial part in planning the construction of a house. My day in structures was really interesting because I saw the process of designing a house and how different elements had to be considered.

I’m really interested in engineering and I love maths and physics, so these two days were really great to see different opportunities and applications and I was really inspired and very thankful to Canham Consulting for the opportunity.

Ben R 13/ Howson’s

Marble Bar Asset Management

Ben secured work experience at Marble Bar through the help of OG Jason Berry (k & H 1989 – 91).  

Ben says, I thoroughly enjoyed talking to the Operations team who talked me through certain roles in connecting the hedge fund to the big banks. 

I also spoke to the marketing team which I found very fun, their job is to get investors to invest and to keep them at the firm. They talked me through how they got to where they are now which was very interesting and helpful.

The last session I spent with Trader, David Kirk about his role, he gets sent messages on which stock to buy then carefully picks an optimum time to buy to maximise potential profit.

All in all, I very much so enjoyed my time at MBAM and maybe sometime in the future can get a lengthy internship there. Thank you to Mrs Osborne and Jason Berry for organising this opportunity.

Academic Enrichment Talks

The start of the new academic year has seen a new timetabled Enrichment slot for sixth form talks to broaden knowledge and inspire thought with a diverse range of speaker talks.

The new slot began with an exemplary and fascinating talk from Mr Kinder, Gresham’s Head of History on OG Lord Reith to mark the BBC’s Centenary year and to give insight to the enormous importance of this Old Greshamian, Founder of the BBC.

Mr Kinder’s talk was superb giving insight into Lord Reith’s early life, his career at the BBC, his life post BBC and his deep allegiance to Gresham’s culminating and giving reason to the name of the Reith Block.

The second talk was from OG Siam Kidd (T 1999 – 04), The Realistic Trader https://www.therealistictrader.com/ who gave a talk about the Wealth Generation and Crypto. Siam talked about his journey of trading and investing to grow his crypto portfolio.