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.
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
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.
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.
On Wed 14th September the Year 12 IB pupils completed their Group 4 Project in Science.
This project is a collaborative investigation where students are placed in groups and work together to design and carry out a scientific experiment into a given theme. This is a compulsory part of the IB qualification, teaching valuable skills such as teamwork, communication, presentation and the scientific method.
This year the theme was ‘Power and Energy’. The students can interpret this theme however they wish and unlike other lessons where they are given a protocol, with this project they design their own experiments. They were given 2 hours on the Saturday before the practical day to do this and submit their requests and carried out the investigation on the following Wed. This year we had a variety of different experiments on this theme, including:
The students then prepared a presentation and presented their data in a ‘symposium’ style, with students from across the school coming round to discuss their investigation with them. The students then celebrated completing the project with a pizza evening with Mrs Futter. This was a huge success and the students worked fantastically well together, producing some excellent projects in such a short period of time. It was a great opportunity for the new IB cohort to get to know each other and new friendships were made. Well done to everybody involved and thanks to the Science teaching and technical staff for all of their hard work in making this such a success.
Nine members of the Gresham’s Rifle Team headed down to Bisley, on the first weekend of Term, for the South London Rifle Club Full-Bore Championships. This is a one-day event and is always very friendly, great fun and hugely competitive, and this year was no different. Unfortunately, the start of shooting had to be delayed for an hour due to the heavy fog sitting over all of the ranges. As a result of the delayed start, and the limited time available, there had to be a couple of changes made to the format of the competition but that did not dampen spirits. A minute’s silence was observed, by the raising and lowering of a single black target, in the centre of the range and then the shooting got underway. It was very nice to see that two of the morning shoots were won by Hannah B, in the 300 yard shoot, and Linda T in the 600 yard shoot. Hannah B also won the Short-Range Aggregate, dropping just three points during the morning. Marcella B won the Magpie Shield.
As with the morning, in the afternoon there were different winners at each of the two distances. Hannah B continued her fine form to win the 900 yard shoot with a 49.6 and Georgie C won the 1000 yard shoot with a 47.3. Hannah B also won the Long-Range Aggregate dropping a total of 7 points. Many congratulations to Hannah on becoming the South London Rifle Club Champion for 2022 and for winning the Col. John Howe Cup. Well done also to Harry P who placed second.
Oakeley Year 9 ventured out to the bunk house in the woods to learn how to use knives safely to whittle wood, saw logs and chop wood using axes this week. This was the first session of four where the pupils learn the basic survival skills which include fire building, shelter building and cooking over an open fire. This course is open to all Year 9 pupils throughout the year, attending in House groups and is intended to build their interpersonal and life skills as well as self-confidence.
The second week of survival skills comprised of finding materials to build a fire with, perfecting the use of a fire stick and keeping a fire going once lit – which is much harder than it looks!
Gresham’s Archivists Group had a real treat as they were allowed to explore the uniform and kit of Major Thomas Warcup Kirkbride (1867-1953), who had been an officer in the Royal Horse Artillery and seen active service in India, before coming out of retirement as a major in charge of a camp in World War One. Pupils enjoyed exploring Major Kirkbride’s medals, uniforms, swords and First World War periscope. The kit was also seen by one Year 9 History class, and we hope the rest of the year will have the chance to view it at a later date. We are very grateful to the Ashby family for the opportunity to experience such an unusual and immaculate collection of military memorabilia from over a century ago.
This year’s Sixth Form Inter-House debating competition got off to a brilliant start as Queens’ (proposition) and Woodlands (opposition) produced a debating masterclass exploring the motion ‘This House believes that economic sanctions do not work’. There was not a weak link in either debating team – and yet amazingly three of the six debaters (Serenity M, Will B and Sophia C) were on debut. The highlights included the heated exchanges between Miranda H-S and Nikita T and the killer question trades between Beowulf O’D and Sophia C. The debate was so well informed, exploring the efficacy of economic sanctions on Cuba, the Netherlands, South Africa and of course Russia. Best of all, this debate played out to a packed house in Queens’ Common Room which added to the intensity and drama of the fixture. The arguments of Woodlands prevailed but this was an exhibition of debating of the highest standard and bodes well for the year ahead.
We are delighted to announce our School Captains, House Captains and School Prefects for this academic year. We wish them every success in their new roles.
School Captains:
Deputy School Captains:
House Captains:
School Prefects:
Our pupils were proud to present a cheque of £20,000 to local charity Holt Youth Project, although the grand total raised for Holt Youth Project last year was £24,278.11 after a few last-minute additions. Our pupils, involved in the school’s Charity Committee, have been working hard throughout the academic year to raise money through a variety of innovative activities and events. The Charity Committee are also excited to announce that Holt Youth Project are going to be a long-term charity partner, meaning we will continue to help support the young people involved in the charity.
Holt Youth Project aims to provide a safe environment for young people to meet and socialise with the minimum of supervision, building their social communication skills and promoting ownership. By partnering with the charity, we are helping to give the young people opportunities to experience positive activities, nurturing care, to grow in confidence, feel valued and loved. Julie Alford, Founder of the Holt Youth Project, said “We were humbled and thrilled to be chosen as Gresham’s Charity of the Year. This support will make such a difference to our work serving children and young people across North Norfolk, who sometimes find themselves in desperate situations through no fault of their own.”
Throughout the school year, the Charity Committee have set up activities including a Valentine’s Ball; sponsored walks; a FIFA tournament and an enormous clothes bank collection. They also organised a Teddy Bear zipwire for Gresham’s Pre-Prep children at St. Andrew’s church in Holt. The committee have also taken part in the Goldsmith’s Award, which recognises school-charity community partnerships, where they reached the Regional Finals.
The Charity Committee also puts on annual events which all helped to contribute to the charitable total, such as the Chapel Christmas Tree Festival; Gritty Grasshopper; Gresham’s Half Marathon and Christmas jumper day.