Eva O has won the University of Cambridge/Routes into Languages ‘Other Tongue’ Poetry Competition for her poem, Comment suis-je censée savoir?

Her success was announced over the Easter holidays at the celebration event at Murray Edwards College, as part of the Cambridge Festival of Ideas. 

Eva’s poem has been published in the Mother Tongue Other Tongue anthology.  

Many congratulations Eva for this considerable achievement!

The results for the National Small-Bore Rifle Association (NSRA) Inter-Counties competitions have recently been published. There are three categories, including the main County Senior Teams, the County Ladies Teams and the County Junior Teams.

The Inter-County Senior teams are made up of 12 firers and, this year, three Gresham’s pupils were part of the team. Marcella B, Georgina B and Belle W all shot for Norfolk in Division 3 and, despite finishing in first equal place, they had to settle for second, due to a slightly lower total ‘gun score’ than Hampshire. The same three pupils represented Norfolk in the Inter-Counties Ladies team and made up over half of the team of five firers. The Norfolk team were competing in Division 1 and managed to win for the second time in three years. The Norfolk Ladies team, once again, took home the mantle of being the best in the country. 

Along with Alma De R, the same three pupils were selected to represent Norfolk in the Inter-Counties Junior team, which is a team of four firers. This Norfolk team were also competing in Division 1 and secured victory for the second time in the past three years. These four Gresham’s pupils have ensured that Norfolk are currently the best County Junior team in the entire country. The Norfolk Junior ‘B’ team, again, who were all Gresham’s pupils, were also competing in Division 1 and managed to finish in 4^th place and were the highest place ‘B’ team in the country.

Huge congratulations to all four Gresham’s pupils, firstly on their county selections, but secondly on helping the County to achieve some exceptional results.

The Rifle Club have recently returned from a wonderful Easter training week at Bisley. The team performed fantastically, and the weather was the best the team had seen in many years for the event. 

In total, sixteen members of the team headed to Bisley for the week. Four pupils had arrived earlier to take part in ‘Maple Taste’, a training/selection weekend for forthcoming GB cadet rifle team tours. Margie G was training with the British Cadet Rifle Team ahead of their August tour to the Channel Islands, and Ilana B, Grace S and Alastair S were all hoping for selection to the UK Cadet Rifle Team for their tour. By the end of the Rifle Clubs week at Bisley, the UKCRT team selection had been announced. Grace was selected for the team and Alastair was announced as a reserve – a big well done to both. After their weekend with the GB cadet training, three of the four pupils joined the rest of the Gresham’s team for the remainder of the week.

The team had an excellent week of shooting, with glorious weather. Although the sun shined every day, they also had exceptionally high winds throughout the week, which made the shooting conditions challenging. The first weekend was spent shooting at short range (300 and 600 yards) and involved classroom work in the evenings for the newer members of the team. There is no shooting on Mondays, so this was used as an opportunity to set up on the military CTR rifles, in preparation for Wednesday and Thursday. 

The team enjoyed a hugely competitive Easter egg hunt in the afternoon, followed by an equally competitive game of bowling in the evening. On the Tuesday, the team spent the day at long range (900 and 1000 yards) still in very tricky wind conditions. Shooting is not just about firing the perfect shot, there is also a lot of personal admin and record keeping that needs to be done. Some evenings were spent continuing to learn the skills of plotting and coaching, which are both necessary skills, as the wind can have a massive effect on a bullet, even at short range. 

For the final two days of shooting, the team switched to the Cadet Target Rifle and trained alongside several other schools. There was an informal match on the Thursday, in which the Gresham’s team managed to finish third in the Clayton Challenge, out of 17 teams taking part.

The new members of the Rifle Team did particularly well during the week, despite the challenging wind. The team were also pleased to have a couple of parents in attendance, who came along to support and to learn about the sport their child is competing in.

At the beginning of April, two teams of Gresham’s cadets travelled to Cambridge Gun Club for the National Clay Target Shooting Championships.

There were four separate competitions in the CCF category and Edgar A, Will N, Jack K and Alf S in the Gresham’s A Team, won the team gold medals in every single one of them – an astonishing success! This meant that they brought home the trophies for the ‘Down the Line’, ‘Sporting’ and ‘Inter-Services Skeet’ competitions, in addition to continuing the unbroken pedigree of Gresham’s victories in the ‘Flurry’ competition, with a clear margin of victory in this section of 10 clays from their nearest rivals.

Team Captain Will N won individual gold in the ‘Down the line’, with Jack K taking bronze. Alf S won individual gold in the ‘Sporting’ which was part of his unprecedented haul of six medals, including five golds in total.

Toby W, Alec A, Toby A and Max C in Gresham’s B Team also achieved success with bronze medal position in several of the CCF competitions, and Max C was awarded an individual bronze in the ‘Sporting’ section.

This was another outstanding performance at national sporting level for the clay target shooters.

In the Lent Term, pupils from Year 9 and 10 worked tirelessly on the production ‘Education, Education, Education’, a play about a failing school in the ’90s.

Set in May 1997, the play transported the audience to a time when Tony Blair has just won the election, Katrina and the Waves had taken home the Eurovision crown, and Channel 5 was just a month old. In this pre-Harry Potter era, Britain is undoubtedly the coolest place on earth. 

Education, Education, Education raises thought-provoking questions about a country in crisis, examining what we’re taught, why, and who ultimately bears the responsibility.

The energy, dedication and talent of our pupils – both on stage and behind the scenes – has been truly inspiring. Thank you to everyone who was involved in the production and the audience that came to support us.