Year 8 pupils celebrated completing their end of year exams with a fantastic rotation of activities. These included cooking with The Crown Inn, East Rudham, and intelligent self-protection with Absolute Defence.
The final Music and Munch of the academic year celebrated our wonderful school leavers. In a showcase of their versatility, we enjoyed performances from Alice S on piano, Noah W on cello, Julius S on french horn, and Beatrice G and Summer H singing. We will greatly miss them in the Music Department and wish them all the best. Year 12 pupils Ruby S and Larkin A also stepped in at remarkably short notice to perform – a brilliant indication of the high standard of next year’s leading musicians. Thank you to all those who have supported our Music and Munch recital series this year and we look forward to next year’s concerts.
Two teams of Gresham’s cadets travelled to Cambridge Gun Club on Saturday and Sunday for the National Clay Target Shooting Championships. The ‘A Team’ of Charles A, Will N, Jack K and George A came first in the Flurry Competition, holding off their closest rivals Ampleforth College, by just one point, and retaining the trophy once again. They also retained the ‘Down the Line’ competition trophy and so remain national champions, and Gold Medal winners in both events. Charles A was the top shot of all CCF competitors and therefore represented the CCF in the prestigious inter-services national final where he top-scored once again.
The B Team, led by Sam W, with Toby W Alec A & Max C also shot well, especially considering that most of them were new to the competition. They came a very creditable 5th in the Flurry, 3rd in the ‘Down the Line’ and put in an astonishing team performance to beat the ‘A Team’ and achieve the silver medal in the 6-stand Sporting event, with the ‘A Team’ taking the Bronze. Max C was ranked as the 3rd best CCF shot, in his first appearance at the competition.
This was another outstanding performance at national sporting level for the clay target shooters.
Year 4 have been exploring data handling in their Maths lessons. They are learning how to best collect, organise and present data before analysing and comparing it.
The CCF held a tri-service afloat camp at Hickling Broad during the half term break, 26-30 May. On Saturday and Monday the cadets took RYA training courses in powerboating and dinghy sailing with cadets earning stage 2, stage 3 and Assistant Instructor qualifications in sailing and level 2 powerboating.
Sunday was an upriver trip to Horsey Mill in sail and powerboats. All cadets also enjoyed an evening of paddleboarding, and some additional sailing time on the water. It was a great long weekend of camping and water activities, complete with excellent catering by our professional RAF chef. Even the unseasonably cold weather didn’t dampen spirits! We look forward to more afloat activity on CCF field days.
Just before the Whitsun half term break around 100 pupils from Gresham’s Prep and Senior Schools came together to create a new art installation in Chapel. The installation features 1000 metres of multihued ribbons cascading from the rafters which fill the space with a riot of colour: like streams of light connecting heaven and earth. Inspired by Old Greshamian W H Auden who died fifty years ago this year, pupils wrote words from his poem Whitsunday in Kirchstetten on each piece of ribbon to help us mark this significant anniversary as a school community. Whitsun is the festival in which the Christian church commemorates the coming of the Holy Spirit, and Auden is buried in Kirchstetten in Austria.
The different coloured ribbons contained in the piece are intended to match both the summer sunsets which come streaming through the West Window in Chapel and the stained-glass depiction of the Holy Spirit contained in the Chapel’s East Window.
School Chaplain Rev Jack Branford said, “The pupils have done a wonderful job creating this stunning work. It seems to lift people’s spirits and make them smile as they walk into Chapel.”
This half term saw the conclusion of the ABE Endorsed KidsMBA programme that our Year 8 pupils have been working towards throughout the year. The internationally recognised programme is part of the Year 8 curriculum and aims to provide future skills and business knowledge to unleash the entrepreneurship potential of the Prep School’s oldest pupils.
The ABE Endorsed KidsMBA has been identified as one of the world’s leading children’s entrepreneurship programmes by Forbes magazine (see story here) and it concluded with our second annual ‘Shark Tank’ event. The ‘Shark Tank’ event replicated TV’s Dragon’s Den, and the pupils pitched their business start-ups to three judges from both the Gresham’s and business community – we would like to thank Mr Paul Devlin, Mrs Ingrid Cox and Mr Charlie Mack for their time and support.
The business ideas varied from personalised Crocs, online stylists, upcycled sports equipment, ski safety devices and much more. The eventual winners ‘Sail Away’, sought to recycle used sails from the coastline to turn into eco-friendly, high-quality bags. This company idea will now be entered into this summer’s global competition, and all pupils involved will receive their certificate of course completion on Speech Day. Lloyd Stephenson, Head of Teaching and Learning at the Prep School, says “I would like to thank the parents, teachers and ABE for supporting the programme this year, and the pupils for being so creative and engaged throughout. We look forward to running the programme for the third year in September 2023 with our current Year 7 pupils”.
If you would like to read about last year’s Shark Tank event on the ABE website, please see this link.
The Gritty Grasshopper 2023 has concluded, the race times are in and most of the mud and stench has been washed out. Over 270 pupils took part in what was a great whole school event. It saw the Houses come together to raise some much-needed funds for the Holt Youth Project. They have currently raised over £4,000!
Notable moments from the afternoon included the Howson’s chants and team spirit, the new fashion of wearing underwear on the outside and the brilliant support that the girls’ houses showed each other around the course. There are a few different categories; the team race, result, the House race result, and the ultimate winners; a combination of the house race time and total funds raised by the house. To work this out we subtracted the total pennies raised from the Houses’ total time.
Any last donations would be greatly appreciated, please click here to donate.
Any concert in Theatre in the Woods is special, purely because of its setting, a path leading to a wonderful open-air space with a leafy canopy and peaceful ambience. Add in an audience and a stage of musicians and the area, enhanced by lights, comes alive. It certainly did that on Thursday 25 May when the Music Department staged a ‘Music from the Movies’ Spectacular. A week of intensive rehearsals following weekly ensemble sessions since the beginning of the academic year showcased the passion and hard work of some 70 pupils as Concert Band, Orchestra, Marching Band, Brass Group, Strings Orchestra, Choirs and Soloists and House Band took a large and enthusiastic audience on a journey of music from the Silver Screen.
The Opening Fanfare could only be one piece – the Theme from 20th Century Fox opened a programme of some 30 pieces of music from films such as Space Odyssey, Star Wars, The Great Escape, Mulan, Toy Story, The Incredibles, Rock, Up!, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, The Body Guard, Top Gun, James Bond… on and on! Gresham’s has long had a high standard of choral singing, but the concert this evening particularly highlighted our instrumental musicians. What a back line of brass, sensitive playing from our strings, melodic sounds from the wind section, a strong percussion section and an Impressive House Band. Thanks must go to the music staff who performed with the pupils and all credit to our pupils to be able to play alongside professionals so effortlessly.
With too many pupils to mention, it was a final opportunity for our talented Year 13s to play with their friends and remind us how much the Music Department will miss their input and ability – some playing several instruments, singing and sorting tech back stage. Thank you Johnny D, Jake O, Will J, Jethro H, Freddie S, Noah W, Grace H, Bea G, Summer H and Raphael C for the music. The rousing finale of Simple Minds Don’t You forget about Me, with Johnny on lead vocals was an apt way to close an memorable evening. Fortunately for the department there is no lack of talent to fill their big shoes and some spine-tingling performances from younger years across the musical disciplines makes for an exciting future.
For anyone who missed this wonderful evening, the Pop Concert on 23 June will be a chance to see many of our singers and musicians perform once again. Tickets from https://www.trybooking.co.uk/CKBB
Year 12 and 13 A level pupils visited three Buddhist centres representing Theravada, Vajrayana and Western forms of Buddhism. They received talks from resident teachers and practitioners, practised their respective forms of meditation and participated in Q&A sessions.
