Lent term: Week 6 News 9th February 2018

A note from the Headmaster

Congratulations to our rowers, and particularly the J15 crew, on their excellent performances in the Wycliffe head. We have also played lots of football recently, and our teams achieved many great results in block fixtures against Marlborough and Clifton. In this newsletter you will also see reports on successes in cross-country, and on the most enjoyable Brass competition in our Music Department. I wish you all an enjoyable half term break.

Top stories

CREWS PERFORM EXCELLENTLY AT WYCLIFFE BIG HEAD

Wycliffe Big Head, one of the first major long distance races of the season, took place on the canal at Frampton on Sat- urday in cold, damp conditions and the Rowing Club entered two senior eights and two J15 eights.

The race attracted entries from some of the best schools from across the country including Radley, Shrewsbury, King’s Chester and Shiplake. A senior ‘A’ eight did well, beating local rivals and Monkton and coming close to King’s Chester’s top boat, but the stand out performance was from the J15s once again, who showed an excellent turn of speed to come towards the top of the order.

With plenty more improvements to make, we can be confi- dent of success later in the season. SCHOOLS GO RED AND RAISE MONEY FOR CANCER CHARITY

Pupils and staff at Monmouth School for Boys enjoyed a range of activities last Friday to raise £1,279.16 for Velindre – ’ leading cancer centre.

The boys made donations to wear red clothing to school, while others bought promotional mugs and wristbands to raise funds. Former Head Boy at Monmouth School for Boys, Hallam Amos, the Wales rugby international, backed the Wear Red for Wales and Velindre campaign when he dropped in for a flying visit on his way to training.

Students made a donation to throw wet spong- es at good-natured teachers and sporty pupils took part in a 30-second challenge to pass a rugby ball through a hole resembling the mouth of ex-England forward Brian Moore. Children across all of Haberdashers’ Monmouth Schools also joined in the fun.

Head of fundraising for Velindre, Mr Andrew Morris, said: “We were absolutely delighted with the amazing response to Wear Red for Wales and Velindre. We are incredibly grateful to everyone who took part.”

A Message to all students in Forms III, IV, V, VI.1 and VI.2

The annual joint Careers Convention will take place on Thursday 22nd March 2018, from 6.30pm to 8.30pm, to be held this year at Monmouth School for Girls Both par- ents and pupils are invited to come along and find out more about a wide range of different careers, university courses and gap year opportunities.

A large number of volunteer advisers will be present at the convention to give first-hand insights into the kind of work they do, rewards involved and career prospects. The advisers will also be able to give advice about routes into a particular career and qualifications needed, as well as information about how to get some work experience. There will also be an exhibition area with representatives from a number of universities and gap year organisations.

The Convention will take place in and around the Atrium and Salter Sixth Form Centre at Monmouth School for Girls, and will take the form of a fair where you can browse around stands and talk to the volunteer careers advisers and university/gap representatives. On arrival, you will be given a programme with information about the representa- tives and where they are located.

Entry will be via the Reception Office at Monmouth School for Girls at the front of the Main Building. Parking will be available – through the school gates to the lower car park.

Any queries please contact Mrs D Gray, HE & Careers Co-ordinator, Monmouth School for Boys [email protected] or 01600 713143 FOOTBALL NEWS: GOALS GALORE AGAINST MARLBOROUGH AND CLIFTON AND MORE There have been quite a few games over the last couple of weeks with the two block fixtures being against Marlborough College and Clifton College. The U14B’s lost to a strong Llandaff Cathedral A side, however, the U14A side have started the season very well beating Rougemont 5-0, destroying Marlborough 16-1, and Clifton College 5-1. The U15B’s beat Llandaff Cathedral’s A team 2-1, and won at Clifton away 7-0. The U15A side have won 4-2 against Rougemont, 5-1 against Marlborough, and 3-1 against Clifton. After losing to Marlborough the U16A’s bounced back winning 4-1 away at Clifton College against their 3rds. Our 3rd team had a comfortable game winning 3-0 against Clifton Col- lege 4ths while the 2nd XI, after losing to Marlborough, secured their first win of the season with a 2-1 victory against Clifton College. After the disappointment of a slow start the week before, the 1st team was keen to gain a victory against Marlborough College. The 1st XI came out of the blocks quickly and after 30 seconds Nathan played a delicious ball through and George calmly slotted home. It took the team 5 passes from kick-off to score however Marlborough soon equalised. After some tenacious running by myself, I somehow found myself in the opposition penalty area. George in the meantime was working brilliantly down the right hand side, crossed the ball in and running up to the ball on my weak foot, I finessed the ball into the top right hand corner and sent the Monmouth faithful into pandemonium. I am overjoyed to say that I have now doubled my goal tally for the school since 3rd form from1 up to 2. A delightful aerial cross from Angus found its way to George to complete his brace. At 3-1 up at half-time the next goal would prove to be key, however, it was Marlborough who scored next and at 3-2 the game remained very much in the balance. For the final 20 minutes the team soaked up a lot of pressure, and if it were not for some brilliant challenges at the back from Adam and some brave saves from Harry, we would not have seen off the game as 3-2 winners.

The next game saw us face Clifton College in a local rivalry. Again Monmouth started at a high intensity fashioning chances and dominating possession but after a couple lapses of concentration at the back Clifton were undeserv- edly 2-0 up at half-time, after only having 3 shots at goal. However, after the break all players knew what needed to be done and George’s height and power in the air continued to be a threat as he headed home from Max’s pinpoint cross. Clifton then managed to score another scruffy goal and were 3-1 up, completely against the run of play. De- spite this there was no sign of giving up and after the referee awarded a penalty, George fired home a nervy penalty. At 3-2 down all was to play for, however, we weren’t able to find that final goal and we somehow left the game with a loss, despite playing the best football we have all season and completely dominating the opposition, restricting them to just 4 shots all game.

I would like to thank all those who came down to watch the last couple games and hope they were enjoyed. Many thanks to Nyasha (1st XI Captain) for this report KENT-DODSWORTH BRASS COMPETITION RESULTS The Brass Competition this year saw pupils tackling some extended rep- ertoire, including Saint-Säens’ Morceau de Concert played by Tom and the Hubeau Sonate by Owen. Cameron tackled Douglas Court’s very complex Reflections and James gave a very enjoyable Raiders’ March on the Euphonium. Joe gave us Grieg’s famous In the Hall of the Mountain King and Jamie rounded things off with Gershwin’s Let’s call the whole thing off.

Adjudicator Donald Clist, formerly a Horn player in WNO, made some observations on stage-craft and engaging with the audience, as well as some more technical remarks on maintaining a musical pulse. He gave second place to Tom for his Morceau de Concert and first place to Joe for his Grieg. ‘BREAD IN THE NEXT TRASH CAN’ - DRAMA STUDENTS TAKE ON POLITICS IN DEVISED PERFORMANCE This year’s A-Level drama students devised a dystopian political tale as part of their A-Level course and unleashed it on their unsuspecting audience this Tuesday afternoon.

Two performances were staged, one to an invited audi- ence of parents and staff, the other to drama students from Forms 3 and 4.

The original stimulus for the production came from Ed- ward Albee’s classic work ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’ and the students took the central themes of this to create a piece based on the lies and arguments within an imag- ined totalitarian regime - taking their title of ‘Bread in the next Trash Can’ from a news article about the lack of hope for the poor of North Korea.

Congratulations to the cast for this thought-provoking piece of original drama. CROSS-COUNTRY TEAMS BATTLE IT OUT ON TOUGHEST COURSE OF THE SEASON Last Sunday 2 teams of 4 travelled to the Abberley relays, by far the toughest cross-country course they will encounter.

With the occasional blizzard to add to the hills and the mud, our boys did really well, finishing 5th (close behind 3rd) out of 16 teams from all over the country, about the equal highest we’ve ever come.

The team consisted of Adam, Kit, Ollie and Rhys. The B team, consisting of Will, Adithya, George and Toby, also ran well to finish 13th. Detailed results: 1. Cheam A (Hampshire) 29.09 2. Cheam B 29.43 3. The Downs, Malvern 30.25 4. St Hugh’s (Faringdon, Oxfordshire) 30.38 5. Monmouth A 30.43 6. Prestfelde (Shrewsbury) 30.59 7. Pinewood (Wiltshire/Oxfordshire) 31.05 8. Moor Park 31.11 9. Abberley A 31.18 10. The Elms 31.25 11. RGS Worcester 32.30 12. Lucton 32.57 13. Monmouth B 33.02 14. Hereford Cathedral Junior School 33.07 15. Abberley B 33.54 16. Abberley C 34.17 Archive photo SPOTLIGHT ON ENRICHMENT - YOUNG ENTERPRISE INTRODUCE THEIR PRODUCT ‘MySlides are a Young Enterprise group, consisting of 10 boys and 5 girls. Our group sell bespoke personalised white sliders; presently at a price of £10. We personalise them by ink dye sublimation technology, where we can permanently sublimate any logo, pattern or picture onto the Sliders.

Sliders are a well-known and current shoe design within the fashion in- dustry. After extensive product consideration and research, our Young Enterprise group decided to pursue MySlides as we believe that these are a very marketable and versatile product which we feel will slide off the shelf!’ Please use the details below for more information or to place an order: http://myslides.bigcartel.com/products [email protected] myslides_ye COMING UP AT THE BLAKE THEATRE: Live in HD on our big screen: February 20th Welsh Wrestling - 7pm

Live Superstars of Welsh Wrestling make a triumphant return to The Blake Theatre. Come and experi- ence the excitement and atmosphere first hand as these larger than life wrestlers battle it out in an evening of high action, suitable for all the family. February 23rd Morgan & West Time Travelling Magicians – 7.30pm Great Scott! Time-travelling magicians Morgan & West bring a magical extravaganza to a millennium near you! Not content with their lot as the nineteenth century’s greatest magic duo, this prestidigitatory pair present a conjuring spectacular to the audiences of the modern day.

No future is left unseen and no timeline left unaltered as these temporal tricksters burst into the twenty-first century with a show brimming over with baffling magic, unparalleled precognitive powers, and a totally genuine ability to travel through CLICK ON THE IMAGES TO BUY TICKETS time! An unforgettable evening of magic, mystery, and the unexplainable. FOR EACH EVENT ***** ‘Brilliantly funny’ – ThreeWeeks **** ‘Hugely talented’ – Code Club and Wyehack Code Club: Sunday 18 Feb 1-2pm Library – for new coders to learn to code with Python WyeHack: Sunday 18 Feb 2-5pm Library – for existing Makers and Coders to bring and build Click on the image for more details Click here to see all of our news stories on the website.

Calendar Dates:

4pm HALF TERM BEGINS Fri 9 February 4.15pm Boarders’ Coach to Newport Station

Sat 17 February Chess: Wiltshire & West of England Junior Championships (Swindon) 1pm-2pm Code Club (Library) 2pm-5pm WyeHack (Library) Boarders return from 5pm Sun 18 February 6pm Boarders’ Supper 7pm Boarders’ coach departs Newport Station Chess: Wiltshire & West of England Junior Championships (Swindon) 8.35am Day boys return Mon 19 February GCSE Choices to Tutors: Form III Rugby: U14 VIIs (Prior Park) Depart 8am, K.O. 10am CCF Field Day: RAF Section (RAF Cosford) Depart 4pm (to 21 February, 5pm) Tue 20 February Army Section (Swynnerton) Depart 4.30pm (to 21 February, 5.30pm) 8pm Boarders’ Multi-Activity: Form III/Year 9 (MG) Field Day: RAF Section returns 5pm Army Section returns 5.30pm Wed 21 February Soccer: v. St John’s-on-the-Hill: U14B XI (H) K.O. 4.15pm v. Christ College : U17 XI (H) K.O. 4.15pm

8.40am Chapel: Severn House Thu 22 February 4.15pm Sedgwick Society: Joint Sixth Form Discussion & Dinner (Sixth Form Centre) Swimming: MB/MG v. Cheltenham Prep: U13 (A) Depart 3.30pm