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Maidstone Grammar School Community and Extend Their Grateful Appreciation to All of You

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Maidstone Grammar School Community and Extend Their Grateful Appreciation to All of You Maidstone Grammar School We have finally reached the end of the term and can all look forward to a restful holiday with friends and family. This term has again been incredibly busy what with the changes to GCSE and A-Level specifications that we are still embedding; the introduction of the new assessment framework to prepare for the changes to the accountability measures; the on-going conversations we are having and plans that we are making to restructure the pastoral and house systems; and the imminent building expansion project that we hopefully will be starting in January. On top of all of this we have also interviewed and appointed the new Deputy Head who will be starting here in September next year to replace the retiring Mr Smith. The two week holiday has come at a good time! As usual this newsletter will pick out and acknowledge a number of success stories we have seen at MGS over the last few months; and there have been many. I would particularly like to thank the entire cast and crew of the recent School Production In this Issue of Zorro. Over 50 students and 10 members of staff pulled together to produce four wonderful performances. The Merchandise goodwill, commitment and dedication they displayed were remarkable and a credit to how they feel about their school and News & to each other. Thank you ever so much. Achievements Thank you also to the many students and parents who recently donated toys and gifts that we have collected on behalf of The CCF Salvation Army. The response has been amazing. All of the presents were put under our Christmas tree on Tuesday before MGSPA. representatives from the charity came in to collect. Your generosity was overwhelming. Thank you. Term Dates Finally I would like to say that I am again extremely grateful to the staff, parents and governors of the School who support the students ensuring we go on being the school that we cherish. Thank you to the many, many students who do wonderful things each day and who take pride in the knowledge that they are a part of something incredibly special. I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. M Tomkins MGS December Newsletter 2016 MGS Development Fund Parker Pens £7 Crest Cufflinks £10 Small umbrella: £18 Large Umbrella: £22 Packages available: Cufflinks, large umbrella and parker pen £35, (£30 with small umbrella) OM Woollen Scarf £28.00 OM Tie £7.00 OM Acrylic Scarf £16.00 If you would like to purchase MGS Merchandise, please email to [email protected] MGS December Newsletter Student Achievements & News China Trip 2016 By Sam Smale Cr3 Leaving Beijing for Shanghai we arrived at the train station, the first thing that was striking was the vast amount of security, armed police highlighted the Chinese emphasis on safety and eventually after spending some time at the station we made our way to board the Bullet Train. The train itself was far more spacious than we had imagined and although the journey itself lasted for six hours we arrived in Shanghai by the evening after what felt like a much shorter, very smooth journey. The first thing we all noticed was the heat in Shanghai, it was a much warmer city than Beijing, aside from the weather it was much cleaner, the absence of smog and the presence of blue sky reminded us more of a western city than Beijing did. We made our way to the Bund as the sun wend down and walked along the waterfront, for me this view was the highlight of the trip, as every building began to light up we stayed to take pictures and appreciate the differences between the modern skyline of Shanghai and the historic, more traditional buildings that were in Beijing. The Bund was very clean and most buildings displayed some form of Western brand, the overall feel was more familiar to us than that of Beijing. The group, as a whole, seemed to agree that what Shanghai lacked in obvious tradition it made up for in being more welcoming. After quite a while we then made our way to dinner to experience if the food in Shanghai could compare to that of Beijing. After dinner we made our way to the hotel and after a long day we were all in great need of our beds, especially knowing we had an early start the following Morning. We had an early start the next day as we were on our way to visit a Middle School, we left the hotel by 7.45 and ended up arriving in very good time at the school, so we had a chance to drive around the town and see the surrounding areas before arriving in time to watch their morning exercises. MGS December Newsletter 2016 Student Achievements & News China Trip 2016 Continued The morning exercises were both bizarre whilst fascinating, every student was perfectly in time and the sight of hundreds of students all acting as a whole unit, the Chinese chants, we believed to be both instructions and politic messages, made the whole event somewhat strange. However we enjoyed our first day at the school, visiting lessons and getting a chance to really understand the Chinese way of life from the perspective or ordinary Chinese children. We had a music class, where we learnt about traditional Chinese music and saw the teacher perform, and we had a calligraphy lesson, practising using the ink. That night we went shopping along Jiujang Road, here we saw more Western brands and chain stores and had a chance to buy some gifts. The next day we had our final visit to the school, we were greeted and had a lesson on Chinese theatre in which we watched traditional performances and Chinese opera and studied different Chinese stage costumes, and they gave us a chance to win some Chinese masks similar to the ones we had been looking at. After lunch we had a less formal lesson which gave us the chance to make some Chinese cuttings and be creative for a couple of hours, eventually having our cuttings laminated and given back to us by the teachers of the school. The end of the afternoon, before leaving, was probably the most enjoyable part of the trip, giving the pupils their gifts from us, I personally made friends with a group of 4 students through comparing our different social media, we all agreed that the differences between Western and Chinese social media was less than we would expect. We gave our gifts and every student was extremely grateful, all offering gifts in return. On our final full day we visited the Water City, we spent the day walking around the market and took the chance to buy some last minute souvenirs. Most of us decided to purchase some food, mainly from the chocolate and sweet shop, ready for the long journey home. Once in the air, knowing we were heading back to the UK, we realised how much we had done in 10 days, not only had we visited two very different cities but a School that allowed us to witness real Chinese culture first-hand, the trip was very enjoyable and really allowed us to discover every aspect of the Country. MGS December Newsletter 2016 Student Achievements & News Admittedly, I am not a huge fan of football, but I couldn't help but be completely astounded in all the grandeur and sheer architectural genius that was the Emirates Stadium. We were taken on a fascinating tour of the world-famous stadiums interior, from the swanky “Diamond Club” with its beautiful 1930’s Art Deco style (which I soon learnt was to commemorate Arsenal’s numerous successes of the period), where the greats of the football world had rubbed shoulders, to the surprisingly comfy, heated seats of the Directors box, to the ordinary seats where so many faithful football fans had come from all over the world to watch their favourite team play. I felt incredibly lucky which other pupils had access to so great a privilege?? We saw the changing rooms of the visiting teams and then onto the luxurious changing rooms The home team. You could certainly see that no expense had been spared on providing for their needs! You could see the very board with the “tactics” of the precious match, still there written by the managers hand not less than twelve hours ago. Wow! We saw the capacious press conference room, which was surprisingly large. It would need to be I suppose to fit all of those eager reporters hoping for a scoop of the days match. We learnt of the ingenious translating network in which an interpreter is in a separate box with the foreign reporter, instantly translating the managers words into the other language. We then bid a fond farewell to the stadium for the next part of the trip-urban regeneration. We saw all of the new housing and public services that Arsenal had built as a condition of the deal of their move. We proceeded to Highbury Square, the sight of the old stadium where we saw the grand Art Deco façade of the East Stand. Now I understand why it had a Grade 2 listing! (this meant that it was protected by law and could not be demolished or changed in any way). The old stadium has been converted into luxury, expensive flats with rent costing tenants in some cases a whopping £1000 a week! The pitch had been converted into an attractive garden with the expensive flats looming overhead.
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