Autumn 2019 Education Is Liberation
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Bradfordian Issue 353 The | Autumn 2019 Education is liberation. Dr Simon Hinchlife Headmaster Extract from Speech Day 2019 For the full speech please turn to page 07 School Notes Arts and Performance Communities, Trips Events and Sporting Achievements JUNIOR, SENIOR AND SENIOR AND SIXTH FORM Societies and Activities SENIOR AND SIXTH FORM Visiting Speakers SENIOR AND SIXTH FORM SIXTH FORM 64–71 SENIOR AND SIXTH FORM 88–95 SENIOR AND SIXTH FORM 104–109 Contents 06–29 74–85 98–101 Clay extravaganza Junior Classics trip to the The Race Ace! Bay of Naples From the Headmaster Youth Speaks team Best ever GCSE results Dr Zoe Williams inspired Swimming championships Classics Trip to London students to reach for their Speech Day 2019 – Computer Science Outstanding A Level success Running club aspirational goals Headmaster’s Speech and Cybersecurity European Day of Languages First World War centenary: Prestigious training Mental health is about more Staf Leavers Art Society observations marking 100 years Battlefields of the programme for our Contents than just talking First World War Hockey Coach University Degree Course Exhibition follows in Hockney’s Year 9 cross-curricular First TV’s Dan Snow talks history Admissions and Vocations footsteps World War Day Vecht rowing trip Team GB’s Emile makes an 2019 Open Science Lecture Series: exciting return to Bradford Pupils’ art showcase raises over Internationally acclaimed Vecht racing in the Netherlands From young to old, from rare Grammar Examination Results 2019 £1,000 for NSPCC cricketer inspires students French exchange to common Eton tennis trip Making the most of Music Schools linking programme Iceland Open Science Lecture Series: at BGS goes from strength to strength Leading independent school Junior School The role of the Southern Rhineland wins Bradford Sports Award JUNIOR Children’s creative Cyber crime unit launches Ocean in regulating the 32–61 award winner! challenge 2019 Senior Classics trip climate Cross Country success Artists of the term Carnival Time! Senior Netball tour Table tennis triumphs Arts and Performance Top three in ‘Sunday Times’ Amsterdam School swim stars Communities, Societies Over £4,500 raised for charities Geography field trip championships and Activities New Deputy Headmaster Year 7 Residential Meet Georgina Jones, Head of Trips and Visits Junior School PE and Sport ‘We’re a world away from Junior Classics trip Events making a spice rack for your WW1 Battlefields Sport mum’ Sport Rotterdam Hockey tour Rocket cars SENIOR AND SIXTH FORM 2019 Summer Hockey tour Young volunteers 110–134 Year 12 Journey to A little piece of the Moon! Ainsdale Sands Athletics Meet Dean Winter, BGS Executive Chef Cricket Cross Country Linguatrivia competition Tennis Sixth Form Volunteering Hockey Singing Children of Africa Netball Inspiration to pick up a racket Orienteering Visit from bestselling author Rowing BGS pupil becomes lifesaver Rugby European Day of Languages Swimming and Water polo Table Tennis From the Headmaster . 06 Speech Day 2019 – Headmaster’s Speech . 07 Staf Leavers . 12 University Degree Course Admissions and Vocations 2019 . 24 Examination Results 2019 . 28 School Notes The Bradfordian School Notes 06/07 From the Headmaster … From the Headmaster … It is my pleasure to introduce this latest edition of our whole school publication, ‘The Bradfordian’. I hope you enjoy reading all that follows as much as I did. Many thanks to everyone, doors. Anniversaries such as these illustrate how schools can evolve whilst students and BGS colleagues, who make remaining true to their core values. BGS is secure and traditional in many this excellent publication possible. respects, but never afraid to innovate. Our forthcoming coeducational BGS is in robust good health. Students are respected, their welfare, intellectual anniversary signals that BGS is not timid and personal development are our priorities. We value scholarship and about moving forward with the times. Speech Day 2019 application to one’s studies and a host of ‘super-curricular’ activities. Exam results Being part of the BGS family is Headmaster’s Speech remain strong, reflecting both a love of learning and, let’s be honest, much hard something very special. We face work from everybody. Additionally, co-curricular programmes are thriving. challenges, but remain true to our Vice Lord-Lieutenant, High Sherif, Volunteering, the arts and sport, for example, reflect our liberal values and keen heritage, champion the virtues of Lady Morrison, Ashley Metcalfe, sense of proportion. We continue to nurture capable, decent young people of scholarship and strive to be an asset Honoured Guests, Governors, Ladies character: individuals ready to play a full role in the world beyond our gates. in our community. In so doing, we and Gentlemen and members of We are proud to ofer such a rich and empowering education and remain continue to enact our shared vision the school. Please allow me to add grateful to BGS families for their support. We also extend our sincere thanks to for the future of BGS, and model my words of welcome to those our benefactors, whose generosity enables BGS to extend such transformative whole school values of excellence, of Lady Morrison, our Chairman opportunities to the widest possible cross-section of families. We are always compassion, determination, of Governors, who I would also seeking to make a diference to all our students, inspiring young minds across opportunity and service. We do so like to thank for her opening West and North Yorkshire and fostering social integration and mobility. In so without fuss, without airs and graces, address. I remain deeply grateful doing, we are investing in the future of our school, county and country for in a Hoc Age ‘get on and do it’ fashion. to our Chairman and the Board of everyone’s benefit. The pages that follow attest to the Governors for the support they many lives lived well at our school, For our students, a connection to BGS can be lifelong. In April, a hugely provide to the school and to me, guided as ever by our abiding motto. successful Old Bradfordians (OBs) 1940/50s Reunion saw OBs mingle with its Headmaster. Governors, teachers and pupils to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the I have now completed three opening of the current school campus by Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh. years and two terms as the 29th Conversation flowed, memories were exchanged, and music, fine food and Headmaster of this iconic school. drink were enjoyed. Additionally, it being a ‘normal’ school day, OBs were once Most of my hair has now fallen out again able to experience an end of term assembly in the Price Hall. Looking and youthful good looks are but a ahead, the academic year, starting September 2019, will mark another distant memory! Well, I say ‘good significant anniversary: twenty years since BGS became fully coeducational and looks’ ... perhaps I’m stretching a point 35 years since Bradford Grammar School (BGS) first welcomed girls through its Dr Simon Hinchlife ... and my memory is not what it was. BA, MEd, PhD, FRSA I am grateful nonetheless to the Board for the significant contribution Headmaster they make to BGS, thank you all; and it remains a great honour to lead this wonderful school. … The Bradfordian School Notes 08/09 From the Headmaster … Speech Day 2019 So, various reports, one describing a Headmaster’s Speech decline of the middle classes and the others reporting a continued stagnation of social mobility and of elites resistant to And these are more than words, they are Opportunities for volunteering in the Sixth change. A less than virtuous circle with far statements of aspiration and intent, lived Form, through paired reading and Maths reaching implications, not least for fee out in the daily routine at our school. On mentoring programmes at Heaton Primary dependent, independent schools. I am not days like these, when we slow down and School, paired reading at Frizinghall saying there isn’t a very real issue here. But take stock, the bigger picture is revealed. Primary and Shipley C of E Primary, and independent education, BGS style, remains According to Irish poet, William Butler Yeats: sports coaching at St Philip’s Girlington, are A question, if I may? What is the point of Ministerial gravitas and punch give this Direct grant provision was abolished in a very poor proxy for privilege and the ‘Education is not the filling of a pail but the growing in number. BGS volunteers also education? conception of learning a little more life, 1975 with a change of Government and argument that removing schools like ours work with Age UK, mentor children from lighting of a fire’ – that is the point. from the UK landscape will somehow To answer such a profound question, I did some much appreciated oomph! ‘The overwhelmingly, facing difcult choices, refugee families at Bevan House and foundation of our culture’: these words Education is liberation. direct grant schools elected for miraculously make other schools, and the support Barnardo’s Young Carers on what most of the young folk in this room circumstances of some groups in society, strike to the core of something substantial Over many years BGS has had a profound independence going forwards. The Thursday evenings. Our popular Duke of would do. After much deliberation and a better, is misguided. We wait for a and meaningful, something to do with our influence internationally, in the UK and, of Assisted Places Scheme that replaced Edinburgh Bronze Award programme in little procrastination ... I consulted Google! comprehensive discussion about fairness essential identity, our connection to each course, much closer to home, not least direct grant arrangements, and to which Years 9 and 10 also provides a framework The uppermost link, the first thing Google and opportunity in Britain, dialogue that other and the world around us.