REEDONIAN Newsletter SPRING EDITION 39, 2015 With the year culminating in a very favourable ISI Inspection Report, 2014 proved to be a vintage one academically for Reed’s! The end of the summer saw our best ever GCSE results, with over half the boys scoring a total of least seven A* or A grades including over 120 A* grades in separate science IGCSEs and a successful first sitting of IGCSE English. A Level results were good again; most notable was the strong performance by the five pupils who went on to read medicine. We all know about raw exam results that are published in League Tables and we are proud of our track record here. However, where achievement stands out even more clearly is in the measure of the ‘value added’ at Reed’s - put plainly, this measures pupils’ final exam results in the context of their individual entry profile. In the two consecutive inspection periods spanning 2004 to 2014 our record for value added is outstanding. All schools should be adding value but at Reed’s we have consistently seen pupils’ perform way beyond predictions based on their entry level. This is a source of enormous pride and vindication of the work that goes on year upon year, not just in a final burst before public examinations. David Atkins, Director of Studies • Music - Barney Goodwin awarded place in • Golf - Jen Vincent & Max O’Hagan represent Surrey National Children’s Orchestra; at Woking Music U18s; Jen captains Surrey Girls to County Festival - James Cobb 1st in German Lieder Class, championship title Dylan Price 1st in U16 Bach Class, Piano Challenge • Hockey - Reed’s Boys’ U18 indoor hockey team Class & U18 Piano Recital Class: Dylan Price awarded reach semi-finals of South Regionals; Joss Mitchison place in Emmanuel Piano Trophy Competition for represents England U16 at 4 Nations Tournament top 25 U18 pianists in the country winning Bronze • Science – Jonathan Salmon is first Reed’s student to • Rugby – best season ever for 1st XV with only one win Gold CREST Award loss over the whole season • Elmbridge Sports Awards – Reed’s win 1st, 2nd & • Skiing - Henry Roberts is 12th Reed’s pupil chosen 3rd places in Senior School Team; 2nd in Junior for English Schools’ ski squad School Team; James Sieber 3rd Individual Sportsman • Swimming - Andrew Roy is 100m Freestyle • Athletics - Harry Spawforth Bronze in 800m in the champion of the South East English National Championships • Tennis - U15 National Champions; U13 runners up cover: Sixth Form girls having fun on a Biology trip www.reeds.surrey.sch.uk THE ARTS DRAMA an intelligent and skilfully acted performance... Scenes from ‘There is a War’ he Director of Drama, Tim Silk’s, stage arrangement for the confess to succumbing to my sad, black sense of humour when Sixth Tproduction of Tom Basden’s ‘There is a War’, added a tinge of Formers Becky Donaldson and James Hurley buried bodies while excitement and provided the talented young cast with the perfect talking about old school friends! There was a ‘Blackadder’ quality backdrop for a terrific show. The play itself is a satire of the absurdity to Upper Sixth Former Max Walker’s portrayal of Field Commander of war. ‘Catch 22’ meets ‘The Green Wing’ as a civil war between the Goodman and every war film has its ‘little drummer boy’: these Blues and the Greys, cause unknown, absorbs the entire population scenes were maturely led by Fourth Former Sam Moldon fronting in some dystopian future. The hapless Anne, quite brilliantly played the Director of Music, Iain Carnegie’s, score. The final scene has to by Lower Sixth Former Ellie Chance, takes us through the war as a take the plaudits. The ‘War of the Wards’ met ‘War of the Worlds’, as doctor desperately trying to make the front line to do her duty. The a cleverly-directed slow-motion fight scene erupted to conclude poor energy and passion that a large cast of over fifty students brought Anne’s bizarre journey. Here the young cast rose to the challenge of to the stage was quite brilliant. As a result, it is difficult to pick my a choreographed fight scene with aplomb and the teamwork of tech personal favourites. Flossie Wilson-Gunn’s Sasha was skilfully played. crew, actors, directors and an exhausted audience was evident in a It would have been easy for her to be childish in her role, but I found memorable finale. Well done and thank you to the directors, cast and sympathy with her idealistic dance teacher. Third Former Sam Hunt’s crew for producing an intelligent and skilfully acted play. comic timing was superb as John, the tortured soldier, and I have to Extracts from a review by Ian Clapp, Director of Sport & Activities MUSIC a dazzling concert ... The Autumn Concert he first major musical event of the school year, the Autumn Concert, Tfeatured a dazzling variety of ensembles. The Jazz Orchestra set the evening off on a groovy path before the ‘Haydn Seek’ Quartet gave a beautifully poised performance. The Consort Choir’s performance of And So It Goes exhibited a lilting quality; they then combined very effectively with the First Form Choir for a beautiful performance of T.C.Harry’s Ordinary Day. The Clarinet Ensemble played with enthusiasm and flair, before the ‘Quatro Corda’ Quartet of four violins impressed with their performance. The Brass Ensemble’s rendition of the Theme from James Bond displayed a pleasing thrust and urgency, paving the way for the Quintet to give a highly mature account of Mozart’s Quintet for Piano and Winds. The ‘Energico’ String Quartet played with energy and commitment and the Brass Choir’s bite-size Carmen provided a fresh look at a celebrated piece. The Guitar Ensemble and the Wind Band gave spirited, uplifting performances before the evening was brought to an appropriate close by the Reed’s Orchestra, performing Saint-Saens’ Bacchanale and the Theme from Bonanza. It was particularly pleasing to witness the confidence of the performances of all the musicians, especially those who performed for the first time. Iain Carnegie, Director of Music 2 “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all’” Aristotle ACADEMIC TEACHING AT REED’S What really goes on in lessons?... Director of Teaching & Learning, Caroline St Gallay, History - The focus, not surprisingly, was on WW1. In one class, takes regular tours (or Learning Walks) around the school. Here’s a groups were assigned a country, exploring their role in the war in a very sample of what she found on one of her tours: lively and enjoyable way. In another, groups were collaborating brilliantly “English - First Form boys were doing a fun activity on their mini- to explore the causes of WW1. A level students were predicting their whiteboards to test their spellings and vocabulary. The task included a own knowledge before writing short-answer questions on whiteboards. metacognitive element by asking them to judge their confidence about This was carefully managed and scrutinised by the teacher so that any the vocabulary, using the traffic light system. gaps in the pupils’ knowledge were identified swiftly. Maths - In one First Form lesson pupils were exploring long division by Modern Languages - A Fifth Form French lesson saw pupils using an intriguing “Monkey Method”. In another, they were teaching throwing a die to challenge them on their use of tenses. Each number each other about fractions and then using traffic lights to reflect on referred to a different tense that they then had to use in a sentence. If their learning. After this, they were undertaking a challenge to spot and anyone threw a 6, they had to demonstrate their tense usage to the correct errors in their teacher’s work. In a Sixth Form lesson, a student whole class. Fun, challenging, purposeful and original! was “teaching” the class how to solve a problem and the teacher Classics - Fourth Formers were analysing passages, then teaching the was guiding where required. They enjoyed the variety and the expert salient points to the rest of the class for them to take notes. Pupils were understanding that they now have will be highly valuable. demonstrating expertise and covering the text in an interesting way. Science - A Sixth Form Biology student was taking a rather messier, Economics - A Level students were engaged in an interesting activity active role in her lesson. She had been given gloves, scalpel and challenging them to consider concepts and statistics from different sheep’s lungs - the teacher asked her to cut parts off and explain the angles. They had to analyse economic data and concepts, then anatomy and function of each part, for whole class discussion. Sixth transform their results into information that would be accessible to a Form Chemists were learning about electrons in an inventive way wider audience in a news report. by representing them with balloons. They were taking theory and Overall, our Director of Teaching & Learning noticed two making it practical – a very visual way to learn a challenging concept. A discernible themes - pupils taking ownership of their learning and Fourth Form Physics class were given 30 seconds each to memorise a demonstrating independence (particularly at Sixth Form level) and poster explaining static electricity and then reproduce the information, valuable collaborative learning, to increase discussion, thought encouraging the successful learning method of: look/cover/hide/check. and engagement.” A student ‘teaching’ Maths to his peers , discussions on ‘WW1’ in History and sheep lung dissection in Biology CHEMISTRY success for our outstanding chemists... cientists at Reed’s have proved the extent of their knowledge this had been carried out.