Watford Grammar School for Boys Headmaster's Newsletter
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July 2017 Watford Grammar School for Boys Headmaster’s Newsletter In This Issue Update from the Headmaster We are delighted to welcome Mr Adcock and Mr Hedges to our Computing Department. Headmaster’s update Mr Cartwright, Dr Cerezo-Balsera, Dr Cianci, Mr Eddon and Mr Clarke will be joining Maths News from around the school and Physics. Ms Field will be joining Geography; Mr Clark, English and Dr Sadler, Chemistry. Mr Nutter and Ms Shah join Economics. Mr Doodson joins PE/Games and Mr Sport Silver will provide Cover/Games support. We also welcome Ms Wilson, LSA and our new afternoon receptionists, Mrs Elahi and Mrs Dunn, starting in September. Mr Ferguson also Music joins as DT Technician and Mrs Khow as Science Technician. Friends of the School At the end of this term, we thank Mrs Lloyd, Dr Buckley, Mr Talbot and Mrs Cooper who are now retiring after having made an invaluable contribution to the school over many years. We also wish a fond farewell to the following members of staff: Mr Belony, Mrs Useful links Beveridge, Mr Carrera, Ms Comb, Mr Coren, Mr Elmas, Mr Glass, Mr De Groot, Mrs WBGS website Hewgill, Mr Kendal, Mr Moore, Ms Sklar, Dr Vekaria, Ms Brown, Mrs Lowe, Mr Ali, Mrs Hy, Ms Jondot, Ms Schaapkens and Mr Lentes. We thank them for their service to the School Term dates and wish them every success in the future. WBGS Sport Thank you to all the parents who have generously donated to the STEM Centre Appeal. We Friends of the School have been delighted with the response which will help provide the high-tech equipment and other fixtures and fittings that the boys will benefit from when the new Centre opens in the Autumn term.We are still accepting donations; all donors of £100 or more can have Contact Us their name (or their son’s name) permanently displayed in the Centre. There are also still sponsorship opportunities available for specific items of equipment, from audio visual [email protected] equipment to laser cutters. For more information visit our website. @WBGSExcellence Here at Watford Boys, the emotional health and well- being of all our students is a major www.watfordboys.org consideration, with excellent support provided through our Heads of Year pastoral system and the Learning Support department. From September 2017, we will also have the services of Safe Space, Counselling in Hertfordshire Schools, through funding from the Watford Fuller Foundation. Safe Space will be at the school on a Monday morning and Wednesday afternoon each week and they will provide a 1:1 confidential counselling service for our students. There will be a brief introduction in assemblies next term so that your sons are fully aware of our in-school support systems and can understand how to access Safe Space and how it might help. We see this as a good opportunity for young people to have access to professional confidential counselling and therapy which we think they will find beneficial. Please inform Mr Macleod if you do not want your son to have access to this service. Best Wishes for the summer break, Mr I Cooksey News from around the school This year, the Year 9 form leaders and their teams have worked tirelessly to promote good leadership within the school, organising and presenting assemblies, activities, competitions, surveys and much more. We will be looking to extend these opportunities next year, so please encourage your son to put himself forward. The End of Year Film Competition was won by Thomas Connor, Matthew Bennett, Tim Hire and James Turvey. They created a very amusing mockumentary on an alternative OFSTED Lectures and report. They were rewarded by watching Spiderman on the Premier Screen at The Odeon Cinema, Leicester Square. Assemblies The Absolute Zero Club has been successful and has encouraged around 80 boys in the General Election Hustings year to have no behavioural points in SIMS for the entire year. They have been rewarded with a trip to Thorpe Park in the last week of school. National Breastfeeding Week The Year 9 sports teams have been very successful, winning the County Cups in Rugby and Affinity Water whole school project Cricket (what happened to Hockey?) and being in the final for the Tennis (result as yet unknown). A large number of the year group took part in the Music Competition and an Kissing it Better array of talent was heard and enjoyed. Many of our boys are actively involved with extra- Meeting the Challenge of Global Food curricular activities and your sons should be encouraged to get involved if they are not at Security – Dr Jon Storkey present. The boys have settled into their GCSE courses now and are ready and prepared for more Civil Engineering - Robert Baldock hard work next year. The 25 hour Maths Challenge 24 Year 12 students sat through 25 hours of maths lessons taught back to back by 34 teachers from all different departments, each putting a twist on their subject. Highlights included Mr Matthews coming in at 1.15am to teach in his dressing gown; maths with Roman numerals from the classics department; and Braille maths taught by the special educational needs team. The group, led by Head of Maths Mr Coren, raised over £6,000 for Great Ormond Street and Watford Heads of Year Women’s Centre. Next year, Heads of Year will move up Congratulations with their respective year groups, to all the students and staff involved. apart from Mr Horner who will be taking over Year 8, Mrs Messik will Rampaging Chariots take over Year 9 and Mrs Wallis Big Bang Science Fair Watford Boys were successful in the returns from maternity leave to take Congratulations to the Year 12 team Rampaging Chariot competition organised over Year 11. (Luke Ashford, George Wright, Srivatsa by Leonardo on Saturday 24th June. There Garg, Jeremy Zolnai-Lucas, Ethan Honey were four competitions on the day and our and Ralph Curwen) who entered the Big results were: Sumo - semi-finalists; assault Bang competition and won the CREST course – second; tug-of-war - knocked out Gold technology prize, and student prize and football – champions. The team were: which was voted by the other George Wright (champion driver on assault competitors. course), Aidan Graham, Luke Ashford, Jeremy Zolnai-Lucas and Srivatsa Garg. MFL Translation Bees PRE Reminders Year 8 and 9 students, Ethan Crockford, Please remind your sons to use the PRE Saksham Sidana, Hamish Starling, Wasil reading list (available on Moodle and in the Khan and Vishruth Dhamodharan library) to expand their subject knowledge travelled to Peterborough recently to and love of Philosophy and Ethics over the take part in the Regional Final of the MFL summer. Please don't forget to follow the PRE Translation Bee competition. They all performed really well against stiff department on Twitter @WbgsPRE competition and Wasil and Vishruth Please look out in September for Amsterdam 2018 letter. The trip is available qualified to compete in the National Final. to all students in the present year 7 - 9 The price of a main meal with pudding will be slightly increased to House Fundraising £2.25 from September. Watford Boys has always taken pride in its passion to work together and give back to the wider community and this spirit has yet again been enthusiastically captured this To apply or for guidance on Free year. The total amount raised over this academic year is just over £16,000. All forms in School Meals, please visit the majority of year groups have enthusiastically immersed themselves to raise money www.hertsdirect.org/freeschoolmeals with the full support of the House Captain Team. A range of entertaining and fun activities have taken place ranging from dress up mufti days, talent shows, a 24 hour maths challenge as well as teacher sponging and many more. We look forward to many more fun and collaborative events at the beginning of next year. Thank you for all your support in working together with us towards a greater cause. Team WBGS comprising of Ms Hockin, Mrs Dunsby, Mrs De Lucia, Mrs Cregg, Mrs Montague, Mrs Lloyd, Mrs Mitchell and Mrs Charlton successfully ran the Race for Life in Cassiobury Park recently and raised almost £1,000. During the week of the general election Our new uniform provider, Mapac, in June the school held a hustings event will be holding a sizing day at the and a school election (for years 7-10). school on Tuesday 25th July 10 am - 2 The candidates were Aron Finkelstein - pm for students to try on school Labour, Amaan Manji - Conservative, uniform. Anyone who can’t make this Jacob Haddo - UKIP, Shyam Chandarana sizing opportunity can always visit us - Liberal Democrat and Charlie Scott for their new shop at 6 Mowat Estate, the Greens. They made some stirring Sandown Road, Watford, Herts, speeches, many that were indeed more WD24 7UZ. coherent and persuasive than those displayed during the general election campaign by the actual party leaders. The results were: UKIP 48, Lib Dem 54, Green 72, Conservative 196, Labour 224. In the Junior Maths Kangaroo a special mention must go to Hamish Starling (8C) and Miren Sanghrajka (7N) who both achieved merits placing them in the top 25% of those who sat the exam. Well done to the other boys who also sat the kangaroo and received qualifications. They are Kirijan Vignarajan, Luke Powney, Lewis Macleod, Jibran Khan, Akshay Mehta, Dev Datt, Arun Gill, Andrew Leib and Husayn Merali. A major congratulations to Yueyang Han (8N) who was one of 1200 students to sit the Junior Maths Olympiad and with an impressive score of 36 received a distinction and a bronze medal, again for those in the top 25% who sat the exam.