Ellesmere SUMMER TERM 2011 news Ellesmere College Newsletter - SUMMER TERM 2011 Senior School Play 2011 In rehearsal on Tour ‘Crichton’ in Ellesmere… and the USA n March this year senior school students were able to excellent comic physicality. The fame hungry contestants present a world premiere of a modern ‘reimagining’ of ‘The Dream Machine’ talent show were skilfully brought Iof J M Barrie’s classic play ‘The Admirable Crichton’. to life by Luke Taylor, Luca Kuhn, Jenny Griffiths and Sarah Richardson, and they, together with the Show’s embittered Ellesmere commissioned a new updated version of the play presenter, played by Paul Scull, showed off the costume from young Playwright, Andy Hutchings, son of the play’s making skills of College Housekeeper, Mrs Sue Hinks, director, Mrs Margaret Hutchings. assisted by Mrs Janet Owen, in their ‘back to basics’ island Working with a brand new script which was specifically transformation. Meanwhile Matt Johnson and Vicky Tadros written with them in mind proved a new experience for the took on the role of comic villains beautifully as big name cast drawn from Years 10 to Lower Sixth, but they rose to celebrity Mike Hurst and his long suffering PA. Becky Dale, the challenge admirably and created a believable and very Lower Sixth IB Theatre Studies student, demonstrated her entertaining performance, now set in the narcissistic world range of acting skills from singing a comic song to winning of reality television and celebrity culture. Lewis Allsop the audience’s sympathy when the man she loves rejects played the long-suffering Crichton with understated charm, her. Year 11 David Whitehead also proved his worth as an tolerating with patience his boss, the publicity obsessed excellent Stage Manager, taking responsibility for all the media mogul, Mr Loam, played by Rory Maclean with technical aspects of the show. Crichton in performance Lewis Allsop signing autographs Page 02 Ellesmere College Newsletter - SUMMER TERM 2011 Visiting the Mayflower II The actors were ably supported by a team of dancers trained After a brief stay in the city of Boston itself for by Miss Amy Darrant, Head of Physics, who also added more shopping and sightseeing, students and operating the sound desk to her usual role as ‘prop supplier teachers returned home, exhausted but very in chief’. The play ran for three nights in Ellesmere, gaining happy. As Margaret Hutchings commented: in confidence and pace each night, but then, rather than ‘This is a rare and important opportunity for enjoying a rest, cast, director and crew packed up and our students to experience taking a drama headed for Heathrow to enjoy a ten day tour of Boston, USA, production on the road and living with it for during the Easter holidays. This was part of our regular ex- longer than is normal in school. We are really change programme with Tabor Academy on the coast of grateful to everyone who supported the Massachussetts, where the students stayed whilst performing production and made it possible, and in local schools, attending lessons and sports and taking in particularly of course to our friends at Tabor the sights of part of the States so steeped in history. Academy for their kindness and hospitality.’ Actors recreate the life of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plimoth Plantation Learning about the Wampanoag Indian Culture Page 03 Enhance Ellesmere his year’s ‘Enhance Ellesmere’ scheme ‘’I know that in these tough financial to direct donations towards specific times giving might seem a stretch, but, TCollege projects is proving a huge success. whether equipment or scholarships, ‘Although we need a further £10,000 to complete your generosity makes such a difference New outdoor table tennis tables bring more fun to Lower School break the projects on the Enhance Ellesmere website, to our students and their education. we have got off to a flying start,’ commented I also believe in honouring and recognising Nick Pettingale, Director of Development. this generosity and so at the end of the year we will publish our annual review with the ‘‘New equipment for almost every department names of our donors and the projects that across the curriculum seems to arrive daily at the are completed’’. College, and I am starting to feel a little like Father Christmas as I tell the Common Room of the latest You can visit the College website and give by addition, funded by these generous gifts. As well credit card or download a donation form as the projects, there are three new scholarships from: www.enhance-ellesmere.com in place, which will provide 50% of day fees for The accumulation of all donations, whether talented students and those who would not be large or small, makes a huge difference to able to access an Ellesmere education without the Ellesmere College, so thank you on behalf fantastic support of our donors’’. of our students and staff. New biology equipment Modelling the Landscape modelling competition open to all Year 7 was recently held in the AGeography Department. The brief was to make a scale model of a landscape presented to students as a flat map. In other words they had to show what the map would look like in the field if they were out for a walk. A great many entries of all shapes and sizes arrived in school during the Lent Term. Some were made of wood, others from card or even polystyrene and paper mache. They filled the floor space of the Geography Office! Mr. Baggaley had a difficult time deciding on a winner from each class, but eventually came to a decision and prizes were awarded at The winners: Jack Bacon, Caro Hulme, Lower School Assembly. Georgina Freer-Carmichael, Harry Pockin Page 04 Ellesmere College Newsletter - SUMMER TERM 2011 Young Biologists Highly Commended ear 11 students Mark McBrien and Joe Haigh were delighted to receive fourth place and Ya ‘Highly Commended’ in a recent national competition run by the Microbiology in Schools Advisory Committee. Schools across the country had to submit designs for a webpage informing the public on the importance of fungi in everyday life. Mark and Joe researched the contribution made to medicine by the cordyceps subsessilis fungus, which feeds on scarab beetles and from which is obtained the immunosuppressant drug cyclosporin, an essential part of treatment for organ transplant patients. Woodard Oxford Master Classes ach year up to eighty sixth form students from The students spent three days at Trinity College Woodard schools all over the country are invited attending seminars and also having the opportunity to Eto Oxford for a series of Master Classes to help experience something of the undergraduate lifestyle. further their academic interests and ambition. During There was a chance to visit the Biology department of the Easter break in 2011 Caroline Hayes and Christian the University and the Ashmolean Museum, the oldest Cieslik joined the Biology course and James Morrison public museum in the world. These are not revision was a member of the History group. classes but sessions aimed at challenging the intellectual imagination of students. Modelling the Landscape Christian Cieslik, James Morrison and Caroline Hayes with Head of Sixth Form, Mr Philip Wood. Page 05 Ellesmere College Newsletter - SUMMER TERM 2011 Director of Development, Nick Pettingale, visits retired Domestic Bursar, Anne Gray. As well as looking after the domestic staff, overseeing the kitchens, managing the workmen who maintained the buildings and handling her fair share of ‘show rounds’ for prospective parents, Anne still found time to drag boys up the Welsh mountains on outdoor training, manage the Scout Troop and teach a few Sixth Formers a spot of ballroom dancing. Anne and the boys with St Oswald’s Foundation Stone One memorable story was when Anne joined staff and students in 1984 to run from Lindisfarne to Ellesmere, carrying Anne started her working life driving an ambulance for the the foundation stone for St Oswald’s, the new girls’ boarding Royal Navy for the last two years of World War II, but had left house. The stone, weighing some 21lbs, was carried in turn to join the school during the year of the great fire in 1966. by boys along a route that followed in the footsteps of St Appointed by Ian Beer and recruited by the then Bursar, Anne Oswald [see photo]. It took 10 days to accomplish, with Anne described those first few, difficult terms, living in the room that driving ahead of the team to prepare food and the odd church is now my office and walking into school every day through the floor for an evening’s rest. Eventually the ‘blessed’ stone was ashes of the Chapel and Dining Hall. Difficult too, because she delivered to the College to be greeted by the whole school entered a school that was so very different from the school of lining the drive, cheering and clapping and the Head serving today with practices that were hung over from a Victorian era champagne to the weary team of runners. and often perpetuated by a Common Room which was totally male dominated (and single male at that). So, even though Anne served three Headmasters, Beer, Skipper and Maidment, Anne was responsible for looking after masters’ rooms, the and an equal number of bursars, but in the end followed Ted boys’ dorms and was asked to ‘oversee’ the ‘most difficult’ Maidment to Shrewsbury School for the final couple of years boys, she was not allowed to enter the Common Room and of her career. Of course a woman like Anne Gray doesn’t had to queue with the boys outside to have a word with actually stop and retire.