Dear Parents,
ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES
My apologies for not issuing this at the end of last term, but – as you will see – so much went on last
term that drawing this summary together has taken longer than I anticipated!
There follows a hugely impressive list of the boys’ academic achievements and other opportunities in the
Spring Term. It’s certainly a very long summary, but that in itself is testimony to the vast array of talent
that our boys have shown themselves recently, and the numerous chances they have had to benefit from
the talents of others too.
Do please continue to encourage your son, as we are doing, to take full advantage of similar opportunities
in the future, if he is not already doing so!
We are all looking forward to an equally impressive Summer Term!
All best wishes
Alastair Tighe
Deputy Head (Academic)
•
Congratulations to the following boys for being awarded Commendations this term for work
or conduct which exemplifies the school’s core values in an exceptional way.
o
Fourth Form – Ben Barden for an excellent presentation on a trip to Kerala; Ben
Barnes for an outstanding essay on Christian morality and also for his excellently
researched and well-argued essay on Euthanasia; Divine Edjejovowo for an outstanding
prep on the adaptations of the reindeer to living in cold environments, and also for an
exceptionally full and detailed essay on virtue ethics entitled, ‘What makes a good friend?’;
Joshua Holdsworth and Danny Hubber for challenging themselves with an excellent
piece of work on ANWR; Rohan Jacob for outstanding performance in an RE test;
Harilaos Karavaggelis and George Winder for their informative and wide-ranging
presentations to a Year 8 Prep School Biology class; Hugo Mathew for excellent test
results and an exceptionally detailed essay on stealing; Archie McLean and Jason Tsui
for outstanding efforts in a newspaper project in English; Boris Song for an exceptional
piece of DT sketch work well above the standards expected for his age group; Andy
Wong for his well-prepared and delivered Spanish lesson on the past perfect tense.
o
Remove Form – Emmanuel Adeyemi for outstanding research on the orbital
motion of the planets and for an outstanding History essay on Prohibition; Ben Aellen
for demonstrating true sportsmanship and a sense of fair-play during an U15 football
match; James Brazil, Alex Lam and George Whitcombe for persistently
outstanding performance in DT; Oliver Dwight and Joshua Markham for compelling
and consciously crafted pieces of imaginative writing in English; Flik Feng for outstanding
contributions to the Creative Arts Faculty throughout the term, for producing multiple
excellent music compositions both in class and in his own free time and for an excellent
presentation on what it would be like to taste a neutron star; Gerald Hargreave
Mawson for his exceptionally enthusiastic and committed approach to music
composition; Oscar Hudson for the enthusiasm and skill with which he tackled two
levels of the UK Linguistic Olympiad; Harry McPhail, Benjamin Sporton and Shawn
Peng for outstanding experiment write-ups after an extended Physics investigation and
for proving to be a top design student going above and beyond what is expected at GCSE
level, including mastering some CAD skills from scratch; George Robertson and Jamie
Williams for exceptionally imaginative pieces of English coursework writing; Matthew
Stewart for taking the initiative to voluntarily enter the ISRSA essay competition on the
theme, ‘Why Religious Studies Matters to Me’; George Thomas for the production of
an excellent cake showing the structure of a flower; Lucas Trye for excellent attainment
in Biology; Henry Poppleton for his resilience in DT and consistently thorough and
well-presented work; Ukiri Oghenovo for his excellent presentation on what would
happen if a small blackhole appeared next to you.
•
o
Fifth Form – Joseph Fordham, Toby Garrett and Harry Jennings for their
commitment to the rehearsals and performance of a Spanish drama extract in the Modern
Languages Evening; Harry Ward and Joseph Fordham also for taking the initiative to
voluntarily enter the ISRSA essay competition on the theme, ‘Why Religious Studies
Matters to Me’; William Haggar for his assessed presentation on CFS which was not
only accomplished but also demonstrated incredible strength of character and emotional
resilience; Silas Sanders for his contribution to music this term and for his performance
in Guy Bennett's Celebration Concert, in particular, in which Silas played in all three
groups that performed, including coming in as the only current pupil in an Old Bedfordian
Brass Ensemble and sight-reading the music on the day.
o
Lower Sixth – George Christian for putting together and presenting an absolutely
brilliant lecture on Diabetes at Biology Society; Emilio Gay for his commitment to the
rehearsals and performance of a Spanish drama extract in the Modern Languages Evening;
Archie Young-Lee for his solo performance in the Guy Bennett Celebration Concert;
Jaynil Patel for reaching the final of ARTiculation, the national competition for talking
about Art.
o
Upper Sixth – George Edwards for his arrangement of a superb ‘Evening of Fine
Music’ for charity; William Entwistle for an outstanding essay answering the question,
'Any suffering in the world is ultimately a part of God's loving plan'; Ted Hicks for
stepping in and doing an outstanding job compèring House Drama; Logan Jones for an
exemplary essay on sexuality in works by Wilde and Stoker – the culmination of diligent
study and effective learning.
Congratulations to ten of our boys who have received Oxbridge offers for 2017: Jack Dalton,
Harry Guthrie, Edward Hicks, Wan Tong Lou, Fang Hang Qian, Rohan Sanghera,
Ivan Simon, Harry Sivills, Andrew Zhu and Jake Duxbury (OB). Five boys received offers
to Oxford and five to Cambridge to read Music, History, Maths, Medicine, Economics, Human
Sciences, Spanish, Physics, Earth Sciences and Chemistry.
•
Following their performance last term in the UK Senior Maths Challenge, approximately
4,600 of the top students in the UK were invited to sit one of the follow-on competitions, the
BMO1 (British Mathematical Olympiad, round 1) or the Senior Kangaroo. In the
BMO1, Tonny Lou and Chester Wang (Upper Sixth) achieved certificates of Distinction,
and Ignatius Ip (Lower Sixth) and Henry Shaw (Fifth Form) achieved certificates of
Qualification. In the Senior Kangaroo, Thomas Pelling and Luke Lee (Fifth Form) achieved
certificates of Merit, and Benson Chan (Fifth Form) and Rohan Sanghera (Upper Sixth)
achieved certificates of Qualification.
•
Zahan Bharucha’s and Callum Fenton’s (Upper Sixth) superb debating skills secured them
a place in this year’s ESU Schools Mace Debating Competition Regional Finals. The boys
impressed judges when they proposed the motion, 'This house supports the use of all-women
shortlists to redress the parliamentary gender imbalance', earning second place overall.
•
Having won the East Anglian regional heat of ARTiculation – the national Arts Public Speaking
Competition – Jaynil Patel (Lower Sixth) represented the school in the ARTiculation Art
Prize 2017 Final held at Clare College, Cambridge. Jaynil was one of just seven finalists selected
from thousands of students and schools from around the country, and gave an excellent
presentation titled, ‘Is That Art?’ The competition was judged by Tim Marlow, Director of the
Royal Academy, and the students were lucky enough to hear Sir Anthony Gormley and Bill
Woodrow who gave the opening addresses.
•
Renowned poet Brian Patten was guest of honour at the English Department’s Annual
Prize Giving. The Poetry Prize was shared between Flik Feng and Ashwin Santosh
Kumar. The Wellbelove Prize, which is open to pupils in the first three years of the Upper
School and requires boys to write an essay about a work of literature not studied within the
curriculum, went to Emmanuel Adeyemi for an essay about George Orwell’s novel Nineteen
Eighty-Four. The Fowles Prize was an extremely close affair, with four outstanding pieces of
writing on the shortlist. Each of the boys who spoke about their work did so engagingly and
elegantly. Angus Watson’s troubling short story ‘The Pact-Makers’ was awarded first prize.
The evening concluded with a hugely entertaining reading by Brian Patten.
•
The tremendous artistic and creative talent of the boys was celebrated in this year’s Detweiler
Competition, the theme for which was ‘Identity’. For the first time the competition was
extended to encompass not only Art, Creative Writing and Music but also Drama. The Art
competition was judged by antiques expert and ‘Flog It’ Star, David Fletcher (OB) and artist
Peter Moore, a friend of Alan Detweiler. First Prize 2D went to Felix Mallalieu (Fifth Form)
and First Prize 3D to Jim Hu (Upper Sixth). The following were Highly Commended: Jack
Jordan (Remove Form), Tomi Fashola (Fifth Form), Benson Chan (Fifth Form), Jack
Murphy (Lower Sixth) and Dylan Cox (Upper Sixth). The Creative Writing Senior Winner
was Edward Lamb (Upper Sixth) for his piece entitled, ‘Arguing Against Aristotle: Identity
Within Tragedy’. The Senior Runner-Up was Logan Jones (Upper Sixth) for ‘This England’.
Junior Winner was Jamie Williams (Remove Form) (‘Another Round Please, Joe’), with
Runner-Up Emmanuel Adayemi (‘Me And My Brain’). The Junior Drama Winner was also
Jamie Williams for his monologue ‘Olam-Ha-Ba’. The Sixth Form winner was Harry Beard
for his monologue ‘I Am’. Finally, in the Music Competition, first place went to Flik Feng
(Remove Form) for his song composition ‘Loner’, with second place taken by Archie YoungLee for his song ‘Who Am I?’
•
Following an extremely competitive nationwide audition process, Archie Young-Lee (Lower
Sixth) has been selected as a trombonist for the National Schools Symphony Orchestra (NSSO).
Archie will join other talented musicians from across the country for the NSSO’s annual
residential course in July, where he will be involved in a programme of individual instrumental
coaching with professional tutors, play in smaller ensembles, sectional and full rehearsals, before
taking part in a final concert.
•
Hoffer Tsang (Lower Sixth) was awarded a Diploma with distinction for Piano Playing.
Achieving a diploma is an impressive achievement in itself, but to do so with distinction is even
more noteworthy.
•
Conor Hilliard and Felix Asare won 'highly commended delegate' awards for their work in
committees over a weekend competition with the Model United Nations.
•
Many congratulations to our boys on their superb performances and wins at this year’s
Bedfordshire Festival of Music, Speech and Drama. Special congratulations must go to Jonathan
Hosking and Silas Sanders, who were all selected for the final Gala Concert, and, in particular,
Logan Jones who won the award for the best overall Speech and Drama performance of the
Festival. In addition, the following boys won first place in their respective categories: George
Edwards (Upper Sixth), Solo Singing; Ben Watson (Remove Form), Piano Grade 7;
Logan Jones (Upper Sixth), Musical Theatre; Archie Young-Lee (Lower Sixth), Brass
Grade 6 and above; Tom Gulliver (Upper Sixth), Electric Guitar; Felix Asare (Lower
Sixth), Guitar Grade 5 and above; Adison Cheng (Upper Sixth), String Recital; Flik Feng
(Remove Form), Folk Song; Silas Sanders (Fifth Form), Song other than English. Finally,
our Dance Band, Chamber Orchestra and Brass Ensemble also took first place in
Ensemble Categories.
•
Daniel Lewis, Adison Cheng and Rohan Sanghera were all awarded Gold in the British
Biology Olympiad competition.
•
A Top Gold (the category above Gold) was awarded to Tonny Lou in the British Physics
Olympiad (Round 1); Tonny went on to secure a Gold in the second round too and came
within a whisker of making the third round. In addition, Luke Qian won Silver in the first round,
and Rohan Sanghera was awarded Bronze 1.
•
In the AS Physics Challenge Silver awards were given to Chester Wang and Daniel
Liu whilst, despite being only in the Fifth Form, Thomas Pelling was awarded a Gold. In the
GCSE Physics Challenge, Thomas Pelling also won Gold along with Henry He, Henry
Shaw and Felix Mallalieu, whilst Haydn O'Neill picked up a Silver.
•
Merits were won by Carsten Flicke, Henry Shaw and Conrad Staroscik in
the Astronomy & Astrophysics Challenge; distinctions were won by Tonny
Lou and Chester Wang who then went on to win Gold and Silver respectively in the invitationonly British Astronomy & Astrophysics Olympiad.
•
Our Remove and Fourth Form boys did exceptionally well in the Biology Challenge, a national
competition aimed at Year 10 boys mainly. Only the top 10% of students nationally achieve Gold
or Silver awards. Lucas Inman, Daniel Lumley-Wood, Benjamin Spanoudakis, Tony
Tao, Thomas Chambers, Ben Aellen, Leon Zhu, Benedict Giles, William Ashcroft
and Sam Evans all achieved Gold; Amir Solanki, Harilaos Karavaggelis, Thomas Byrne,
James Norris, Ollie Crankshaw, Ewan Gordon, James Hooper, Max Sogan, Jay
Johsnon, Benjamin Watson, Harry Mason, Alexander Linney, Ben Barden, Joshua
Gervais, George Winder, Antonio Reale, James Haxell, Oscar Hudson, Emmanuel
Adeyemi, Oscar Hill, Louis Case, Rowan Spong, Jonathon Coughlin, Oliver ChristianAllan, Joseph Young and Louis Simon all achieved Silver. A further 40 boys achieved a
Bronze, 29 were Highly Commended and 34 were Commended.
•
Our Sixth Form chemists had great success in the UK Chemistry Olympiad. Gold was
awarded to Tonny Lou, Luke Qian, Oliver Winder and Andrew Zhu; silver was awarded
to Jamie Barnes, Rohan Sanghera, Marcus Hong, Alexander Sporton, Daniel Liu,
Ignatius Ip and Chester Wang; and bronze was awarded to Jonathan Malindine, Ivan
Simon, Harjeet Sumal, Rohan Toor, Adison Cheng, Conrad Staroscik, Maximilian
Erdmann, John Kendall, Frank Liu and George Christian.
•
Oscar Hudson won Silver and Ximing Huang won Bronze in the UK Languages
Olympiad.
•
Alex Watson has won a place at Trinity Laban Conservatoire Junior Department to
study composition and piano, whilst Alex Papp has been given a place to study at the Purcell
School of Music.
•
Our GCSE and A-level Drama students enjoyed a fantastic workshop with Yorkshire-based
theatre company ‘Paperbirds’. Three actors – Georgie Coles, Catriona Giles and Josie DaleJones – worked with the students to give them a real insight into some of the ensemble techniques
they use and a fascinating look at the devising process used by the physical theatre company. The
following week, a select group enjoyed a second comedy/clowning workshop with ‘The Pretend
Men’ Theatre company ahead of their production ‘Police Cops’.
•
The English and Drama Societies presented a lecture by Mr John O’Connor talking about
the continued popularity and influence of Oscar Wilde’s celebrated novel, The Picture of Dorian
Gray. John explored the reasons why the novel was deemed so dangerous to the Victorians and
why it seems so modern to us today. The Drama Society also heard a lecture from Mr Dario
Hoyos entitled: ‘Lorca: Back to Tragedy’ and enjoyed a lecture workshop entitled,
‘Improvisation: unlocking the creative mind’ led by Ethan Chappell-Mason (Lower Sixth).
Logan Jones (Upper Sixth) also discussed his experience of directing a play.
•
We were delighted to welcome Professor Andrew O’Shaughnessy (OB) back to the school
to give an inspiring lecture on his latest book The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the
American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire. During his talk, Andrew described how Britain’s
loss of America in the War of Independence is typically attributed to failings from key decision
makers who have become cartoon-like figures of incompetence in modern-day culture. He went
on to overturn the common opinion and argued that actually they ‘were able and substantial
individuals who nevertheless failed’ and questioned if and why things didn’t turn out differently.
The History Society also welcomed Dr Sarah Richardson from Warwick University who
spoke on the suffragette movement.
•
The second of this year’s Harpur Science Forum lectures was given by Professor Tim
Briggs, Orthopaedic Surgeon and National Director for Clinical Quality & Efficiency for the
NHS. He spoke on the topic, ‘Can the NHS be Saved?’. In order to establish what has been
happening in the NHS recently, Professor Briggs (recently President of the British Orthopaedic
Association) visited every acute hospital in England, met with their clinical teams and hospital
managers and collated a huge amount of information, as he attempted to form the evidential basis
for any actions he might later seek to implement in his GIRFT / Getting it Right First Time
initiative. The Government have since welcomed the findings of this study and given Professor
Briggs a £65 Million budget to set up a task force of top clinicians who will implement common
sense changes to NHS practice.
•
The Chapel Choir travelled to Oxford to sing a joint service with the choir of Worcester
College. They were also able to enjoy an impromptu visit to the Ashmolean Museum, after
which they had a tour of the spectacular grounds of the college. Hoffer Tsang (Lower Sixth)
accompanied some of the service and played the voluntary afterwards. Choir members also
attended Evensong at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where Jim Cooper (OB) is Junior
Organ Scholar, and sang a service of Compline to plainchant in our own school Chapel by
candlelight in March. The Choir finished the term by recording a CD of Christmas music which
will be on sale towards the end of next term.
•
Five Upper School trombone players had an exciting opportunity to take part in a masterclass
with Torsten Eric Edvar, Principal Trombone of La Scala, Milan. The masterclass began with a
wonderful demonstration by Torsten, particularly on the less common alto trombone, on which
he performed Wagenseil's Trombone Concerto. Archie Young-Lee, Tom Christian, Ben
Sporton, Enoch Tze and Hugh Halsey, had the opportunity to play a prepared piece to
Torsten and receive expert coaching and advice.
•
Helen Little, Assistant Curator at Tate Britain, spoke in the first Gilbert Lloyd Art Lecture
of the term on David Hockney and her work organising the current Hockney exhibition at Tate
Britain, the artist’s largest retrospective to date and one of the biggest shows in Tate Britain’s
history. In the second lecture, Deborah Swallow gave a lecture entitled, ‘The Museum in South
Asia – South Asia in the Museum: dilemmas and opportunities in the display of the arts of South
Asia’. Deborah has been Märit Rausing Director of the Courtauld since 2004.
•
Artist Glenn Sujo visited the school to lead an inspiring and challenging figure drawing day for
our Art pupils. In the morning, Bedford boys and art students from Mark Rutherford School
were challenged to draw a dancer as she moved through a number of choreographed sequences;
in the afternoon session, the boys enjoyed a sequence inspired by a Titian painting.
•
Our Art History students were treated to an exclusive private tour of Andrew Gillespie’s new
exhibition ‘Anti-Scrape’ at the New Gallery in Walsall in February. Students had the opportunity
to speak to our Art History teacher about the concepts and inspirations behind his work, which
provided a wonderful insight to organising and curating a major show.
•
Organ pupils Hoffer Tsang, Jack O’Donovan and Flik Feng enjoyed a masterclass with Mr
Douglas Tang, a London-based keyboard player and conductor, and formerly an Organ Scholar
of King’s College, Cambridge. Focusing on repertoire played in the organ competition that Mr
Tang had judged earlier in the day, the boys particularly worked on how to play expressively
through varying articulation.
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The Consort Choir were treated to a choral conducting masterclass by Neil Ferris, Associate
Chorus Director of the London Symphony Chorus. There were six active participants from
Bedford School and Bedford Girls’ School, many of whom were standing in front of a choir for
the very first time. They all made great progress during the session and experienced the thrill of
shaping music through gesture and breath.
•
The Adrian Boult Society had a lecture-recital from Mr Andrew Groom, our Musician in
Residence, ably accompanied by Mr Robert Thompson. Mr Groom discussed the evolution of
the Trombone, its fall from grace in the Classical period and subsequent revival as a solo and
orchestral instrument in the nineteenth century. On another occasion, different boys also gave a
series of short talks on various musical topics.
•
Mr Alex Munk (visiting guitar teacher) and his band ‘The Flying Machines’ gave a superb
workshop to our boys, with girls from Bedford Girls’ School. Alex’s powerful Prog Rock Jazz
band feature some of the best Jazz musicians in London and shared some valuable performance
advice to the students ahead of our own Rock Night. The band then gave a captivating
performance that evening in the Quarry Theatre.
•
As part of our ongoing enrichment program, Lower Sixth ICT ambassadors spent a number
of lunchtimes working with Y3 and Y4 boys in the Prep School to teach them about computer
sequencing and coding using scratch programming.
•
Our eleventh annual OB Club Careers Fair was a resounding success, with over 70 OBs,
parents, past parents and friends of the school coming back to give advice to boys and girls on
their profession and industry. A huge array of careers were represented including Foreign
Defence Technology, Investment Banking, pilots, medicine and lawyers… we even had
professional hackers!
•
Earlier this term our boy-led TEDx team organised a fantastic evening on the theme of
‘Rethinking the Norm’. Nihat Aslanoba, Harry Beard, Dylan Cox, Calvin Fang, Charlie
Gee, Riki Msindo and Adit Shah lined up an impressive panel of speakers for the event. Alex
Choi, Founder of Arlix Technologies gave a talk entitled ‘Children Dreams Mean More Than You
May Think’; General Sir Richard Lawson Barrons, a former Commander Joint Forces, talked
about re-thinking defence in the twenty-first century; Paula Vennells, Post Office Chief
Executive, spoke about her experiences of reforming the Post Office.
•
The Archer Martin Society met for various lectures including, ‘The power of imagination: how
the impossible can help us see what is possible’; ‘Only joking! – the ethics of comedy’; ‘Vile circus
brats juggle for audience (15)’ – a talk on how to solve a cryptic crossword by Mr Mark Crisp.
•
The Mitre Club heard a lecture from Mr Michael Herring on ‘Binding up the nation’s wounds:
Lincoln’s greatest speech’, and retired member of staff Mr Colin Marsh spoke on ‘Fiction as
history; history as fiction?’
•
The Biology Society met twice with a focus on medicine, dentistry or vet school applications.
They also heard from George Christian (Lower Sixth) who gave an impressive talk entitled,
‘Diabetes: A personal perspective’ and Sachin Chambers reviewed the book Being Mortal. The
Society also held their first ‘Book Club’ session which invited boys from all year groups to bring
along a science book which they have enjoyed, and gave advice for boys interested in entering
one of the many Biology or related subject university essay competitions.
•
The Froglets French Society for Fourth Form boys was founded, providing junior boys with an
opportunity to learn more about France and its culture. The French Society for Sixth Form
boys also met to cook a traditional French Galette des Rois.
•
The English Society met numerous times. Angus Watson (Upper Sixth) spoke about Oscar
Wilde and classical references and, on another occasion, discussed articles from old editions of
the school magazine Mosaic; there was a focus on contemporary theatre with a consideration of
modern writers; Mrs Anna Smith spoke about James Bond and how the Bond stories convey
and construct British national identity; Miss Leah Sidi, a PhD student at the University of
London spoke about her research on the playwright Sarah Kane, whose plays deal with the
controversial issues of sex, mental illness, torture and cannibalism; Mr Nicholas Hopton
discussed ‘The Poetry of Spring’ and, on another occasion, presented ‘The Geoffrey Chaucer
Guide to Brexit’; Ted Hicks (Upper Sixth) discussed the poems from the Mersey Sound by
Brian Patten. The Society also enjoyed a theatre trip to see a production of Tennessee Williams’
The Glass Menagerie in London.
•
The Christian Union met regularly. They discussed, amongst other things, relationships with
visiting Cambridge University student Mr Toby Irvine; technology in a talk by John Putt; and
watched a video series about evangelism.
•
The Chinese Society enjoyed a lecture from Ms Ellen Parcell on Mao and his obsession with
legacy. The Society also held a competition to celebrate Chinese New Year and held a Film
Night watching Ip Man 3.
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The Modern Languages Department held their annual Language Evening. Boys from all years
presented brief talks, music performances and dramatic sketches in a variety of different languages
including French, Spanish, German and Chinese. They also marked El Dia de Andalucia with a
lunchtime session full of Spanish games and information, accompanied by Spanish food.
•
The German Society hosted a talk by Ms Kaiser from Berlin on German division and
reunification in a lecture entitled, ‘Berlin – living in a once divided city’.
•
The Pythagorean’s Maths Society welcomed back Bryan Ng (OB) for a talk entitled, ‘Addition
with Mr Boolean’ and another OB Mr Alex Watson who explained the origins of equations of
special relativity.
•
The Architecture Society invited local architect Mr Anthony Mackay to talk about his
recent work in China. He won an international competition in 2001 for master planning and urban
design of the first new city in China at Songjiang, Shanghai. They also heard from Mr Stuart
Devonshire of MK40 Architects who has been involved in a number of the school’s own
projects, and Leo Tse (Lower Sixth) gave a talk on ‘The Practicality of Modern Chinese
Architecture’.
•
The Current Affairs Society met for updates on Brexit, Trump’s policies and a discussion of
the meeting between the leaders of the UK and USA. They also considered the upcoming
election in Hong Kong and the increasing influence from Beijing.
•
‘Why Nations Fail’ was the title of a debate hosted by the Geography and Politics
Departments.
•
The Classics Society met to hear Mr Alistair Melvill present a tribute to the late actor Sir
John Hurt by watching and discussing some of his best scenes from the BBC production of I,
Claudius. They also welcomed Mr Stephen Cockings and Mrs Elizabeth Sayer, Chair and
Vice Chair of the Bedford Roman Villa Project, to talk about the ongoing excavations of the
Roman site on Manton Lane.
•
Mr Alex Watson OB gave a STEM Lecture on Quantum Physics.
•
To mark World Book Day the Library ran a Shelfie Competition in which boys were
encouraged to try and identify from photos which teachers owned which bookshelves! Mrs Jean
Mainstone’s Tutor Group were the winners, by one point!
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The Tutor Group Reading Challenge was completed. The challenge encouraged boys in all
year groups to read a whole variety of different genres and styles, and in so doing earn points for
their Tutor Group. Since September boys read a total of 900 books (which are recorded!). The
most popular categories were ‘non-fiction’, ‘recommendations’ and ‘books borrowed from the
library’. Enoch Mukungu was the winner of the individual challenge; Mr Malcolm Green’s
Tutor group came first (with a total of 160 books between them); Mr Nicholas Hopton’s
Tutor Group came second, and Mr Ged Green’s Tutor group came third.
•
Boys presented their own production of MOJO in the Quarry Theatre. Set in a Soho club in the
1950s, MOJO was a darkly comic tale of small-time villains trying to make it through a tense 24
hours during a hostile take-over by rivals from South London. Upper Sixth Drama A Level
Students performed their exam-piece docudrama ‘Dead Giveaway’ based on real-life addictions.
•
The IB CAS group have been working hard at our Ickwell reserve in all weathers on
Conservation challenges. Up to twelve IB boys have planted over 40 new trees, many with tree
guards – nearly all the trees were grown on site from our own seed or cuttings. The boys have
also put in or gapped-up some 33m of new and some existing hedge, coppiced and then stockaded
six hazel trees and cleared out part of the medieval ditch system so that further investigations
can be made. Ryan Apps (Remove Form) has also completed his DofE Bronze volunteering
at Ickwell in Conservation, and mostly on a Sunday afternoon. He has made a pond, cleared
invasive scrub and coppiced trees. Other IB CAS boys have been helping out in a variety of
activities at Castle Newnham School, The Hills Academy, Pilgrims, Bedford and District
Handicapped Riders Association (Willington), Headway Bedford, Keech Hospice Care charity
shop, the British Heart Foundation charity shop and ARAS dog rescue.
•
Boys, parents and local people had numerous opportunities to enjoy performances by touring
theatre companies in The Quarry Theatre. These included performances of Tomcat, a play
set in the near future when generic screening is mandatory; In a Thousand Pieces was a
touching and delicate description of the violent, isolated and brutal world for the thousands of
women forced into the British sex trade; Police Cops entertained with an award-winning evening
of comedy; the superb Splendid Theatre Company presented a one hour version of Macbeth; a
new piece of writing telling the story of three girls slipping through the cracks in society, All the
Little Lights, was performed both for the Fourth Form on Citizenship Morning and for the wider
public.