Issue 245: March 2017

Farringtons School Wins London Regional Final of

English Speaking Union Public Speaking Competition

Students at Farringtons School were delighted to be announced winners of the London Regional Final of this prestigious competition.

This nation-wide competition for Years 9 – 11 challenges students to engage with wide-ranging cross-curricular topics, which in turn gives them a vital life skill that is used throughout their academic careers and in their everyday lives. It is the largest public speaking competition in the UK with over 400 teams entering each year.

The team of three, Louis Preston, Laura Pollington and Holly Morris beat off fierce competition from eleven other London schools. In addition to winning the overall team trophy, individual members of the team won every individual category in this regional final including Best Speaker, Best Chair, Best Questioner and the audience choice for Best Personality.

The team are now busy preparing for the National Final in Cambridge on 22nd April.

Huge congratulations.

Mrs Veronica Denman, Acting Head of Sixth Form

National Mathematics Challenge

Congratulations to all the students in Years 9—11 who took part in the National Mathematics Challenge in February.

Many students took part in this challenging competition and special congratulations to Joseph Sullivan, Marcell Kuba and Daniel Batchford who were awarded Gold and Pink Kangaroo Qualifica-tions.

Silver certificates were awarded to: Chimdi Emenike, Zhutao Shen, Toby Bayliss, Amy Yu, Martin Chen, Arman Parsa and Oliver Mansfield.

Bronze certificates were awarded to: Peter Fu, Max Laughran, Yasmine Hijazi, Anton Shashabrin, Yinji Huang, Lily Buttery and Emily Hollands.

Pirates Versus Mermaids

The Junior School and Year 4 parents had a treat n February when they watched our play ‘Pirates vs Mermaids’.

The audience really enjoyed it and loved the parrot, especially his catchphrase ‘Hello sausage!’ It was also a surprise for everyone to see the boys in mermaid costumes and girls being the pirates!

It was very exciting to all stay at school and have dinner together before the show. We played lots of football and watched some TV.

A big shout out to Mrs Wiltshire who made the amazing background picture for our play and to Mrs Walker who did a great job on the piano, playing the song ‘pool party’ and lots of others.

It took a long time to rehearse and lots of work but it all came together nicely and everyone did really well.

Thank you to Mr Shimmin and Ms Franklyn for organising us all and helping us to remember our lines!

By Henry Newman 4S (Mermaid Boss)

KS2 General Knowledge Quiz 2017

On Tuesday, 14th March 2017,

a team consisting of: Dylan

Cosgrove (Year 3), Arthur

Nechyporuk (Year 4), Aryaa

Saravanakumar (Year 5) and

Eleanor Mercer (Year 6)

competed in the area heat of

the Key Stage Two General

Knowledge Quiz at Bishop

Challoner School. There were 11 teams competing and the quiz

consisted of 40 incredibly tough questions in all

subjects. We were all excited. There was a battle to stay in the top

three positions. Sadly, we did not come first, finishing overall in

third position but everyone did really well and we were proud of

our high score. Thank you to Mrs Brookman for preparing and

accompanying us and Mr Charlton for his support.

Aryaa Saravanakumar and Eleanor Mercer

Christmas Card Competition

Thank you to everyone who supported the Farringtons School Christmas Card Competition, which raised a staggering £1464.65. The money will be donated to Click Sargent and St Christopher’s Hospice, in memory of Will Norris.

Special thanks to Dan Dickey, CEO of Arts Projects For Schools, for his generosity and kind contribution in agreeing to match the profits we raised from the sale of our cards.

Mrs Georgia Allen, Art Teacher

Thank you FPA

We are always grateful to the FPA for all the work they do in raising money for projects throughout the School. Their latest funding has enabled junior pupils to enjoy a ’Mud Kitchen’ and a ‘Phonetic Frog’ for use outdoors.

The FPA have been busy this term. As well as the annual Quiz in February, they have also organised a Mother’s Day sale and an Easter Disco.

Attention is now focussed on the biggest event in the FPA calendar, the Fun Day on Saturday 24th June.

The FPA would love to hear from anyone who can help support this event, please get in touch by emailing farringtonsfpa@gmail.com.

New Peer Mentoring Scheme Farringtons is delighted to launch its new highly successful Peer Mentoring Scheme. Students in Year 12 and 13 individually tutor Year 11 students in a range of GCSE subjects. "Peer Mentoring gives Year 11 the chance to learn from somebody who has recently experienced the same courses, stresses and exam anxieties as them. It also allows pupils to learn cooperatively and not in a traditional classroom setting. For me the benefits have been obvious; by teaching others, it allows me to apply my knowledge and better understand the way that I learn. It also helps enormously with my UCAS application!"

Nadia Mather, Year 12 'Wow, getting support from a peer has been influential in my progress. It is really great to be able to speak and trial out tasks with the support of someone who was in my shoes not too long ago'.

Alise May, Year 11

Biology at Box Hill

On 3rd March 2017, A-level Biology students went on a field trip to Juniper Hall in Box Hill. We used different sampling tech-niques as part of our practical endorse-ment. It also helped us with learning more about ecosystems and biodiversity. We arrived by school minibus. The weather wasn’t good, it was raining and there was mud everywhere. The tutor, Sarah, discussed background information about Box Hill. She taught us the tech-niques needed to collect data about the different species of plants and how to measure abiotic factors such as light in-tensity and soil depth. Finally after we gathered all the meas-urements, we returned to Juniper Hall and analysed the data using different statistical tests. We also completed an annotated diagram of one of the plants we had studied. What a great day we had in Box Hill!

Angelina Tong, Year 12

Careers Fair 2017

On March 7th, Farringtons School hosted its bi annual Careers Fair. Alongside Universities such as Essex, Surrey and Goldsmiths, we were fortunate enough to be joined by companies like John Lewis, Gap 360 and many more! It was a truly wonderful occasion where, parents, pupils and staff alike, walked and talked to all of our exhibitors. We hope that it was an eye opening experience and that it will lead to many beginning to think about their futures, and for some, to consolidate the careers paths they have already chosen. We would like to convey our warmest thanks to all of those who came and made the event the success it was!

Mr Sam Dillow

Skiing

Congratulations to Sam Hummel for his incredible skiing achievements in the last few months.

In December, Sam took part in the Canada Cup in Jasper, Canada and in January he represented Farringtons in the British Boys’ Ski Championship in Wengen, Switzerland, competing in the U14 category, despite only being twelve years of age!

Each competition had its challenges. The Canada Cup because of the extremely cold temperatures which reached –36C, so cold that some phones stopped working and some competitors and their families got frostbite! The Championships in Wengen were challenging because he was competing against boys who live and train in the Alps.

Sam performed exceptionally well in both competitions, particularly as he was one of the youngest competitors!

Fencing

Congratulations to Vencel Kuba for his recent performance at an international fencing competition in Paris. Vencel fought is some tough matches and finished a respectful 166th position out of 321 fencers.

Dancing

Congratulations to Grace, Ava and Amelie for their recent victory in the national finals of the ‘That’s Showbiz Group Dance of the Year’ at the Echo Arena in Liverpool. Their dance ‘Captured’ was performed brilliantly and they were delighted to receive the first place trophy.

The girls are part of Liz Burville Performing Arts who compete nation-ally and internationally.

Swimming

Congratulations to Oakley who competed in the Kent County 2017 Swimming Team championships with his team from Dartford District Swimming Club.

The Team swam well in the U12 Boys 4 x 50m Freestyle heat and qualified for the final. The final was extremely close (only 0.29 seconds) and the Team won second place and are now Kent County Silver Medallists!

Language Week!

Farringtons Language Week was

launched in March to celebrate the

languages taught at the MFL Depart-

ment. In a range of cross-curricular

activities, all Senior and Junior

students took part in a variety of

creative activities ranging from dance,

art/design, to a general knowledge

quiz and International Breakfast. The

competition started creative models

of European language symbols, the

runners up were 7SJW (UK) and

10CVS (Italy), the winner was from

11LW with lively and colourful display

of a Portuguese peacock. An interna-

tional dance with Latin salsa led by

our dance expert Mrs Williamson and

ICT teacher, provided great entertain-

ment for the staff and students of

Senior and Junior schools alike. Mrs

Allen, Art Teacher, who was enthused

by the dance said ‘this is great, I really

am motivated to learn the salsa’,

Mahtab and Marta, A level students

who participated, equally enjoyed

their time and could not wait for a

follow up session! The Language Quiz

touched on geographical and histori-

cal aspects of European countries

with lively participation and a ques-

tion and answer session for all of Year

7. The week ended with a delicious

display of ‘pain au chocolat’ for the

International Breakfast with live en-

tertainment provided by our A level

student Chloe, Iris on the Key board

and Charlie with his guitar.

Thanks to all of you for this exciting

week.

Mlle Mosqueron

Head of MFL

Farringtons In the Community

Alice in Wonderland at the BFI

All of Year 6 have read the famous and unusual story

of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ in class. On 1st March we

went on a school trip to celebrate its’ 150th anniver-

sary, dressed up as our favourite characters from this

story. There were many dressed as Alice, of course,

some Queen of Hearts, Mad Hatters, White Rabbits,

Cheshire Cats, a King and even Tweedle Dee and

Tweedle Dum!

We travelled by coach to the British Film Institute in

London. When we got there we were told about our

day’s exciting activities. This included watching clips

from five different versions of ‘Alice in Wonderland’

and the full Disney animated cartoon. I was intrigued

to learn that the first version had been made in 1903.

Then we had a fun quiz on what we had seen.

Next, there was a competition for best costumes for

which many children received prizes.

To finish our day we watched a clip from the Japanese

animation, ‘My Neighbour Totoro’ which is inspired by

Alice in Wonderland. This is a great movie for all ages

which I really like and recommend.

I would like to thank Mrs Brookman, Miss Cox and

Mr Ruffle for a fun-filled day that I will not forget.

George Tate, Year 6

Science Week at Farringtons

Pupils enjoyed a range of activities during Science Week including:

Years 8 and 9 took part in a Foren-sic Workshop “Case of Mistaken Identity” in school.

Year 10 travelled to Basingstoke to try indoor skydiving, brush board-ing and have a physics lecture.

Year 7 sampled futuristic food in a collaboration between Food & Nutrition and Science.

Pupils from the Junior School visited the Senior School laboratories for a range of exciting demonstrations.

Physics Sky Diving Trip On arrival, we had the wingsuit talk which was very inter-esting as we had to design a parachute to fall the slowest and yet still be stable. Then the speaker showed us a video of himself using the wingsuit, where he jumped off a cliff and glided down. He let us try on the wingsuit and inflated it with a leaf blower. The skydiving was AMAZING! I would definitely recom-mend it to anyone. It was strange because all you had to do was try and keep in the same position as the wind blew you around but yet it was difficult not to look down and see how high you were, which would then cause you to lose your position and fall to the ground or hit the side wall. After skydiving we had BrushBoarding which was a surf simulator that used wire brushes instead of water. This was really cool because once you had become use to balancing, the instructor put two of us together on it and it was a battle to see who could knock who, off the board. I would like to thank the Science Department for making this trip possible and all the teachers who came and helped out on the trip. It was a fun day.

By Daniel Hackett

Green Fingers

Junior pupils have been busy planting potatoes and will be

responsible for caring for them until they are ready for

digging up in June.

Congratulations to Year 5 who made Christmas decorations for

the Christmas market.

Congratulations to Emily who won ‘Cuddles’ in the

‘Guess the Bear’ raffle, pictured with Head of

Junior School, Mr Charlton.

#iloveboarding We’ve had another busy half term in the boarding house.

Evening activities have been lots of fun and we have taken part in sports, swimming and even giant colouring in!

Weekend trips have also been great fun. We got up close to celebrities at Madame Tussauds and took lots of photos. The British Wildlife Centre was really good for the animal lovers amongst us and we got to see elusive red squirrels, otters and hedgehogs. At the beginning of March we were challenged by Escape Rooms in London. We had to escape from locked rooms by figuring out lots of puzzles together as teams. The girls were really good at this! Two weeks ago we went to the Cinema to see Kong: Skull Island and last weekend we had a chocolate making work-shop at the Chocolate Museum in Brixton to celebrate Easter.

We now can’t wait to see what the summer term has in store for us!

The Boarders

Creating Social Impact in Ghana – Michal Lasek Head Boy 2013/14

In Alfred North Whitehead’s words, "No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of others”. Along the path

of my education I have met many inspiring people who contributed their time and experience to guide me through my journey. I believe

that the desire to help others is one of the greatest human virtues.

Volunteering doesn’t necessarily involve going to a different continent and building houses. Whether you volunteer in a local charity

shop or organise a bake sale, what really matters is making a difference. As a second-year neuroscience student at UCL, I decided to

utilize my skills and join a consulting project supporting a social enterprise in East London, through Enactus UCL. As a part of small team,

I delivered a marketing plan for an expanding company.

Inspired by the impact of my actions on the local community, I was driven to help a disadvantaged community in Peru. My previous

experience taught me there is a big difference between an episodic and sustainable change. During my time spent in the Cusco region, I

worked with an NGO providing consultancy services to micro-entrepreneurs, sharing my knowledge and expertise at the same time.

Taking part in this programme was a life-changing experience; not only did this give me a chance to work towards the same goal with

people from different parts of the world, but also enhanced my strong interest in international development.

This summer I will be volunteering for ten weeks on a development project in Ghana with the charity Challenges Worldwide. This is

part of International Citizen Service (ICS) that aims to support local communities by empowering local enterprises. By supporting growth of

local businesses and effectively creating secure income for people living locally, we aim to reduce the need for financial aid leading to

economically sustainable communities.

I am convinced that without the help of all my teachers, mentors and friends from

Farringtons I would not be in the same place as I am right now. The values I learnt there,

coupled with whole-hearted commitment have contributed to my passion for sustainable

development.

As part of the pre-departure preparation, I am fundraising for the charity, Challenges

Worldwide: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Lasek Your support would mean a lot to

me! If you would like to hear a bit more about my journey and ways that you can get

involved in volunteering, I will be at Farringtons soon to talk all about it… I hope to see you

there!

The Kenya Experience 2017

Our trip to Kenya was about broadening our horizons and gaining an understanding of the need to take care of some the incredible resources which we often take for granted.

At the Local Ocean Trust in Watamu we were fortunate enough to help release a Hawksbill turtle (now an endangered species). From our glass bottomed boat we watched dolphins swimming in one of their favourite spots out near the reef. In shallower waters we snorkelled, amazed by the colourful marine life all around us. The Coral Garden is an area dedicated to tourists – to limit the damaged caused, particularly by flippers, to the slow-growing, fragile corals. The mangrove trees are cut down at an unsustainable rate and used for building. These tree roots are ‘the nursery’ to young fish so it is vital to keep stocks replenished. We planted 200 saplings as our small contribution.

The safari to Tsavo East was undoubtedly a highlight, bumping along a dusty ridged road for hours, but rewarded by spotting buffalo, ostrich, various species of buck, giraffe, elephant families casually striding over the track in front of us, and even a pride of lion dozing in the shade.

Stopping at a Maasai village, we joined in with some traditional dance before being shown around the rudimentary village huts, and proudly to the one-room school house they are building.

In Malindi we visited relics of the Portuguese trading merchant trading days, learnt the art of bartering for souvenirs, bumped around in tuk tuks from one adventure to another whilst still finding time to enjoy the pool and the beach.

We pushed ourselves beyond our comfort zones, made new friends and discoveries and were wholly embraced into the warmest of Kenyan welcomes. It was a wonderful experi-ence that will stay with all of us; for all the right reasons, and hopefully make each of us a little more aware of our obligation to travel responsibly and take care of our world.

Mrs Sarah Medcraft

One morning after breakfast we saw a monkey sitting in a nearby tree calmly watching us. Grateful for the banana, but eventually tired of the photo shoot, he scampered off. It made me realise how animals will always try to find a way to adapt, no matter how much we encroach on their living space.

Annabel Laniyan, Year 13

Pupils and staff at Farringtons celebrated World Book Day in their usual colourful style by dressing as their favourite book

characters. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the popular event.