Dear Parents/Carers, Students, Governors, Old Olavians and Grandparents 31 March 2017

Headmaster’s Newsletter 225

March has seen one of the most successful ends to a sporting season for many years, in Rugby, Fives and Football. There was huge excitement in the school as the 1st XV Rugby squad represented the school in the NatWest U18 Bowl Final at the Sixways Stadium, home of Worcester Warriors, on Tuesday afternoon against Old Swinford Hospital. After a slow start the Olavian team grew into the game and from 18-0 down started a courageous comeback. Tries from Aaron Grandidier-Nkanang and Chukwunenyem Nwuba were followed by a penalty from James Tate to bring the game to 18-13 and an opportunity for victory. Sadly it was not to be, with OSH scoring in the last play of the match to win 25-13. The game was watched by a loyal band of supporters as well as on the live stream back at school. Congratulations to the whole squad who acquitted themselves so well, with Captain Charles Peck keen to emphasise the achievement of the boys in reaching the Final, as well as his hope that this will inspire future generations of Olavians to emulate, or improve, on their achievement.

In the Eton Fives National Championships at Eton College last Saturday the star event – the U18 Open Final – was an all Olavian contest, with our top pairs having wiped out all of the opposition from Eton, Harrow, Shrewsbury, Berkhamsted and Highgate schools. In a thrilling, nail biting match that went all the way to the end of five sets, our No 1 seeds, Chukwunenyem Nwuba and Tomas Gallagher narrowly beat Kieran Walton and Morgan Pugh to claim the trophy and title of National Champions 2017. Isiah Akpovwa and Jeffrey Akintolu

claimed the U13 National title in a straight sets victory against the Eton College top pair. Well done also to Isaac Jochim and Yoann Bleunven and to Sachin Balaji and Louis McLean who came runners up in the U14 and U16 National Finals.

Goddington Lane

Orpington

Kent BR6 9SH

Tel: 01689 820101

office@saintolaves.net www.saintolaves.net

Saint Olave’s Grammar School

London 1571

Headmaster: Aydın Önaç B. Mus., B. Sc., ARCM, FRSA

St. Olave’s and St. Saviour’s Schools Foundation

As you already know, the 1st XI Football team has won the North Kent Division 1 League – the first ever Olavian team to do so. The title came after a long unbeaten run in which they demolished Bishop Justus 6-1 and Skinners 4-0. A tense encounter with Darrick Wood saw late goals from Captain Alexander Bull and a hat trick from Vice Captain Chukwunenyem Nwuba to secure victory. Their final match on Wednesday this week resulted in a 1-0 win against Charles Darwin. This completed a 19 match unbeaten run from a season with 16 wins, 3 draws and only 1 loss. The league title is a well-deserved reward for the efforts of the whole team, whose hard work and performances have been exemplary throughout.

In yet another amazing achievement only yesterday, Isaac Jochim and Yohann Bleunven achieved an amazing double in the National Rugby Fives Championships. Isaac won the National Singles, beating Alleyn’s top seed as well as the best players from Winchester, Marlborough, Merchant Taylor’s and Whitgift en route. Isaac and Yohann then won through to the Doubles Final, also against Alleyn’s, where once again they were victorious to become National Doubles Champions! Well done to Milan Chibber who won the Singles Plate.

Amongst more successes in the recent Bromley Festival of Music and Speech, congratulations to the Leung brothers on winning an impressive set of trophies and awards. Ivan earned a gold medallion and was joint winner of the Recital Cup for achieving Distinction in the Intermediate Recital for bowed string instruments. Eric took the gold medallion for Distinction in the Concerto category for bowed string instruments. For obtaining the highest mark in his category across the age range, he was also winner of the Mason Challenge Cup and, as the adjudicator’s choice of outstanding string player, Eric was awarded the prestigious Margaret Napier Memorial Cup.

Twenty two Sixth Form students sat the Advanced UKLO (UK Linguistics Olympiad) in February, having to decipher Tamil or translate into Maori. Emma Tolmie missed a Gold Certificate (top 5%) by just 1% and gained a Silver Certificate, as did Richard Decker and Toby Clarke. Fourteen Year 10 students had to make sense of the grammar system of Tshiluba and translate into Basque. Well done to Matthew Perry who won Gold in the Foundation level and to Nerusan Jeyakumaran, Joel Kovoor and Ian Rodrigues who won Gold in the Intermediate. The certificated results were as follows: Advanced Toby Clarke Silver Richard Decker Silver Emma Tolmie Silver Owen O´Leary Bronze Annabelle Saunders Bronze Peijun Zhao Bronze

Foundation Matthew Perry Gold Anantha Anilkumar Silver

Intermediate Nerusan Jeyakumaran Gold Joel Kovoor Gold Ian Rodrigues Gold Aisosa Imafidon Silver Edwin Roberts Silver Joshua Coglan Bronze Amro Fadel Bronze Raymond Guo Bronze Sergiy Idrisov Bronze Ivan Leung Year 10 Bronze Jasper Maughan Bronze Prajeeth Sathiyamoorthy Bronze

Hot off the press are the results of the 2017 Chemistry Olympiad. Congratulations to the following:

Silver Bronze

Eugene Lee Josephine Jones

Lucy Thompson Kemi Talabi

Raafay Younus Carmina Tutt

Bilal Chughtai Shayne Beeghadhur

Lucas Golding Yee Ammar Kisat

David Evans

Cristiano Da Cruz

Hari Patel

Onish Sutradhar

To add to these, I have just received the results of the 2017 Biology Olympiad, as follows:

Gold

Jake Loveridge

Raafay Younus

Lucy Thompson

Kate Ridley

Silver

Caija Addai

Indigo Buckler Weerdmeester

Tyreese Hines

Samson Woodley

Bronze

Ricky Rajendran

Carmina Tutt

Hebe Manos

Particular congratulations to Jake and Raafay who were invited to take part in the second round of the

competition, putting them in the top 144 students out of 7,500 students who took part in round one of this

year’s British Biology Olympiad

From 17 - 24 March, Year 10 students of German welcomed their exchange partners for the 35th German Exchange with Starnberg Gymnasium. The weekend was spent in families, with bowling, different types of sports and a first taste of life in Orpington. During the week, the students went to London, going up the London Eye and on a river cruise, as well as visiting the Tower of London, attending the Changing of the Guards Ceremony and having a tour of The Globe Theatre. Our visitors also spent one day at St Olave´s, seeing with their own eyes that English

students do indeed wear uniform and have whole-school assemblies. Both German and English students attended a flashy and truly magical performance of Aladdin at the Prince Edward Theatre, followed by dinner at Nando´s. The week went far too quickly and our students are already looking forward to visiting their partners in Starnberg during Activities Week 2.

Without strong English skills you will be lost for words - and much else - at work. That was the clear message from a conference on the value of English in the workplace. The event, held at Newstead Woods School and attended by Year 10 students, featured some inspirational speakers. Sally Webber, CEO of an accountancy firm, explained that 75% of her working day is about communication through words - liaising with her board, inspiring her staff and connecting with clients. Carly Smallman is a stand-up comedian and illustrated with some jokes how important preparation writing is in her world. Consultant Opthalmic Surgeon, Dilogen de Alwis, analysed the role of words, terminology and writing in medicine, outlining how important communication was to him as a teacher, doctor, colleague and published academic. Each panellist spoke about the transferable skills of learning to be clear, precise and succinct, that an English A Level or degree had developed in them. They argued that English fosters creativity, empathy and the ability to persuade others of your point of view. Final speaker, barrister Joe England, argued that literature is a dress rehearsal for life: that we can learn from the experience of others and sometimes gain insight from matching up our lives to the fictional characters we read about. He concluded "The study of English builds our emotional intelligence."

Last Thursday, parent, John Halton, gave a talk about working in commercial law outside of London and being the Assistant General Counsel with the Financial Times. He explained the various ways of entering the profession and the differences between working in-house or in a firm and between working inside or outside of London. He tackled various questions from Sixth Formers and members of the Lower School about methods of gaining experience, which degrees lead to a career in the law and work-life balance. Next Term on 27 April a representative from Morgan Stanley will be giving a session about building a CV and tackling interviews. Mr Carroll is always interested in hearing from relatives of current pupils who would be interested in giving talks about their careers. If you are able to help, please email acarroll@saintolaves.net for more details.

I was delighted to see a copy of a letter to Richard Decker from St John’s College, Cambridge, confirming that Richard has been offered a Choral Award. This will be for a position as Alto in the highly prestigious St John’s Choir and will last for three years from October 2017. Many congratulations to Richard on this well-deserved award.

Well done to the Year 7s who took part in the STEM Rocket Car Challenge at Leigh UTC. It was a great

opportunity to learn more about Engineering through Design Technology. The Olave’s Rocketeers achieved

the faster time and will go through to the Regionals. Congratulations to Tanush Upadhye, Kavya Vijay, Prithish

Rajarethinam and Wylan Man.

After a cavalcade of top level academic and sporting awards in this morning's assembly, the whole school was treated to our annual musical extravaganza and headline House competition, the O Factor. A spirited performance of Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer by a daffodil-bearing Bingham would have had even Wordsworth stuck for words worthy of praise; Richard Decker then led the house in a rendition of Barbie Girl -

a performance of surreal splendour in which Captain of School Chukwunenyem Nwuba made a guest appearance as Ken. Cure's rendition of Little Einsteins Remix had some thoroughly enjoyable choreography and they were ranked joint 3rd with Bingham. In 2nd place were Leeke whose angelic performance of Amazing Grace was perfectly balanced by their soulful rendition of Demons by Imagine Dragons. The winning House though was Harvard who gave an infectiously impressive performance of Queen's Don't Stop Me Now, complete with a grandstanding air guitar performance which would have done Dr Brian May proud. My thanks to the excellent O Factor Band and the incomparable dry wit of Dr Stewart in compering the competition which this year had one final surprise up its sleeve. As the judges deliberated the outcome of the main event, Old Olavian and Cambridge undergraduate mathematician, Alex Lau, made a guest appearance to referee the first inter-house Rubik's Cube competition. Alex modelled what he expected of the competitors by solving a sample cube in 7.1 seconds to the hushed awe of the entire school. Our on-stage competitors were not quite as fast, but Cure took 1st prize. All told, and with so very much to celebrate, it was a very Olavian end to a very Olavian term!

You may be interested to know that Year 13 student, April Valenzuela, will be running the London Marathon on April 23 for the mental health charity, Mind. With less than a month to go, April still has £1500 to raise in order to secure her place in the race this year. She has asked if there might be any parents who would be prepared to sponsor her. If you are able to help, please follow the link below:

http://m.virginmoneygiving.com/mt/uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserPage.action?userUrl=AprilValenzuela&faId=789334&isTeam=false

I now have the very latest points totals for all of the House competitions this academic year. They are as follows:

Bingham 2,500 Cure 3,100 Harvard 2,600 Leeke 2,900

Clearly, with another term still to come, there is everything to play for, with all four Houses still in contention for the overall title! For my round up of weekly Clubs, Societies and other activities:

Cristiano Da Cruz addressed Philosophy Society on the question: Can science exist without philosophy?

Psychology Society considered: The car crash experiment.

Law Society asked: Should companies be legally obliged to fulfil racial quotas?

Contemporary Issues Society questioned: Why is progress failing?

Old Olavian, David Van Egghen, addressed natural Sciences Society on: Special relativity and life at Durham University.

Medics Society held a Q&A session with a panel of students with offers from Medical schools.

MFL Society did some Sign Language.

Chemistry Club did some ion flame tests.

Jennifer Burville-Riley and Carla Hill spoke to Literature Society on applying to do English at Oxbridge.

Theodore Antonov addressed Political Economy Society on: We need a revolution.

Junior Natural Scientists started the process of cleaning up the environmental conservation area.

Junior Debating Society considered the motion: This House believes that Theresa May should protect EU citizen’s rights.

May I remind you about the annual Sport’s Dinner, which will take place on Friday 5 May from 6.30 – 9.30pm. Tickets for entry are available on sQuid at £15 per person attending.

Also, on behalf of the Parents’ Association, if you are able to help, please could you put Saturday 6 May 9.00am to 3.00pm in your dairy for the Spruce Up Day for painting classrooms prior to Open Day.

And finally, may I wish you all a pleasant Easter break. For senior students, in addition to some relaxation, this is a crucial two-week period for final revision before A-levels, GCSEs or AS/Year 12 examinations so please make the very best use of the time.

Yours sincerely

Headmaster