Head of House

Always one of the hardest descisions as a Housemaster to make, with strong candidates, all with a good set of skills it was always going to be a tough choice. So I was delighted to announce at the Everett end of term meal

Gus McCulloch Head of House for 2013-14.
Oran Mehmet Deputy Head of House

I wish them both well.

Fane Award - an award for a Y9 pupil who is a true House man, a good character and who fully involves themselves in all aspects of school life and House life, this year goes to a deserving winner Hassan Rubbani.

Carolyn, Matthew, Sophie and I wish all Everett pupils and their families a relaxing and enjoyable summer holiday.

End of term assembly - Winners of the Bevan trophy and lots more Everett success

End of term assembly – lots of Everett success and awards!

On Tuesday evening I was a proud Housemaster as I listened to the awards and presentations, Everett pupils and the House featured strongly.

Silver DofE awards were presented to James Baker, Myles Everett, Ben Markham, Dom Marsh and Jamie Mottram.

Music commendations to Chris Baker and Josh Hirst.

Art Full Colours to Rose Parker and Art commendation to Harry Frost.

Drama commendation to James Martin, Drama half colours to Donal Borg-Neal and Ben Markham and Full Drama colours to Dom Marsh.

Rugby Blazer badge and Rowing Blazer badge to Michael Glover.

Tennis full colours to Harry Cheesewright and Tennis Blazer badge and Senior player of the Year to Kit Bowerin.

Everett house won the Junior Athletics standards trophy, the Junior Athletics Championship trophy and the Junior House Tennis trophy.

Baldry trophy – a keenly contested trophy with much House rivalry for the overall best performing House in Sport, this year we came a very creditable 2^nd place. A fantastic achievement and glowing testament to all our boys and girls who have given their all in House sport.

Winner of the Bevan trophy – awarded to the House who gained the most academic excellence awards per pupil, we came out top – winners with an average of 14.65 excellence slips per pupil, Everett tries hard in the classroom as well as on the sports fields and river. A fantastic effort!

Summer Concert

On Monday evening we were treated to one of the best concerts I have been to for a while at Shiplake. A real mix of styles, instruments and performers. Everett pupils were involved in many performances and showed we have a lot of musical talent in the house. Rose Parker, Olivia Peacock and Anna Proctor sang Walking on Sunshine in the girls Choir, Chris Baker and Josh Hirst performed an entertaining medley of Bond themes with the chamber choir. Will Tse along with band mate Dan Noble aka Atlantic Shore performed confidently and energetically on guitar and vocals. The end of the interval was signalled by an equally energetic performance from Josh Hirst and Chris Baker in the Samba band. Greg Cooke, Josh Hirst and Chris Baker were part of a very accomplished performance by the Senior Orchestra of the theme from Jurassic Park and a West Side Story medley. Chris Baker was also part of the Shiplake brass group, a busy evening on stage from him.

Tenner competition – Everett take 1st and 2nd place.

At the start of May, the Business and Economics Department decided to trial the Tenner competition by giving year 9 students ten pounds to set up and successfully run a business. Highlights included an attempted massage business, ice cream in rainy weather and a loss-making food stall, where each item was sold at a loss. Nevertheless, it was a valuable experience for all those that took part and after much deliberation; the department is pleased to announce the following groups for first place and runners up in Shiplake’s Tenner competition.

Winner:  #thatoreo for their ice cream business.

Darien Patel
Charlie Ward
Hassan Rubbani

Runner up: Team Wag Wan for their shoe polish business.

Josh Hirst
Austin Burnand

Darius Bluck

Head of Economics

Y9 Activity week

For four days the Y9 undertook a variety of activities on and off site. These included canoeing, raft building, archery, orienteering, survival skills, dragon boating and the leap of faith. Not only that they camped out overnight cooked their own food and completed their bronze DofE practice expedition! A busy few days which they all enjoyed, I took them for the rafting and they certainly got stuck in!

Rowing Club Dinner

On Thursday night the rowers gathered to celebrate the season and give out awards. Marcus Colao was awarded Junior half colours, Dom Marsh J16 colours, Michael Glover Senior full colours and Blazer badge. Just reward for all their efforts on the river and in training.

Junior Assembly Awards

This morning Everett picked up several well deserved awards. Chris Baker a Music award, Rory O’Conor his Cricket Colours tie, Rory and James Martin were awarded their Tennis Junior Colours. Bronze DofE awards to Chris, Greg, Harry, Toby, Matthew and Will. Finally Junior Tennis Player of the year went to James Martin. Well done to all.

ICT letter from the Headmaster

Dear Parents,

Over the past few years, our ICT network has undergone rapid change in almost every area as we move towards implementing our strategy of fully integrating ICT into the classroom. We have invested heavily in ensuring that our network, especially the wireless network, is as fast as it can be and capable of supporting the many hundreds of devices that are brought into the College every day.

Many of our pupils already bring laptops or tablets in to school and we now feel that the infrastructure is in place to recommend that every pupil at Shiplake has some form of mobile device to bring to lessons.

Having a laptop or tablet is not an absolute requirement in order to attend the College, but we feel that the benefits are very clear. More and more prep. is being set online, many of our teachers are using ICT interactively in the classroom or distributing resources electronically. Pupils are using their devices to work collaboratively, to produce work using video and audio or to access our online library. ICT no longer takes place once a week in a room full of desktop computers, but should be fully integrated into teaching and learning at Shiplake. We feel that goal can be achieved most effectively by recommending that all pupils have a mobile device from September 2013.

In order to give parents the widest possible choice, we have deliberately designed our network so that virtually any type of device can be used. Mobile phones, Windows laptops, Apple Macbooks, iPads and Android tablets are all currently being used on site.  Mr Balderson has put together a guide for parents considering buying a device. He can be contacted on sbalderson@shiplake.org.uk if you have any further questions.

Gregg Davies
Headmaster

With further guidance from the Head of ICT:

As far as the College is concerned, our only requirement is that it can connect to our wireless network (which all modern devices can) and that it has a web browser, in order to give parents and pupils the widest choice possible. A basic laptop would be entirely sufficient, but our current pupils have a wide variety of devices, including iPads, MacBooks, Windows laptops, Android tablets and many others. The only real constraints are personal preference and budget!

If you are considering buying an iPad, we would strongly recommend using an external keyboard as well, in order to be able to complete longer, written preps more easily.

Simon Balderson
Head of ICT

Y9 meet Deadly 60 star

A surprise meeting with Steve Backshall of Deadly 60 fame for our Y9 on their activity day at Longridge.

Everett Old Viking to perform at Glastonbury

Eddie Barnes, Everett House Old Viking (1978), will be performing at Glastonbury this summer with the reunited Department S.  As part of the Post Punk/New Wave movement Department S in 1980 saw their single Is Vic There? peak at number 22 in the UK Charts and inspiring the late John Peel to commission a session. At Shiplake vocalist Eddie, formed the group Nazi….not named as a political statement but to annoy the teachers. The band only played a few gigs but one of them was at the legendary London punk venue The Roxy Club. The other dates were at Bones Club in Reading which led to a feature in the Reading Chronicle about public school punks, much to the Headmaster at the time, Mr Eggar’s annoyance. In 2007 Department S recorded their first single for 26 years, and started playing live again in 2008. Since then they have been appearing though out the UK and Europe and have been sharing the same stage as Bob Dylan, Echo and the Bunnymen, Adam and the Ants and Noel Gallagher to name a few….next UK appearance is at this year’s Glastonbury festival on Sunday night.

More photos from communion on Skipwith tower

Scholars Concert

On Thursday evening the College music scholars took centre stage in a wonderful concert. Josh Hirst played beautifully and several staff and pupils have commented on how well he played. Mr Paul Jones Director of Music said "Josh's performance of the Mozart Clarinet Quintet was very assured and musically mature. He showed real potential as a player and I look forward to working with him in GCSE Music."

Senior House Cricket

Milo led the House team well on Thursday afternoon, with a team consisting of rowers, hockey players and a few who ‘had played cricket in the past’ we were a little nervous. However it was soon clear we had a good side. In the first game tight bowling restricted Skipwith to 39 in the 6 over game. Milo and Max opened the batting and soon set about the Skipwith bowlers, 4’s, 6’s and good running from both saw Milo soon reaching 30 and he had to retire, Jack Madden came on for a few balls, but we easily reached the required runs in just the 3^rd over of our innings. The next match was going to be trickier v Welsh, who had several 1^st XI bowlers and batsmen. We opened the batting, with Milo and Jack, despite some big swings a huge huge hit towards the boundary Jack fell to some good fielding. Max came to the crease and he put on an impressive 35 before he had to retire. Welsh by now had reverted to slower spin bowling, Milo and Markus fell to a very tricky balls, which put Myles and Alex into bat, Alex was caught after a quick flurry of runs and Anthony closed our innings, we set a target of 49. Despite some good opening bowling from Milo, and a great first ball wicket from Max plus great wicket keeping from Will, Welsh managed to reach our target and we were out of the competition, but great team spirit was shown and we all enjoyed the afternoon’s cricket.

Early morning Communion and great views!

Holy Communion on Skipwith Tower - Early on Friday morning Everett Y9 and Kit plus Frankie set their alarms early for the service at 6.30am. They were treated to great views. Thanks to Mr Brownley for the photos of Everett and our boys.

Junior House Tennis

Junior tennis – despite the rain, the Everett team put in a great performance this afternoon. The A pair of James Martin and Marcus Colao won all their games and the B pair of Matt Tse and Guy Pollard won 2 out of 4. This meant we were level with Orchard and Skipwith at the end of the competition, all three Houses having won 6 games. So the event went to a playoff with one from each pair, James Martin and Guy Pollard played Skipwith and then Orchard in a best of 3 games format and won both, placing us overall winners. A great team effort!

Junior House cricket

On a sunny Friday afternoon Everett took to the field in the 7 aside match format, 6 of the fielders had to bowl an over each of 8 balls. Captain Rory O’Conor placed his field well but Skipwith had two strong openers, one was forced to retire at 25, but nevertheless Skipwith went on to set a big target of 82 for 1. Leading by example Rory together with James Martin set about the Skipwith attack, aggressive running and batting saw our total rise, Rory fell to a good catch, Will Urquhart replaced him a convert from rowing for the afternoon he surprised himself with a good display, hitting two 4’s, Greg Cooke came on as James wicket fell and he too proved himself a rower who can bat. Hassan Rubbani  finished off our over’s with a good batting display, the match went down to the very last ball, we needed 2 off the last ball to win, but unfortunately despite a good team performance played in great spirit we finished at 81 for 3. Matt Tse and Oscar Fagerstrom-Day frustratingly didn’t get to bat due to the short over game, but they fielded well and I enjoyed watching a tight and exciting game.

 

House Drama

This week the creative, teamwork and acting skills of our Y9 boys were put to the test. The boys under the guidance of two Y10 drama students had just two hours to devise a short play, using just one prop. They then had to perform the piece in front of judges and the lower school. Our piece revolved around a remote control that magically brought museum pieces to life. Our GCSE drama expert James Martin had the task of mentoring pupils from a different House, drama teacher Miss Unwin commented on how well he did this. Points were awarded for mentoring, teamwork, preparation and of course the final piece. Thanks go to Conor Cummings and Tom Thompson for mentoring our boys.
1^st Burr (10 points) 2^nd Orchard/Skipwith (8 points each) 3^rd Everett (6 points) 4^th  Welsh (4points). James Martin – Everett (2 points) for mentoring Burr winners.

Matthew Hoggard visits Shiplake College Cricket Club

Cricket – Milo Taylor 1^st XI, Rory O’Conor U15A, Charlie Ward and Oscar Fagerstrom-Day U14B have all been playing well for the school this term.

This week Matthew Hoggard MBE visited Shiplake College cricket club and Rory and Milo were lucky enough to spend time with him as he shared some of the wisdom gained from taking 248 wickets in his 67 tests for England and years spent playing for Yorkshire and subsequently captaining Leicestershire. Talking to Everett tutor and U14 XI cricket coach Mike Edwards he recounted fond memories of his time with England, Flintoff’s humour in the changing room, a ball that whizzed past his nose from Courtney Walsh as his welcome to Test cricket and working hard on his defensive technique with his ‘batting buddy’ Marcus Trescothick. The England swing bowler recalled how he had learnt his trade beginning with Pudsey Cricket Club in their 3^rd Xl and it was only when he was 17 that Hoggard eventually joined the Yorkshire set-up, an inspiration to late-developing sportsmen and a lesson to all our boys that hard work and determination are needed alongside talent to succeed in any field of life. Rory is pictured below with Matthew Hoggard and Milo on his way out to bat for the 1^st XI v Oratory this week.

SCBC Regatta 15th June

Inter-House Mathematics Competition

On Wednesday evening, 20 mathematicians from Years 9 and 10 met to thrash out which house is mathematically supreme.  A mixture of team questions and individual competitions had all the competitors stretched and enthusiastic supporters ensured that house rivalry was at the fore-front of everyone’s minds.  The Everett team of James Martin, Greg Cooke, Darien Patel and Austin Burnand did extremely well, there were only two points separating them and Burr the leaders before the final three-mark question. It was a tense finale to the contest but eventually, despite strong representation from our Everett boys Burr House edged them out. Well done though on a great team effort.

Burr: 30; Everett: 28; Welsh: 24; Orchard: 8; Skipwith: 6

Progress review and Excellence awards

This week I was pleased to hear that Hassan Rubbani, Marcus Colao, Harry Frost and Greg Cooke were all awarded prizes by the Deputy Headmaster and Director of Studies. Harry and Hassan for the high number of excellence slips they earned during the last half term. Greg and Marcus both received a Certificate of Achievement following the excellent progress review grades they obtained. All the boys were deserving recipients, just reward and recognition for all their hard work in and out of the classroom.

Y11 pupils and parents - Information from Director of Studies

Dear Parents

Lessons (and in-class revision cover) will finish for Year 11 at lunchtime on Wednesday 12^th June. Pupils will then be free to study in house or at home by arrangement with Hms.

Maths, T & P, Physics and Geography staff will still be available  in department during normal Year 11 lesson times (up to the point where these exams are over) to support pupils if required.

Regards

Derek

Derek Mackey

Director of Studies

Shiplake College

Henley on Thames

RG9 4BW

Tel: 0118 9704845

email: dmackey@shiplake.org.uk

Geography lessons will continue as usual and then we have all geographers on Monday 17^th from 8.30-1.30 in the geography rooms. Please pass this onto your year 11s.

The lessons are as followed:

Teacher	Lessons
JH	Thursday 3, Friday 3
GLS	Friday 1, Saturday 1
BDP	Thursday 4

Regards

George Seccombe

GB J18 final trial

Congratulations to Michael Glover who along with four other members of Shiplake College’s 1^st VIII has been selected for the Junior U18 GB final trials.  Michael will be travelling to Nottingham in July, after Henley Royal Regatta, to take part in five tough days of trials. At the recent GB Junior Small Boats regatta held at Dorney Lake, Eton, all five oarsmen impressed, Michael paired with an Etonian came in 10^th. At the Nottingham trials the Shiplake oarsmen will be competing against 21 other pairs for selection for places at the Junior World Championship, held this year in Lithuania, and for the Coupe de Jeunesse at Lucerne.

Speech Day Prizes

The Junior prizes have now been announced alongside special prizes. Congratulations to the following Everett pupils who will be awarded prizes on Speech Day, very well deserved for all their hard work. Darien Patel and Charlie Ward – Y9 prizes. Greg Cooke a Y10 prize.

I am also very pleased that Max Chandler’s fantastic achievements on the rugby field over the past year, culminating in his England appearances mean he will be awarded the Trotter Trophy.

National Schools Regatta

At the beginning of half term lots of Everett boys made the trip up to Nottingham for the National Schools Regatta. It was a real shame that the poor weather meant our Y9 didn’t get a chance to race on the Friday, it must have been very frustrating after all that hard work training and preparing. However on Saturday and Sunday Everett pupils were racing in many crews, Gus, Peter and Oran in the 3^rd VIII did very well in a competitive final just losing out on 3^rd place. Guy, Jack, and Toby in the J15A and B VIII events faced some tough competition and challenging races and were unlucky and disappointed not to progress as far as they would have hoped but valuable lessons will make them stronger crews for the remainder of this season and I am sure they will bounce back next year. Jamie and Dom in the J16A event had a very tough semi-final and narrowly lost out on the 3rd qualifying place to a strong Oratory crew. Michael was in the 1^st VIII, who finished in 1^st place in the qualifiers, then dominated their semi and only just lost out on gold finishing close to a record setting St George’s crew. To add to his silver medal Michael won bronze in the Championship coxed IV event on Sunday. Well done to all the Everett rowers, I have seen how hard they have trained this term and I hope they enjoy the last few regattas of the season.