The Flagpole

Firstly many thanks for your overwhelming support of our new policy on mobile phones in school. It has already made a hugely positive difference around the campus and in the way that many of the children interact with each other.

As you will be aware, last week as part of our Digital Citizenship programme, we had an expert guest speaker, Paul Hay, in school to talk to the children and staff on a variety of aspects of the internet and e-safety. I hope you have had the opportunity to discuss some of the things that were discussed with your children. We also had about 120 parents attend the evening talk which was specifically aimed at parents giving some excellent advice and pointers as to how to manage technology and e-safety issues in the home.

A number of parents informed us that they would have liked to attend but other events made it impossible, so we filmed the talk and it is available to all parents (not pupils) by clicking on the link here. I thoroughly recommend this talk to all parents (you can skip the first three minutes, which is my introduction) as it is full of wise, practical advice.

Paul also very kindly took time after he left to answer some of the specific questions that parents had posed – these questions and answers can be found here. He also offered to answer further questions or give advice to parents; his website which contains useful resources and links can be found here and his email address should you wish to contact him is paul.hay@pclstraining.com

Again, many thanks for all your support in these key areas and please do contact us at school if you have any concerns. 

Ed Hester

It's wedding night in the palace of King Shahrayar. By morning, the new queen, Shahrazad, is to be put to death like a thousand young brides before her. She has the one gift that can save her: the gift of storytelling. With a mischievous imagination and silver tongue, Queen Shahrazad paints a dazzling array of stories and characters, summoned forth from strange and magical worlds populated by talking birds, singing trees and crafty thieves. Can the power of storytelling save her life?

So begins Dominic Cooke’s adaption of Arabian Nights, directed by Aileen Cefaliello, supported by Vicky Roberts and performed with verve and passion by our wonderful troupe of players. Over three nights this week, captivated audiences are being transported to a colourful world of larger than life characters, tall stories and Eastern promise, what better way to combat this long cold winter we have had.

As an added treat on Saturday 10 February, we will be welcoming Old Princethorpian and professional actor, Emilio Doorgasingh, back to the College to officially open the Clarkson Theatre at the beginning of the final sell-out performance.

A number of tickets are still available for tonight's (Friday 9 February - 7.00pm) performance, they will be allocated on a first come, first served basis to those who have not booked tickets and the cost will be added to next term's bill.

A big 'break a leg' to all the cast and behind the scenes team for the last two performances!

View gallery to get a sneak preview of the tales....

The admissions deadline for acceptance of places for September 2018 entry to the College is fast approaching and a good number of acceptances have been coming in over the last few weeks. Those parents wishing to accept a place need to send their signed confirmation and £300 deposit back to Mrs Vanessa Rooney, the Registrar, by Monday 5 March 2018 please, to secure the place.

As we finish one year's admissions cycle, another one begins and we are now accepting registrations for September 2019 entry. The Entrance Exams for 2019 will take place on Saturday 10 November 2018.  There will be plenty of opportunities for prospective pupils and their parents to visit the College before then, including our new spring Open Morning on Tuesday 20 March from 10.30am to 12.30pm, our summer Open Evening on Wednesday 7 June from 6.00pm to 8.30pm and taster days for Year 5 children in May and June.

If you have any questions about the admissions process please contact the Registrar, Vanessa Rooney, on 01926 634201 or email admissions@princethorpe.co.uk.

Congratulations to Head Girl, Miriam Isaacs, who has been awarded a Grade 8 Gold Medal in Acting by the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA).

LAMDA examinations in Acting are designed to develop the skills necessary to communicate dramatic text to an audience.  For her Gold Medal exam Miriam had to prepare three monologue speeches of between four and five minutes each from published plays.  Her varied repertoire included ‘Antigone’ by Sophocles, ‘St Joan’ By George Bernard Shaw and ‘Our Country’s Good’ by Timberlake Wertenbaker. The extracts demonstrated her ability to convey period and style using contrasting pieces of comedy and drama.

Gold is the highest medal awarded by LAMDA; Miriam, who began studying LAMDA when she was in Year 8, has consistently achieved high marks as she progressed through the grades.

Miriam explained, “I am planning to read English Literature at university and studying for the LAMDA examinations and the Gold Medal has given me a deeper understanding and appreciation of different texts, which has been really valuable preparation for my UCAS application."

Congratulating Miriam LAMDA teacher, Mary MacDonald said, “I am delighted that Miriam has achieved this result.  It is the culmination of five years LAMDA study which has included acting, mime, and public speaking.  Miriam has had consistently high marks in her examinations, a direct result of her diligence, ownership and mature understanding of the tasks involved.  She has had to demonstrate a thorough understanding of the acting process and characters portrayed.  She has also studied major drama practitioners and their influence on the acting process as well as the playwrights and the context of their work. 

She continued, “I am sure that Miriam will also have found this process of great value, giving her the skills and confidence she needs in the future.  The Grade 8 Gold Medal also earns her 30 UCAS points and supports her application for university.  Well done Miriam.”    

This latest achievement follows on from Miriam’s success earlier in the academic year in the National Catenians Public Speaking Competition for young people, when she was awarded first place. 

A team of nine swimmers represented the Princethorpe Foundation at the National Independent Schools Association’s Swimming Championships at the London Aquatics Centre, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park on Sunday 21 January 2018.  Representing the Midlands and up against tough competition, our swimmers competed against national qualifiers from regions across the UK including East Anglia, the North, London South, London West, London North and the South West.

Over the course of the day some 400 swimmers took part in 83 races with the Midlands region finishing impressively in 1st place in the Seniors, 5th in the Juniors and 4th overall.

Princethorpe College Director of Sport, Neil McCollin, commented, “Our swimmers have traditionally done well in the ISA Swimming Championships and they have had another successful outing this year.  Well done to everyone who competed in both the National Championships and in the qualifying regional competitions, it’s good to see so many pupils from all three of the Foundation’s schools representing the Midlands, we are delighted with their performance.” 

Year 8 pupil Jess Mackenzie swam superbly to finish in a time of 28.74 taking a gold medal and setting a new record for the Year 8 Girls 50 metre freestyle.  Mackenzie just missed a second medal later in the day when she finished in 4th place in a time of 32.69, in a very close race in the Year 8 Girls 50 metre butterfly.

Year 11 Caitlin Newport swam powerfully to take a silver medal in the Year 11/13 Girls’ 100 metre breast stroke.  In a challenging dual against a familiar rival, Leah Hamilton swimming for London South, she finished the race in 1.23.29.   

Lucia McCosker-New also took silver in the Year 9/10 Girls 100 metre freestyle just missing the gold by 0.29 of a second in what was an exciting, nail biting finish.

Year 10 Evie Nicholas finished 5th in the Year 9/10 100 metre backstroke in 1.22.47 and fellow Year 10 Toby Rigg also finished 5th in the Year 9/10 Boys 100 metre freestyle in 1.06.18.  

Crackley Hall’s Junior 6 Eva Plevin competed in the Year 6 Girls 50m butterfly finishing in 43.43 and Junior 4 Lily Carroll had her first outing at the competition in the Year 4 Girls 50 metre backstroke, finishing in 52.54.

This year for the first time the Crescent School had swimmers competing at the National Championships, with two boys competing in 200 metre freestyle relay races.  Marco Rodriguez Hernandez’s Year 4 team finished comfortably in 1st place and Year 5 Jamie Capelett swam his leg blisteringly fast to bring his relay team from 3rd place up to 1st place. Sadly both results were disallowed due to faulty change overs by other members of the relay teams.  All part of the high pressure of this major event and part of the learning for next year’s competition.

Well done to all our swimmers.

Over 30 Princethorpe pupils, plus their parents and staff enjoyed a dedicated talk from Computer Games industry expert Roisi Proven on Thursday 25 January.

Roisi has spent over seven years working in the Computer Games industry both in Quality Assurance and Design, and is now Head of Product Delivery for a media company. She was invited in to the College to speak on her experience of working in the industry and technology sector generally, and her talk covered topics as diverse as the different games she has worked on, why there aren’t more women in the industry, why having people skills is so vital, the role of creativity, psychology and intuition in creating games, and the different routes available into the sector.

Roisi also spent time in her career as an Agile Project Manager and in the lead up to her talk, pupils spent the afternoon undertaking team challenges and considering the ways in which they could apply Agile Project Management techniques when working. Agile Project Management focuses on tools and techniques to help organisations and teams focus on continuous improvement, flexibility and team input to ensure delivery of essential quality products. Pupils were then given the task of creating their own computer game concepts and presenting their final ideas to Roisi later in the evening.

Year 10 pupil James Lee commented, “The afternoon session was really useful. We had to think about how to communicate with each other well and assign roles to reach our end goals.”

He continued, “Roisi’s talk was great too. It was interesting to find out that there are people who studied different subjects such as Engineering and Maths who work in the sector as well.”

Fellow Year 10 pupil Oliver Lyons added, “It was fascinating finding out about Roisi’s experiences and how important the effort you put in to your job, and your own willpower can be.”

Head of ICT and Computer Science Adam Depledge concluded, “We’re hugely grateful to Roisi for taking the time to visit us in January. It’s brilliant that we can provide pupils with opportunities like these and help them to consider the different skills needed for career paths in the sector, and beyond.”  

Eight Princethorpe runners have qualified for the National ISA Cross Country Championships following the Midlands event which took place on Wednesday 31 January at Bedstone College in Shropshire.  The ‘great eight’ were part of a 34-strong squad who took on the challenging course in tricky conditions.

Princethorpe College’s runners have a tradition of success at this competition, many have competed at Bedstone before, and after recent County cross country success hopes were high as the plucky runners battled for one of the coveted top ten National qualifying places.

Both the U14 Girls’ and Boys’ teams ran well and with so many College pupils finishing in the top 20, both Princethorpe teams bagged the top spot and the team trophy for their age group.  Qualifying for the Nationals for the U14 Girls were Julia Loftus and Jess Evans who ran determinedly to finish 8th and 9th respectively.  Grace Darcy came home 11th and will act as reserve.  For the U14 Boys’ Mark Dunkley finished 6th, so also qualifies.  Ed Mitchell just missed out despite a brilliant race where he finished 13th.

For the U16 Girls’ Molly Minshull had an outstanding race taking 2nd place and the silver medal, despite the hare (a pace-setter) taking the wrong turn and adding an extra mile to her route.  She was followed over the line by a sea of Princethorpe red vests as Eve Howard finished in 5th, Erin Darcy 9th and Luisa Garcia-Stokes 10th.  All these girls qualify for the Nationals too.

The U16 Boys’ team ran bravely with the Crowfoot twins in excellent form, Will finished 9th to qualify with brother Tom just missing out in 11th. The pair were closely followed by George Dunkley in 12th.  Tom will act as reserve.

Head of Girls’ Games, Mrs Debs Brookes, was delighted with the results, “You never quite know what you’re going to get with cross country as the variables are so great. Despite the difficult conditions today we still had red vest after red vest crossing the line; our runners took on the arduous terrain and did very well.”

Our qualifying runners will have home advantage in the ISA National Cross Country championships which will place at Princethorpe College later in the Spring on Saturday 3 March 2018.

The College is having a successful cross country season with Year 7 girls Julia Loftus, Jess Evans and Grace Darcy all qualifying for a Year 7 English Schools’ race at Prestwold Hall in Leicestershire on Saturday 24 March 2018. Older runners Molly Minshull and George Dunkley have also qualified for the English School Nationals which will be held in Leeds on Saturday 17 March, with Tom and Will Crowfoot as reserves.

Austin House is the worthy recipient of the inaugural St Hildegard House Award for Academic Endeavour and Attainment.  Launched this academic year, the award celebrates the effort, attainment and attitude of pupils in each and every teaching group in the school.

Director of Studies, Dr Michael Reddish, explained, “Princethorpe College has been blessed with a clear and strong set of values from its very inception. The school places the commitment to be kind and do your best at the forefront of all it does and acknowledges and celebrates these values in a whole host of ways, including systems of merits and rewards.”

Endeavour Awards and Teacher Awards reward academic effort, attainment and a positive attitude.  Taking its name from St Hildegard von Bingen, a visionary Benedictine nun who was declared a ‘Doctor of the Church’ by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012, the St Hildegard award is presented to the House that receives the greatest number of Endeavour and Teacher Awards.

In this inaugural round, 832 Endeavour Awards and Teachers Awards have been given to pupils. In the whole school assembly on Monday 29 January top award winning Year 8 pupil Pratheesh Prabakaran, who himself received nine awards, was invited forward to receive the new award on behalf of Austin House from Headmaster, Ed Hester.

Dr Reddish added, “Last week I had the pleasure of going into House Assemblies to congratulate the award winners, we hope this high profile recognition will spur all our pupils on to greater endeavour and achievement.”

For a list of the top award winners please click here Endeavour And Teacher Award Winners

Current Year 11 pupils who are interested in applying for the Sixth Form Sport Scholarship are encouraged to do so by the deadline date of Friday 16 February 2018.

Candidates should submit a portfolio and detailed account of their reasons for the application supported by references from their coach/activity leaders.

The final document should be forwarded to Vanessa Rooney, our Registrar, by Friday 16 February 2018. 

Following a review of the portfolios, as appropriate, candidates will be invited to the Sports Scholarship Assessment Day on Friday 9 March 2018.

The Sixth Form Sports Scholarship is open to both internal and external candidates.

On Friday 19 January 2018 Sixth Form Photography students and Upper Sixth Art students took the scenic M40 route down to London to visit the National Portrait Gallery.  Photography students visited the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize Exhibition whilst the Art students visited the Cezanne Portraits Exhibition.  That day the gallery was filled with portrait lovers just like us.  I found it so interesting to see others sketching Cezanne portraits just as I was and the atmosphere it created was definitely a highlight.  Before leaving we got to explore around the gallery, finding gorgeous architecture, sculptures and photographs.  After adventuring around we found the downstairs café where we stocked up on coffee and snacks before our long coach ride back home. It was a fun day out and an inspirational trip that will help start the preparation for our A-level exam.     

Lizzie Watson, C6FS, and Ella Friess, C6PH

Football isn’t often associated with reading and writing but since November the motivational power of the nation’s favourite sport has been used to develop Princethorpe pupil’s literacy skills. 20 Year 8s have enjoyed taking part in the National Literacy Trust’s ‘Skills Academy’, a ten-week initiative that uses the excitement of football and freestyle ball tricks to motivate pupils to improve their literacy skills.

Over the course of the programme pupils have developed their comprehension skills including questioning, clarifying, summarising, predicting and inferring, learnt new vocabulary and improved their confidence in reading.  As they progressed through the ‘Skills Academy’ they have also unlocked exclusive video tutorials from top freestyle footballers, teaching ball tricks such as the ‘rocket launcher’.

The project has been very successful with pupils’ motivation and enjoyment of reading increasing. After all their hard work, and as a reward, on Tuesday 30 January the pupils had the chance to put their new football skills into action in a special training session run by Sky Blues in the Community coaches Chloe Debaes and Callum Ingram. The coaches organised two hours of skills, drills and mini-matches.  During the intensive session pupils practised basic passing, one twos, stop and goes, turning, dummy shots and headers, played mini four-a-side games with no goalies and finished with relay races.  Some even enjoyed showing off their newly learnt freestyle tricks to the admiring coaches.

Louise Dennis, Education Manager, commented, “We are delighted to work with Princethorpe College and support their ‘Skills Academy’ literacy project. It was brilliant to see the children having fun learning football skills and to know that football is changing attitudes towards reading, and helping them to develop important literacy skills.”

College Librarian, Celia Scott added, “The Skills Academy has really engaged pupils. All of the material is about football and makes interesting reading for pupils. Its approach builds confidence by breaking reading into manageable chunks, making it less daunting.  We have even welcomed footballs into the library and the pupils have enjoyed learning the freestyle tricks,” she continued, “We really appreciate Sky Blues in the Community football coaches coming into school to run this special end of programme reward session for us. It helps reinforce the importance of literacy skills.”

On Saturday 27 January 80 young singers from local primary schools joined Princethorpe's Director of Music, Mr Gil Cowlishaw, Mrs Felicity Coulson and 15 of the Princethorpe College Choir for a Choral Fun Day.

The Year 5 and 6 pupils tackled a variety of choral pieces from traditional works such as Amazing Grace and When The Saints Go Marching In to popular favourites such as Pure Imagination from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to ELO’s Mr Blue Sky and the upbeat Happy by Pharrell Williams.

As well as rehearsing furiously, the visiting children took part in a musical treasure hunt round the College and enjoyed lunch in the Sixth Form Centre.

The day culminated in an impressive gala performance of the pieces in front of an enthusiastic capacity audience of family and friends in the College's newly refurbished Clarkson Theatre.

Commenting on the day, Gil Cowlishaw said, "We were really impressed by the children. They achieved such a lot in just a few hours, learning five songs and then taking to the stage to perform is no mean feat, well done to them all!”

There was plenty of positive parental feedback too including comments such as, ‘Our son had an amazing day and loved every minute’, ‘She made friends, and clearly felt very welcomed and at ease’, and ‘Please could you pass on our gratitude and appreciation to everyone involved in organising such a fabulous day’.

A special thank you to all of the Princethorpe pupils and staff involved and to pupil technicians Daniel Hatfield and Ethan Smith for their help with the sound and lighting on the day.