The Flagpole

As I walked round our school this morning, the corridors look immaculately clean, there is no litter anywhere in sight and I didn’t have to speak to anyone about not wearing their uniform correctly. However, sitting in front of my laptop this week I have seen innovation, resilience, inspirational online lessons and rousing assemblies. But I have also had remote meetings with parents, pupils and staff who are struggling, going through very hard times, be it physically or emotionally. In an Instagram world where we often only present the picture of perfection, let us not be ashamed, embarrassed or feel awkward in either asking for or offering help. Our College motto, Christus Regnet, which (very loosely in linguistic terms, but powerfully in practicality) translates as “be kind and do your best” has never been needed more than now and thank you so much for all you are doing in this respect.

On a More (!) upbeat note…congratulations to More House – in the end you smashed it and showed that the trophy isn’t won by individual superstars (though you have quite a lot of those, as all Houses do) – rather by participation and teamwork. Again, many thanks to House Activities Leader, Mrs Newborough, and her amazing team for all they do. The 28,187 points awarded are a testament to the enormous variety and scale of what the House Year consists, from the stellar events, such as Sports Day, the Talent Show or the Oscars, to the individual house point earned for a good effort in homework.

On the theme of stellar events, at 6.00pm tonight (Friday 24 April) our Spring Concert will be streamed. As well as performances by a number of individuals and small groups, there is an amazing collaborative piece - knitted together by our Director of Music, Gil Cowlishaw – which is an orchestral and choral version of Elbow’s One Day Like this. Huge thanks to Mr Cowlishaw and all those who contributed to this rousing and uplifting concert. The best way of you seeing it is by logging on to your House Team in Microsoft Teams and parents will also be emailed a Vimeo link.

Many thanks to you all for all your support with the Home Learning Programmes and particularly for looking through the pupils’ weekly logs. Keeping tabs on what the children are doing is complex and whilst we do have some very sophisticated monitoring software to check pupil engagement, your support and help is invaluable. The creativity and levels of engagement are generally very good indeed and the use of live lessons and meetings are really adding an extra dimension. Of course, it’s probably going to be a marathon rather than a sprint and so reaching a happy equilibrium so that things are manageable in you own homes is a key aim. If you need any help or advice with supporting home learning please do ask – we will be running our second round of surveys next week as we are keen to get your specific feedback.

A reminder that further details of the End of Year Assessments, beginning on Monday 18 May (Friday 15 May for Year 10) will be sent out within the next week or so. Also, a reminder please that if your child is ill and unable to work, please email attendance@princethorpe.co.uk so that their teachers are aware, aren’t chasing them for work and can make any special arrangements as necessary.

Finally, many thanks for all your positive messages and continued support I hope you and your families are well, but sadly I know for some of you this is not the case. Please do keep us informed and seek support if you need it; there is almost always something that can be done to help.

With prayers and best wishes.

E D Hester

Some of our social media followers may have noticed the cryptic posts we have been making since Wednesday. What they may not have worked out yet is that they are alluding to a very special event which will take place this evening from 6.00pm. Thanks to the wonders of technology and the dedication of our fantastic Director of Music, Gil Cowlishaw, Princethorpe will be presenting a ‘Socially Distanced Spring Concert’.

Mr Cowlishaw has masterminded the event which will involve around 60 members of the school community, including pupils, staff and peripatetic music teachers, all performing from home.

Via Microsoft Teams he has shared parts for a host of instruments, for sopranos, baritones and altos and created a ‘Virtual Conductor’ video to bring all the musicians and singers together into one harmonious whole for a special combined performance of Elbow’s hit One Day Like This.

Comments Mr Cowlishaw, “Nothing, not even a pandemic, was going to stop us having our Spring Concert. Elbow's anthemic hit, with it's main lyrical theme, seemed a fitting and uplifting choice for our finale and the times we find ourselves in."

"The ‘virtual’ concert has really captured everyone’s imagination and I’ve been overwhelmed by the response, it’s going to be amazing!”

In addition to the flagship performance there will be a host of other musical items in the hour long concert which will be streamed to the College community via Teams from 6.00pm to 7.00pm. A Vimeo link with also be sent via ISAMS to all parents.

The programme includes traditional and more contemporary pieces and even some improvisation, the musicians involved range from Year 7 to Upper Sixth and musical grades 1 to 8. The concert has taken over 100 hours to piece together, not counting the time spent by the individual contributors.

We will also post the finale piece at 7.00pm on social media if you would like share it with family and friends.

What better form of entertainment could there be on a Friday evening!!

The new Princethorpe College Prefect Body for 2020-2021 was formally inaugurated into their roles in a virtual ceremony shared with the College community and parents on Friday 17 April.

The outgoing Head Boy, Jack Bent, and Head Girl, Leah Dunkley, gave a poignant speech reflecting on their year in office and time at Princethorpe before wishing the new Prefect Body well, and handing over the keys of office.  Mr Ben Collie, Head of Sixth Form introduced the 2020-2021 Prefects for the first time, before the smartly attired group spoke individually to their audience about themselves and their hopes for their new roles, before the new Head Girl, Abbie O’Carroll-Bailey and Head Boy Jack Neale concluded the ceremony with a prayer.

The roles of office are:

Head Girl
Abbie O'Carroll-Bailey

Head Boy
Jack Neale

Deputy Head Girls
Lauren Mason
Grace McGrory

Deputy Head Boys 
James Gallagher
Prajeet Prabakaran

Pastoral Prefects
Beth Hutcheson
Ross Low
Georgia McCallum
Olivia Rawle
Jess Scott
Elyse Hyland

House Captains
Austin: Charlotte Fitzpatrick and Luke Brotherton
Benet: Gracie Gerrard and Harvey Wells
Fisher: Aimee Llewellyn and Isaac Ryan
More: Kian Mellett and Connor Parris

Social Prefects
Isabella Wardman
Keeley Jarrett

Charity Prefect
James Walker

Chaplaincy Prefects
Elsa Isaacs
Hannah Bryer

Junior Chaplaincy Prefects
Andre Barnett – Year 7 – Austin
Sean Birtley – Year 7 – Fisher
Louis Yuen – Year 7 - Fisher
Thomas Bucknall - Year 8 – Austin
Jemima Teeton – Year 8 – Austin
Zoe Shayler – Year 9 – Benet

Academic Prefects
Zack Ahmed
Amelia Cunnington
Mia Hornett (Transition Prefect)
Daisy Walker

Marketing and Communications Prefect
Will Marshall

Games Prefects
Madeleine Glasspool and Emelia Tubb
Tom Crowfoot and Oli Thomas

The College wishes good luck to the new prefect body for the year ahead and extends warm thanks to the outgoing prefects, they have given great service and we wish them all the best for their upcoming exams and future endeavours.

To watch the inauguration ceremony please click here.

One of the last sporting events Princethorpe pupils took part in before the COVID-19 situation led to fixture cancellations was the prestigious English Schools’ Cross Country Championships 2020. It was touch and go whether the race would actually happen and runners only received confirmation that it was going ahead on the Thursday night beforehand.

The event, which brings together the best athletes from England’s 46 counties to compete for the honour of being the best in the country, took place in the magnificent setting of Liverpool’s Sefton Park on Saturday 14 March.

Six Princethorpe runners had been selected to be part of a 48-strong Warwickshire squad, with the top eight runners from each age group representing their county on the day. Ava Farren Year 8, Kate Pomerleau, Year 8 and Grace Darcy, Year 9 in the Junior Girls (Under 15) category, Zak Johnson, Year 9 in the Junior Boys (Under 15) category and Tom and Will Crowfoot, Lower Sixth in the Senior Boys (Under 19) category.

Our hard-working runners had put in extensive training throughout the season in the build up to this pinnacle of the cross country season. In windy, muddy and challenging conditions the Junior Girls ran a 3km course, the Junior Boys a 4.4km course and the Senior Boys a 6.7km course around the 235-acre park.

The start of each race was particularly spectacular, with each county’s eight runners lining up in their pens in the order in which they qualified. The ground literally shook at the start of every race as around 350 runners took off en masse and jockeyed for the best position.

At the end of a long and tiring day the final results were as follows:

In the Junior Girls out of a field of 344 runners, Kate Pomerleau came in 112th with a time of 12.26, Ava Farren was 215th with a time of 12.48 and Grace Darcy came in 292nd in 13.18.  Kate, Ava and Grace were placed 1st, 2nd and 6th for Warwickshire.

In the Junior Boys out of a field of 334 runners, Zak Johnson came in 315th in a time of 17.54, he was placed 6th for Warwickshire.

In the Senior Boys out of a field of 324 runners, 16 year-old Will Crowfoot came in 248th in a time of 24.59 and his twin brother Tom came in 276th in 25.38, they were placed 2nd and 3rd respectively for Warwickshire.

Against stiff opposition overall Warwickshire were placed 41st in the Junior Girls Competition, 36th in the Junior Boys Competition and 41st in the Senior Boys Competition.

Will Bower, Head of Outdoor Education, commented, “Our runners did fantastically well to qualify for this prestigious event and performed very well on the day against very stiff competition. They all did the College and the county proud.”

Congratulations to all our runners and many thanks to their dedicated parents for their support during the season and taking them up to Liverpool for the Championships.

Princethorpe STEAM Ambassador and our new Deputy Head Girl, Lauren Mason has been looking for 100 volunteers to take part in an online survey, called ‘Combating COVID-19’ as part of a Junior Academy Challenge for the New York Academy of Sciences.

Lauren has been a member of the Junior Academy for the last few years and will be representing the UK as part of an international team for this challenge, with others from the USA, France and Japan. The team are conducting research and have decided to collect primary data for analysis on a range of different factors associated with living in a country affected by the virus. In order for the analysis to be reliable, they ideally need 100 people from each of their countries to complete an online survey.

The survey takes about five minutes to complete and asks people about their current situation regarding the pandemic’s progress in their country. Topics include food supply, access to medicines, reliance of news and social media and community support. The idea is that the survey will be completed by the same group of people, weekly, for four weeks.

The survey has been sent out twice so far, and will be sent out again in the coming days. In terms of cases, the survey has highlighted the significant lack of testing going on worldwide. The percentage of respondents who know someone who’s tested positive for Covid-19 is still hovering at 20%, much the same as last week. However 63% of respondents now believe they know someone with symptoms of the virus, a huge jump from the 38% last week! They have been doing wider research which appears to indicate that testing is vital in combating Covid-19.

Lauren says, "I would like to thank those in the Princethorpe community who are continuing to participate and support us. The open ended question at the end of the survey has generated so many fantastic ideas (and a few controversial ones!), which we really enjoyed going through."

"As a team we are currently developing a website, which will assist with managing Covid-19 in the home. More to follow on this once we’ve moved past the brainstorming stage!"

At the end of the challenge, Lauren will share the team’s final report with the volunteers and with our community to illustrate the findings. Thanks to everyone who gets involved.

Here is the link if you would like to help Lauren and participate in the survey.

One of the many great experiences you can gain as a prefect at Princethorpe College is receiving the excellent leadership seminars and advice given at the Prefect Training Day, which this year took place online just before the start of the Trinity Term on Saturday 18 April 2020. 

Unfortunately, due to the current circumstances regarding the COVID-19 outbreak, the normal format of the day had to be changed because of social distancing measures. However, we (as prefects) were lucky enough to have some key aspects of the day salvaged for us. 

The day was organised to help the prefects to develop their skills in line with their new areas of responsibility as well as helping them to develop employability and life skills.

It started with an introductory session with the Sixth Form Team, motivational guest speaker Mr Victor Allen, the prefect body and all of the subject ambassadors.

Everyone was organised into groups, as to when they would receive their presentation from Mr Allen.

After this, each group were delivered an interesting and inspiring virtual presentation by Mr Allen. This entailed the key approaches, mind sets and qualities of effective leaders. We also learned about working effectively within a team, taking on roles of responsibility effectively, delegation and time management and listening skills.

It is safe to say that the information given will be very valuable to all present. We are confident that the information and attitudes towards leadership provided will stand us all in good stead for the year ahead.

Furthermore, as well as the intellectual benefits of the day, everyone enjoyed the charismatic approach of Mr Allen, and we were very happy to catch up with all the faces we would usually see on a daily basis. 

We would like to thank Mr Collie and the rest of the staff involved for organising such a great event. Even though we couldn’t be there in person, the virtual organisation of the day and the participation from all was of paramount importance to the smooth running of the training schedule.

Finally, we would like to thank Mr Allen for giving up his time and doing a fantastic job of presenting to us, even though it wasn’t in the usual format.

Jack Neale and Abbie O'Carroll-Bailey
Head Boy and Head Girl 

Upper Sixth Former, James Paterson, has been jointly awarded the first ever Local Young Conservatives Award for Outstanding Contribution and Political Activism in recognition of hard work and dedication throughout the year and in the 2019 General Election campaign.

James who studies A-level Politics and is hoping to go on to a career as a local government councillor and ultimately become an MP himself one day explains "I was delighted to recently accept the award for 'Outstanding Contribution and Political Activism' from Hinckley and Bosworth Young Conservatives Association. It was in recognition of my contribution during the lead up to the 2019 general election, supporting the campaign for the Bosworth MP Dr Luke Evans."

"I gained first hand experience by working along side our MP, of door-to door-campaigning and attending hustings. A meeting at which candidates in an election address potential voters."

"Following the record success we received for the Bosworth constituency in the election, I was invited to attend a meeting at Conservative Campaign Head Quarters with a fellow Young Conservative, to discuss our local association and growth potential. Prior to this, I was privileged to have a personal tour of the Palace of Westminster by MP Dr Evans. It was fascinating to see their workspace. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, though it wasn't my first time in the building, it was rather nerve-racking nether the less!"

Well done James for all your hard work and commitment and good luck with your future career in politics.

James is pictured with Bosworth MP, Dr Luke Evans.

We love this amazingly creative tribute to the NHS by arable farmer and Old Princethorpian, David Jones.

David, who was at the College from 1986-1991, now farms near Stratford-upon Avon. He and his family have built their business up to 2,700 acres, growing, wheat, oil seed rape, spring beans and spring wheat. David recently won a Royal Society award for practice and development in agriculture.

Talking about the tribute, he comments, “I sketched the plan on paper and used the old tramlines as a base line at 32 metres apart. Then put some scratch marks in as a guide.
I drove the tractor free hand as I did not have the time to programme all the GPS."

He continues, "The film was shot in one go by my friend James Arbuckle Photography who then kindly edited ready for the next day. It’s already had over 55,000 views on different platforms and the most rewarding part is to hear from NHS doctors, nurses and specialists that it has given them a boost after what was a very tough week for them.”

Hats off to David and the rest of the Princethorpe farming community, who are doing so much to put food in our supermarkets and on our tables during the crisis too.

Click here to view David's creation.

We just had to share this joyful video rendition of Do-Re-Mi from the Sound of Music by the fab Bilton Silver (Rugby) Band, put together by Princethorpe and Crackley peripatetic brass teacher and Old Princethorpian Jodie Fisher.

With social distancing putting paid to their normal rehearsals they came up with this imaginative way of bringing them all together to make their fantastic music and make everyone smile.

The video also features Jodie’s mum and fellow brass teacher Di Fisher, who teaches at Crescent School. You might be able to spot a few more familiar Foundation faces too.

We think you’ll have to agree they are brilliant and make a cracking sound!!

Click here to view the video

Also getting in on the amazing musical video act is Bilton's Silver Training Band, with their fun rendition of 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious' from Mary Poppins. Lots of familiar Crescent faces here too, well done everyone for keeping spirits up. Just don't ask us to spell the tune's title!!! 

Click here to view the video.