The final days of this term have been an opportunity to celebrate a wonderful range of achievement throughout the school. We will also be saying farewell to a number of colleagues who will be leaving or retiring at the end of this year.
The focus of the Prep School prizegiving on Tuesday was our departing Year 6 pupils who not only received their leaving certificates but also provided all of the entertainment. School Captains and others spoke well on the stage. The Year 6 Art display, which has been in gestation since the autumn, was hugely impressive, transforming the otherwise functional surroundings of the sports hall. This event was also an opportunity for me to acknowledge our immense debt to Mrs Dawn Bennett who will be standing down as Chair of PAFA next term. She has done a fantastic job and been a tremendous force for good throughout her period of office. Many thousands of pounds have been raised by successive balls, discos, Christmas Fayres and firework displays. Dawn will remain in post officially until the Annual General Meeting next term.
For Lower 6th pupils, the second half of term has been all about UCAS and preparing for next year and beyond. Many have embarked on the Extended Project Qualification and our UCAS evening included a presentation by Colfe’s governor, Angela Brueggemann, on what constitutes a strong application. We have also heard from John O’Leary who compiles the university league tables for the Times. Ex School captain Charlie Whittaker also came back from Cambridge to support prospective Oxbridge candidates, having secured a place in the top 10% of his year cohort in Natural Sciences. Parents may be interested to know that the chances of getting an offer from some top universities, including Bristol and Warwick and the LSE, have actually improved for candidates from HMC schools such as Colfe’s in recent years. This has certainly been reflected in the impressive range of offers that I have seen this year.
The CCF staged their annual Parade Day on Saturday in the presence of Chairman of Governors, Ian Russell. The event was attended by torrential rain, testing to the limit Major Cherry’s mantra that there is “no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing.” The Returning Officer for the day was Air Vice-Marshall Martin Routledge, the most senior officer whom we have welcomed in this capacity in recent years. He was suitably and predictably impressed with our cadets.
In addition to the Chairman, other Governors and Leathersellers have been in school recently, notably for the Summer Visitation and of on Founder’s Day for the Colfe Sermon and subsequent cricket match. I am delighted to report that the school X1 were once again victorious over the Leathersellers and that their feedback after the Visitation was particularly positive. Reciprocally, the Leathersellers welcomed groups of Year7 pupils to the City earlier this week when they had access to the Guildhall and learnt much about the History of the Leathersellers’ Company, as well as about the City and its institutions. I am grateful to the Master Leatherseller, Mr Martin Pebody, for all his support this year and we look forward to welcoming his successor, Dr Anthony Watson, to Colfe’s early next term.
Forthcoming events include our first Science Fair which will take place on Friday, 11th July. Gifted pupils from a number of local state schools will be working alongside their Colfe’s counterparts on interactive laboratory workshops. They will also attend a series of mini-lectures delivered by scientists from Oxford who are at the cutting edge of their specialist areas. The initiative has been driven and developed by Colfe’s Governor, Angela Brueggemann and is part of Oxford University’s outreach programme.
Parents may recall that I wrote to you recently to let you know about our inclusion as a case study in the national Ofsted enquiry into competitive sport in schools. This accolade has coincided happily with yet more recent success.
In athletics, four of our lower school pupils (Gabriel Foley, Luke Okosieme, Tom Simpson and James Back-Wilkins) won their events in the regional stages of the English Schools Athletics Competition. Tobi Ogunjimi, is now just .3 of a second short of the national 200 metres record for the U17 age group and Elias Balogun is currently ranked 5th in London for the 100 metres with a time of 11.31 seconds.. Five boys and girls in Years 8 and 9 have been invited to compete in the London Schools Championship and four pupils in those age groups are ranked among the top six in Kent.
In cricket, the end of this term sees the departure of two of our most outstanding players in recent decades. Matthew Stiddard has captained the 1st X1 for the last three years and Harry Furze has played alongside him in that team for the last four years. Along with their team-mates, including Harry Graham and Abdul Rehman, they have done much to sustain the profile within the school of a sport which has suffered disproportionately from the encroachment of the public examination season. Players in other year groups are coming through strongly behind them, including Matthew Walker who continues to represent the Kent team in his year group and Prep School pupils Fiontan Logan and Finn McQueen who continue to play at county level in their age groups. Meanwhile the trajectory of girls’ cricket continues to rise, with our U13 team (which includes some Year 7 players) remaining undefeated this term.
As always, the end of the year sees the departure of a number of colleagues who have all contributed significantly to the school over a period of time, all of whom I was able to acknowledge at the Lower School Prizegiving on Wednesday. I wish to pay tribute in particular to Miss Hargrave and Mr Miller, who have both been stalwart supporters of school sport for the last 13 years. We look forward to welcoming Mr Miller back to Colfe’s before long in his new capacity as Director of Sport at Eltham College. We also hope to defeat all of his rugby teams. Mrs Vander Gucht also moves on at the end of this term, after 14 highly successful years at Colfe’s during which she has been a great force for good, both as Director of Drama and also as a Head of House. Mrs Barbara Durkin has been at the heart of the success of Colfe’s science for a decade as Head of Physics. We have benefited much from her wisdom and experience and we wish her well for retirement. Mrs Jenny Toms will also be leaving after 14 highly successful years at Colfe’s. During that time she has been not only a gifted teacher of Maths but also an outstanding Head of Year. We wish them all well for the future.
A and AS level results will be published on the 14th August, with GCSE results coming through a week later. All the indicators suggest that this will be a good year and I look forward to reporting in more detail when the results have reached us. I am confident that we will have much to celebrate. When we return in September all work on the pre-prep expansion will be complete and the Sixth Form Centre will be well under way.
I wish you all well for the summer and look forward to seeing you again at the start of next term.