Dear Parents
Last Thursday Colfe’s was announced as the winner of Education Initiative of the Year in the Independent School Awards 2014 for its work with the Tougher Minds Programme. This is real and welcome acknowledgement of our unique project, and I congratulate everyone – staff, pupils, parents and the Tougher Minds team – who has contributed to this initiative. Our next step will be to embed the approach in the learning culture of the school and to share it with our partner schools in the state sector.
2014 is the anniversary of many wars, and Colfeians have served in all of them. Last week our community joined together in remembrance of those killed in the two World Wars and other conflicts and to think of Colfeians who are currently members of the armed forces. Thank you to the many people who joined us for Remembrance Sunday at the Old Colfeians’ War Memorial. This year our youngest pupils in the Nursery, Pre-Prep and Prep School held their own special ceremonies. They sowed poppy seeds, and the flowers will remind future generations of pupils about the Colfeians who fell in WW1.
During the half-term break, study trips included a football tour to Portugal, a rugby tour to Northern Ireland and a ‘total immersion’ week in Normandy for Year 8 and 9 linguists, which combined outdoor pursuits and non-stop exposure to the French language. Also at half term staff and pupils took part in our annual working party trip to help develop Kotu School in the Gambia. This year, Dr Thompson retires from his founding role as the Director of the Gambia Project, and I know I speak for everyone in the school in thanking Robert for his tireless work over the last decade, leading this highly successful programme.
I have been delighted to receive enthusiastic praise and feedback from prospective parents who came to our last Open Days of the autumn term in both the Prep and Senor School. Feedback on the day for all our pupil helpers was universally positive, and every aspect of the event on 8 November was commended in an anonymous ‘mystery shopper’ report which we commissioned. Registrations for entry in 2015 are well ahead of last year, with the Reception year group already full. We have more than twice as many applicants for entry to the Sixth form, and 11+ registrations are already above 200. I am extremely grateful to all academic and support staff who work so hard and to the hundreds of pupils who conducted themselves so well and were a genuine and positive reflection on the school
High-profile event events last week included our lecture on Managing Teenagers, held as part of our ongoing PSHEE programme, which more than 250 parents attended. And our architects BHM took a group of sixth formers who are interested in careers in architecture and engineering on a tour of the new Sixth Form Centre site, where they learned about the realities of construction.
The Prep School took part in two highly successful ‘focus weeks’, in History and Maths. The focus on Maths has certainly followed through to the success of our competitive mathematicians in the Senior School, who last week got through to the third round of the prestigious Hans Woyda competition after beating St Dunstan’s and Bromley High.
In Music, our Year 6 pupils enjoyed a participation concert with the London Symphony Orchestra and our Senior School musicians held another well received platform concert; both events illustrating that there is nothing quite like the experience of performing live music. The next musical events on the horizon include the senior school Winter Concert (25th November) and the annual Carol Service in St Mary’s Lewisham on the 10th December.
We continue to excel in Sport. Our U15 netballers are now Bromley Schools Champions after convincingly beating Haberdashers' Aske's Knights Academy of Bromley 5-2, and our U19s are through to the finals of the Kent Schools Netball Tournament after winning every one of their five matches by wide margins. In rugby our U15As are through to the next round of the Kent Cup after beating Chatham and Clarendon Grammar, 22-13 although their successful run in the national Daily Mail competition came to an end last week when they lost to Whitgift in an excellent and closely fought match. Prep School swimmers in Years 5 and 6 took first place in a very close gala against Merton Court and Farrington’s whilst our Year 8 hockey players defeated Blackheath High 11-0. Finally Colfe’s hosted the second year of the Run-Fast Greenwich and Lewisham Cross Country League: over 150 pupils took part.
Individual achievements in the last few weeks include:
· Show jumpers Luke Wilkes (Year 12) and Shannon Burke (Year 13) qualified first and second for their club in their respective team events seeing them through to the finals in Hartpury
· 78-year-old Enid Olding, who has been involved with Colfe’s PAFA for nearly 40 years, through her son and now grandsons, took part as the GB flag bearer in the Golden Age Festival in France.
· Musician Sam Barnett (Year 9) received a new saxophone and sponsorship from the Trevor James company as their first ever ‘Young Artist’. Sam had a solo set on Sunday playing at the Regent Street Christmas Lights switch-on.
· Ella and her brother Louis Richardson in the Prep won a gold and silver medal respectively in the Beckenham Music Festival, for violin (Ella) and double bass (Louis) Ella was also awarded the prestigious Winifred Handy Trophy.
· Lukas Uzkalnis (Year 4) danced in an event in front of hundreds of visitors at the British Museum as part of his Lithuanian Dance group.
· Frank Blythe (Year 8) was the team mascot for Charlton Football Club in their match against Birmingham last month.
· Kate Drury (Year 10) had a story (about fellow Colfeian Georgia Noone) published online for the Newshopper as part of the ongoing Young Reporter competition.
· Maths teacher Dr Umesh Vijapura achieved his Sixth Dan Black Belt in Taekwon-do.
Further details of many of these achievements may be found at http://www.colfes.com/newsarchive and photographs at https://www.flickr.com/photos/79043284@N06/sets/ .
With best wishes
Richard Russell
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