DECEMBER ISSUE 2015 Central Foundation · The ceremony started with Music School’s string quartet performing ‘Rondeau’ from Pur- ... sign of the 2012 Olympic Torch, are staging

Central Foundation

Boys’ School

Newsletter

DECEMBER ISSUE 2015

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On the last Friday of November the school held its annual Founder’s Day – an event to celebrate the school’s founder, Reverend Wil-liam Rogers, and the achievements of its stu-dents.

The ceremony started with Music School’s string quartet performing ‘Rondeau’ from Pur-cell’s Abdelazer. Further music was provided by the concert band who performed an instru-mental version of Come Fly With Me in the middle of the event. The house band closed Founder’s Day with Michalis Patrinos’ arrange-ment of the traditional song Misirlou.

This year’s guest speaker was the Reverend the Lord Griffiths, Superintendent Minister of Wesley’s Chapel and Chair of the Trustees.

Lord Griffiths spoke passionately about the special relationship between Central Founda-tion Boys’ School and Wesley’s Chapel as be-ing the centre of the Old Street community, representing the history and stability of the area while other parts have changed over

Founder’s Day

FEBRUARY 2014 MAY 2014 DECEMBER 2015

time. He reiterated how close the school was to him and how he often talked of the school during his speeches in the House of Lords.

His theme of community continued as he reminisced about his time teaching in an impoverished area of Haiti. He focussed on the importance of education be-ing accessible by all levels of society, echoing Rever-end Rogers’ mission statement upon opening the school in 1866.

Speeches were also delivered by Mr Brownhill, the Headteacher, and Mr Balfour, the Vice Chair of the Governors. Leunor Xhemshiti gave his inaugural ad-dress as incoming Head Student. Ms Valvis, Head of English, hosted the event.

In between speeches, awards were presented to pu-pils across the school to recognise their hard work and achievement throughout the year. 177 pupils were awarded prizes for both attainment and progress in each subject in every Year group. After this, a series of

Among the prizes given, the Hyman Jacobs Trophy was reinstated and

awarded to the Champion House—Rogers

Music School performed three pieces during the cermony

CENTRAL FOUNDATION BOYS ’ SCHOOL NEWSLETTER PAGE 3

Founder’s Day

special prizes were awarded for extra-curricular achievement before the most senior awards, a series of scholarships were an-nounced.

The Bendy Scholarship was awarded to the top performing A Level students who go on to study engineering at university. This year it was presented to Mohamed Abanour, Tsz Hey Lam and Robbie Humphreys-Becker.

The Dr Beck Scholarship was awarded to the pupils who make the most progress across all of their subjects. It was awarded to Luis Ste-phen Guayco Heredia, Jonathan Quevedo-Analuisa and Tsz Hey Lam in the lower school, upper school and sixth form, respectively.

The Montcalm Scholarship for vocational

learning was awarded to Jennifer Haller for her attain-ment on the BTEC Hospitality course and for continu-ing on a vocational path by securing a career with Montcalm Hotels.

The final award presented was the John Boston Scholarship. It was awarded for exceptional attain-ment across all subjects. Abubakar Buwe won the award in the lower school, while Andrew Li won the award in the upper school for achieving 11 A*s and 1 A in his GCSEs.

Finally, the John Boston Scholarship for the top per-forming A Level student, whose 2 A*s and 2 As took him to Pembroke College, Oxford, was awarded to Otto Sumray.

For more images from the event, click here

Reverend the Lord Griffiths delivered a speech and awarded

prizes to current and returning pupils

Mr Brownhill delivering his speech to the packed Great Hall

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In the first half of the Autumn term, the history de-partment ran a competition for Year 7s to build a model of a mediaeval castle.

The department was overwhelmed with entries, lead-ing to a lunch time exhibition of the short list of mod-els in the Year 7 Common Room. The level of detail in many models was particularly impressive, with some castles featuring animals and workers, while others used hand drawn detailing to represent stone and brickwork.

However, one boy added his own spin to the compe-tition. Possibly inspired by the latest series of the Great British Bake-Off, Taha Mobeen made a deli-cious chocolate cake castle to enter into the competi-tion.

After much deliberation, the history team of Ms McMahon, Mr Samuel and Mr Russell picked six win-ners: Dylan Gregory, Karl Knox, Jago Forster, Kit Na-smyth, Hadi Yassine and Taha Mobeen. As reward, the winners were treated with a trip to the Tower of London alongside Year 8s and Year 9s.

More photographs of the model making competition can be viewed in our gallery by clicking here.

The boys with their winning entries

Mediaeval Castles

Creativity

Design Ventura

A team of Year 10 designers have been shortlisted in the top 10 entrants of this year’s Design Ventura competition.

Design Ventura, who were involved in the de-sign of the 2012 Olympic Torch, are staging the competition which is available to pupils from Years 9, 10 and 11. The challenge was to create a cost effective new product that could be sold in the Design Museum shop and it had to be inspired by a single word: Move.

The shortlisted boys – Mohammed Rahman, Nasir Khan, Mickyas Oumer and Hamza Ma-moon – have called their design Project X. The product enables the user to create a model structure out of pencils and rubbers so that it could be used both for building and for drawing. Another advantage is it can keep growing in size.

Having been selected for the shortlist from over 250 entries, the boys were invited to the Design Museum in the second week of De-cember. As part of their day at the Design Museum, they pitched their idea to a panel of industry professionals. The panel will an-nounce the overall winner from the top 10 entrants in the new year.

The four designers practicing their presentation pitch

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In the first week of November, Year 12 geography pupils visited the Lake District in Cumbria.

The group arrived at midday on Wednesday and studied the glacial features of the hills, which they have been learning about recently in class. By view-ing the shapes of the mountain, they saw the erosive force of glaciers on the terrain.

After producing hypotheses in the evening, the group headed out early on Thursday to collect data at various sites along the river channels in the valleys. After dinner they used their collected data in presen-tations and analysed the statistics.

On the final day the group trekked through the valley of Borrowdale to observe glacial features. They dis-cussed how they could describe and explain features in their exams.

To see more photographs of the trip, click here.

Trips

Geography students collecting data in the streams of Blencathra Mountain

Tower of London

Blencathra In late November, 13 pupils from the lower school were rewarded by being taken to see the Tower of London.

Six pupils from Year 7 who had won the castle making competition, along with a further seven pupils from Years 8 and 9 who had delivered consistently high quality homework, spent the day at the historic fortified castle.

During their day, they learnt about the con-struction of the Tower following William the Conqueror’s invasion of England in 1066. They followed the timeline of the Tower and how it reflected a changing Britain all the way from William the Conqueror to the Tower being used as a prison for spies during the First and Sec-ond World Wars.

The pupils also saw the Crown Jewels and were told the legend of the ravens. Since Charles II’s reign in the 17th century, it has been said “If the ravens leave the Tower, the kingdom will fall” leading the Tower to keep seven ravens on site.

Before returning to school, the pupils spoke to a Beefeater about their role as ceremonial guardians of the Tower.

Lower school pupils in front of the Tower of London

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In the final week of term, the drama department pro-duced a Christmas showcase with a number of pieces from Years 7, 10 and 11.

In their first public production for the school, the Year 7 drama group reinterpreted Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as a dance performance. Set entirely to music by Skunk Anansie, with no dialogue, the per-formers learnt the power of physical expression and the need for meticulous rehearsal in their choreo-graphed play.

Year 10 staged two different Christmas themed per-formances. The first was the traditional pantomime Cinderella. The second Year 10 performance was a re-enactment of the Christmas truce that took place in the First World War from Oh! What A Lovely War. The scene is an interpretation of what may have led to the famous football match that took place be-tween opposing British and German armed forces in No Man’s Land.

The evening closed with a revival of the Year 11 Shakespeare Schools Festival performance of Othel-lo. Rewritten for an all-male cast by Ms Maher, Head of Drama, the play was previously performed to a sold out audience at the Pleasance Theatre, Islington.

To see more images of the performance, click here.

December was a busy month for Central Foun-dation’s Music School.

After staging three performances for Founder’s Day in the last week of November, Music School performed three times over December: at an event hosted by Slaughter and May; for Wesley’s Chapel at a lunchtime Christmas ser-vice and for the Winter Concert on the penulti-mate day of term.

The house band and two FretWrx groups per-formed at the Slaughter and May concert at the beginning of December. They played a number of guitar-led tracks such as Walk Don’t Run and Wonderwall. In the final week of term, the jun-ior choir attended Wesley’s Chapel’s Christmas service to sing Silent Night to the congrega-tion.

All aspects of Music School were on show for the Winter Concert. The evening’s programme was a mixture of classical and contemporary with a number of orchestral pieces played by the string group, the concert band playing swing music and the house band performing modern rock songs.

The evening also featured a number of carols, opening with Silent Night and closing with Jin-gle Bells.

To see more images of the concert, click here.

The Prince and his herald in the Year 10 pantomime Cinderella

The house band performing Wonderwall

Christmas Showcase

performance

Winter Concert

On Wednesday 25th November, 13 schools and colleges across Islington cast their ballot papers in a vote to determine who will serve in the next two years on the Youth Council.

To further engage young people with politics, and prepare them for voting as adults, the school set up a voting area in the Year 7 Com-mon Room. The voting area authentically recreated one used in a general election, with a returning officer keeping order and voting officials handing out ballot papers.

Five candidates ran from Central Foundation: Mohamed Abaas, Serdas Aba, Samuel Alferink-Kamara, Seven Jacobs and Serkan Marasli.

A record 5,200 ballots were cast across the 13 schools and, of the 12 elected candidates, two of them were from Central Foundation. The school would like to congratulate Mo-hamed Abaas and Serkan Marasli at the start of their two-year term.

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politics Youth Council Vote

US Ambassador

During half term, a group of sixth formers who study history, politics and law were invited to meet with Matthew Barzun, the United States Ambassador to the UK.

Central Futures co-ordinator Ms Thain organised the opportunity for seven Year 12 and 13 pupils on the first day of the half term. The students travelled to the Bloomberg LP building to take part in the exclusive talk with Mr Barzun.

As well as learning about the special relationship be-tween the US and the UK, pupils had the chance to quiz Mr Barzun on US policy and discover the intricate nature of international diplomacy and how it is effect-ed by politics and law.

After the discussion, the students were treated to a tour of the Bloomberg building to learn about the day-to-day running of the international financial me-dia company.

A Year 10 pupil casts his vote in the ballot box

The students who attended the visit after touring Bloomberg

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Year 9 workshops at WSP Group, a world’s leading engineering and design consultancy

TERM DATES

Mon 4th January 2016 Spring term begins

Thursday 14th January 2016 Year 11 Parents’ Evening (4 - 6pm)

Thursday 21st January 2016 Year 12 Parents’ Evening (Highbury Grove School; 5 - 7pm)

Thursday 28th January 2016 Year 9 Parents’ Evening (4 - 6pm)

Thursday 11th February 2016 Year 8 Parents’ Evening (4 - 6pm)

15th—19th February 2016 Half term

Thursday 24th March 2016 Spring term ends (School closes at 12:30pm)

Mon 11th April 2016 Summer term begins

Mon 2nd May 2016 May Day Bank Holiday

30th May - 3rd June 2016 Half term

Fri 15th July 2016 Summer term ends (School closes at 12:30pm)

FEBRUARY 2014 NOVEMBER 2015