16th January 2015 - Issue 9

Head’s IntroductionIt has been a full and busy week at Roedean from every perspective. We continue to wish the best of luck to all the girls taking examinations and look forward to having them back in lessons soon. There have been so many events and successes this week which you will read about, but I would like to highlight two.

Last Friday, the school hosted the Southern Schools’ Book Awards. This was a fantastic event for Roedean, as it celebrates and encourages reading for pleasure. It was also great that we were able to host thirty-four schools and over three hundred pupils from all across Kent and Sussex. It was wonderful to see so many pupils and staff from different schools enjoying our warm and friendly hospitality.

On Wednesday evening, U5 celebrated the end of their mock examinations with a fantastic social and dinner. The evening began with an inspirational talk by a visiting speaker, Natasha Devon, and ended with dinner in Keswick Hall with many of the Brighthelm girls from the local area who are looking to join Roedean’s Sixth Form next academic year.

In addition to these joyous occasions, in our assemblies this week our thoughts have turned with sadness to events in Paris and Nigeria. It is always difficult for each of us to know how to respond when faced with such atrocities, but it is important that we do not allow violence in any form to undermine our fundamental belief in the goodness of humanity and our respect for people of all religions, races, and backgrounds. In times like these, it can be helpful to listen to those who have faced adversity, and I will return for a moment to the words of Anne Frank:

“In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the suffering of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquillity will return again.”

Natasha Devon at the U5 Intellectual SupperFollowing the end of the U5 trials, we were very fortunate to have Miss Natasha Devon coming from London as our guest speaker. Natasha is the founder of the Self Esteem Team, which conducts presentations throughout the UK regarding the correct perspective towards body image, self-esteem and understanding yourself. We also invited girls who are applying to join Roedean for the Sixth Form next September. Natasha shared her own experiences and attitudes towards body image when she was about our age. She also explained how our brain works in a way which made it both intriguing and tangible. Of all the valuable advice that she gave us, she urged us to remember three simple but fundamental things: to question the credibility

of advertisements; to praise people for who they are instead of how they look; and to accept compliments. Her presentation has triggered off a few alarm bells in our heads and made us ponder whether we personally have low esteem because of the impact of media. After the presentation, we took our guests to Keswick Hall for drinks and dinner, where we had the opportunity to get to know more about the new girls. We had a splendid time – it was definitely an enjoyable and special evening for everyone, and a perfect way to round off our GCSE trial exam week. We are grateful to Mrs Ellis and all those who came.

Valerie Lau and Sharon Law

Roedean Chemists Sharon Law (U5), Emily Townsend (L5), Melissa Dyson (U4) and Berniya Hamie (U4) won their heat in the Downland (Sussex & Surrey) section of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Top of the Bench competition on Thursday at Lancing College. The competition involved answering a paper of theory problems, followed by practicals concerning the reactivity series of metals, an iodine clock rate of reaction experiment, and a potassium manganite (VII) titration. Roedean scored 131 points, to pip Brighton College on 127 and Lancing College

on 126. The highest performing school in the other three heats in the Downland section was Ardingly with 128 points, so the Roedean team is now through to the National Final at the University of Loughborough on Saturday 25th April. Congratulations to all involved. The last time Roedean reached the National Final was in 1998, and we won the competition outright, so let’s hope that our 2015 team can repeat the victory.

Roedean Chemists have the fastest reactions!

“Old Bear” comes to RoedeanOn Saturday 10th January, the Art Studio played host to the renowned Jane Hissey, author and illustrator of the ‘Old Bear’ children’s stories which have sold over 7 million copies in different languages. Jane’s 40-episode TV series of ‘Old Bear Stories’ won a BAFTA and a NY Film Festival Gold Award. Along with a selection of her 20 published books, Jane delighted us all by bringing her original ‘models’ - a glorious profusion of woolly characters made famous by their appearances in print, including Old Bear himself. What a privilege!

Once we had got over the excitement of meeting Old Bear – oh, and Jane too, of course, we took part in an illustration workshop designed especially for Key Stage 3 pupils, twenty of whom gathered first to hear Jane’s heart-warming talk of the beginnings of her

creative career, and then to make illustrations of their own precious woolly ‘friends’ who were in various stages of decomposition, according to how much ‘love’ they had been given.

Jane’s own drawings are completed in colour pencil – a medium from which she does not deviate, and so our pupils used the same materials for their work. Over the course of almost the whole day, some truly beautiful ‘portraits’ were built up with encouragement from Jane, her original artwork for her stories forming a backdrop for our colourful creations. She thought the standard extremely high, and particularly so because her talks have rarely extended to secondary school level and her usual primary school ‘results’ are normally quite modest in concept.

With a mid-morning ‘break’ of scrumptious ‘bear’ cupcakes baked by Mrs Alexander and a lunch of ‘toasties’, we were fully motivated to complete our drawings before a special book-signing and photo opportunity with Jane and her ‘fabric family’.

Sarah Jameel (U3) presented Jane with our gift of a beautiful bear in Roedean School uniform, complete with blazer and badge, made by Mrs Breda Allen of House 4. Now wouldn’t it be fantastic if ‘Dora’ (as she has been named) appeared in an ‘Old Bear’ story? Who knows what she will get up to?

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On Friday 9th January, Roedean once again hosted the Southern Schools’ Book Award. To celebrate ten years of awards, and as a tribute to all the enthusiastic young readers and the many authors that have been part of this exciting scheme, the librarians introduced an Extraordinary Award this year. This award went to Helen Watts and her book One Day in Oradour which reveals the tragic events that took place in a French village towards the end of the World War II, seventy years ago. Helen spoke very movingly about her book and read a short extract where the children were ordered to be taken from their school to the fairground in Oradour by the Nazi soldiers.

Last year’s winner, Kevin Brooks, hosted the presentation, which was attended by 300 students and staff from 34 state and independent schools in Kent and Sussex. The students, mostly aged 13 to 14 had read and voted for all fi ve titles on the shortlist – Finding Jennifer Jones by Anne Cassidy, Heroic by Phil Earle, Hostage 3 by Nick Lake, Split Second by Sophie McKenzie and Close Your Pretty Eyes by Sally Nicholls – and they were on the edge of their seats, eagerly anticipating the results of the voting.

Accompanied by exuberant cheers from the audience, the schools received their book tokens and then the tension mounted as Kevin asked the students to do the traditional foot drum roll just before announcing the results. The winner of the 2014 award was Sophie McKenzie with Split Second. The Highly Commended category was awarded to Hostage 3 by Nick Lake.

The authors brought their brilliant books to life by reading extracts and answering questions posed by the students, or via recorded video clips. Students fl ocked to the back of the stage to buy books and get them signed by the authors. The authors were delighted by the enthusiasm of the students, saying how they valued their comments about their books.

It was a wonderful evening, enjoyed by all, and great to see the numbers of students who so are passionate about reading for pleasure.

The SSBA at RoedeanOne Day in Oradour wins the Extraordinary Award

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‘Another fantastic award ceremony took place on Friday 9th January for the Southern Schools Book Award. As always, the event was staged with enormous professionalism by Roedean and Kevin Brooks was a charming and self-eff acing host.’Michele Eaton, Schools Library and Museum Service

‘Huge thanks to you all for another fab evening! All my students wish to take part again next year and I have one Year 11 who leaves me who wishes she could return to take part – I think that speaks volumes really . . . .?!’Steph Newton, Causeway School

‘I just wanted to thank you and all the team at the SSBA and at Roedean School for a lovely evening on Friday. You all made me feel so welcome and it was great to meet everyone and to have such lovely feedback on One Day in Oradour. It’s a shame the bookshop sold out! I was very impressed by the awards’ ceremony and by the obvious enthusiasm you have generated among the participating schools. It’s a great award and I wish you every success with it in future. Here’s to another 10 years!’Helen Watts, Author and Winner of the SSBA Extraordinary Award for One Day in Oradour

‘Thank you so very much for once again

organising such an amazing evening. Our girls

came away completely inspired and absolutely

full of chatter about the authors and their

books. It was a really great night and I think

Kevin Brooks did a wonderful job considering

how nervous he seemed, the girls loved it!’

Alison Standen, Moira House

‘Thanks again for hosting on

a suitably windy gothic night.’

Lucy Dean,

Brighton and Hove High School

Amber runs the fastest 300m time ever!Amber Anning (U4) won Gold in the 300m at the South of England Indoor Athletics Championships. She retained her title from last year, winning gold with a time of 40.32 seconds – this is the fastest time ever run indoors by an U15 girl in the UK for 300m. The time takes Amber to 6th place on the overall UK U15 Girls’ all-time list.

Just 20 minutes after this victory, jumping out of her age-group in the U17 Women’s triple jump competition, she jumped 10.98m, the same distance as the leader. She lost gold on count back, but it shows that she has huge potential for the event. Amber also competed in the 200m, and, from a field of over forty athletes, she stormed around the track to win the final comfortably in a new Personal Best of 25.53 seconds.

Two Golds and a Silver is an impressive medal-haul for one weekend – Amber has done brilliantly.

Roedean Runs!thank goodness the rain stopped…

A welcome break in the recent unpredictable weather allowed for a beautiful afternoon of running in the Sussex Schools’ Cross Country Championships. Phoebe Connolly (6.1) finished 6th in the 4.3km senior competition, and has consequently been selected to run for Sussex in the South East Schools’ Inter-County event at the end of the month. She will also almost certainly be picked for the English Schools’ National Championships in March.

Ten girls represented the school in the junior event, running across pitch, mud, and hill – all the girls performed really well, and had a great time doing it. Their coach, Alison Benton, wrote, “It was great to see so many Roedean vests standing on the start-line of the U15 girls’ race. Cross Country is a hard thing to do when you don’t have a lot of training behind you, so this was a big achievement for the girls”. We look forward to even more success next year, now that Roedean Runs!, our new club is up and running…”

Commonwealth Games Bronze medalist gives netball masterclasses

Eboni Beckford Chambers has twice represented England at the Commonwealth Games, and won a bronze medal in Delhi in 2010. We are delighted that she has given masterclasses to our Roedean netballers this week, giving them the rare chance to learn from a high-level player and develop their own skills; she is also giving some specialised coaching to some of the 1st team players. No doubt, our girls will be inspired by the obvious drive and talent it takes to play for the very best clubs in the country, and to represent England, and we hope to see them put into practice some of what they learn from Eboni.

The 1st netball team played their first match of the season against Hurst last week. Gabby Riley stepped up to play her first ever 1st team match, Phoebe Connolly’s shooting

was consistent throughout, Marisa Abela was awarded coaches’ Player of the Match, and Francesca Amewudah-Rivers, was awarded Player of the Match by Hurst. Roedean won convincingly, with a score of 30-9, and this bodes really well for the rest of the season – we look forward to the Kent College Versatility Tournament at the weekend.

Roedean’s U12A team won the Bede’s netball tournament! They met Bede’s in the final, and won 11-3 to take home the cup. In a very well-matched and exciting final, both teams displayed excellent team work and skill. Well done to all!

The U12B team also made the plate semi-final at Bede’s, the U14s also beat Hurst, playing intelligently and with skill, and the U13 netball team had some very good matches against St Christopher’s, and we won two and lost one – we will be faster from the first whistle next time, so that we can win all of the games.

It is a wonderful opportunity to have a player of the calibre of Eboni Beckford Chambers at Roedean – no doubt, her masterclasses will help our netballers to develop their skills even further and do even better in their next matches!

Eva beats the UK #3 seed!

Eva Wang (6.1) won the East Sussex Schools’ Tabletennis Championships this week, beating the UK number 3 seed in a very one-sided final. She won in straight sets, 11-4, 11-6, 11-8. Eva was joined by Chermaine Sin (6.2) and Michelle Han (6.1) in these U19 championships, and they all played exceptionally well against tough opposition, and each other! Eva will be the sole representative for East Sussex in the National Finals, to be held in the West Midlands on April 25th, which is an excellent achievement.

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We welcome contributions from all parts of the Roedean community. If you have something you would like featured in the Headmaster’s Newsletter, please email: news@roedean.co.uk