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Year 8 Lunchtime Concerts this term in the Jarvis Room 8Y Thursday 9 November

8W Thursday 16 November

8Z Thursday 23 November 8X Thursday 30 November

These concerts begin at 1pm. Parents, relatives and friends are most welcome to attend to support the performers. Please sign in at the Main Reception at 12.50 pm and you will be guided over to the Music Department.

T Scrutton

Lower School Book Club Lower School Book Club’ s first meeting of the

academic year involved a lively and enthusiastic

e x c h a n g e o f recommendations, including Lauren James ’ ‘ The Loneliest Girl on the Planet’, ‘Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian’ by Rick Riordan and ‘Twenty Questions for Gloria’

by Martyn Bedford. Our next meeting is on Friday 8th December 1.05pm in the Library.

S Bank

GCSE & A Level Coursework Collection I am delighted to inform students who took GCSE Resistant Materials & A Level Product Design in the last academic year

that they may now collect their coursework folders and practical. If they would like to either pop over to DT or email me: jblackman@swps.org.uk to arrange a day to do this. Work must be collected by the 17 November.

J Blackman

Head’s News I hope that you all had a good break at Half Term. As many of you will be aware, there were

a huge number of overseas excursions during that two week period, from China to Cumbria, Italy to Spain as well as to Ghana. I am pleased to say that those who were on these trips were a credit to the school.

Also during the Half Term was the annual Battle of Ideas in

the Barbican. Students and staff from SWPS are regular attendees at this fascinating event, which now can boast over 3,000 participants. One of the many topics out of almost a hundred that was on offer was the role of schools

and the future of education, with a particular focus on making our schools work ready.

The background to this debate was a document produced by Ofsted in 2016 which lamented the fact that schools in

the UK “fail to prioritise enterprise education and work-related learning.” As a member of the discussion panel which

also included the former Chief Executive of UCAS, I argued

strongly for the view that education should be much more than solely preparing our young people for a world of work. Education is a good in itself and the desire to learn, to satisfy our inborn curiosity, is part of who and what we are as a human species. Yes, to be an educated individual, to

have received a solid grounding in a range of academic subjects, to read and write cogently and fluently, to be numerate and confident with IT will provide a huge advantage in the world of work. But an education also enables one to understand the environment in which one inhabits – context and colour are everything in terms of how we interpret the world around us; with this comes the joy of

knowing.

The Nobel-Prize winning physicist, Richard Feynman once wrote about the “pleasure of finding these out”. If schools are to be for any purpose, then surely to provide the opportunity for our students to engage and enjoy in discovery is one of them. By happy coincidence, the by-

product of such an education - inquisitive, resilient, engaging and hard-working young people - is exactly what the economy of the future needs!

C Muller Head

Halloween at SWPS In the spirit of

All Hallows Eve, the SWPS Sixth Form C h a r i t y

Prefects organised a festival for students on the 31st October during lunchtime at school.

There were fun Halloween games and a great community atmosphere in which staff and student alike participated. There was a dress code

for each year, as well as a pumpkin carving competition.

The Library was also prepared for horror fanatics, with a selection of scary l i te rature on d isp l ay , decorations and visitor kept an eye on by our Lib-scare-ian!

Students also brought in a food donation for Addlestone food bank as well as a donation for The Bumblebee Conservation trust. Dressing up themes included Pumpkins, Dracula, Angels and Demons, Ghosts and Ghouls and Dia de los Muertos.

SWPS Boat Club also held their

Halloween festivities last weekend involving frighteningly fun games! The finances are still to be finalised, but we will have raised in excess of £200 during the day. Well done to

everyone who took part!

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Wellbeing Many congratulations to Frankie Taylor (Y10) who has been appointed SWPS’ first ever Wellbeing Prefect. This is in

recognition of her kindness to, and support of, students who have visited the Wellbeing room recently. Frankie will work with Mrs Blyther and Mrs O’Connor (Assistant Head Pastoral

and Wellbeing) to develop this role.

Classics Trip to Italy In the first week of this half term the Classics

department, helped by some lovely colleagues, and our 2 favourite Italian mums, took a party of 102 (a SWPS trip record!) to Italy for 6 days.

We began with 3 nights in beautiful Sorrento, in the Bay of Naples. By day we visited Pompeii, then Herculaneum and its very cool virtual reality

museum. By night we took over a restaurant with views of the bay. In between we sampled Italian ice creams, hot chocolate and coffee. On Wednesday we visited Poppaea’s stunning villa at Opolontis, then boarded the Frecciarossa “bullet train” to take us in 5 hours from Naples to Venice. We were prepared to do battle with pick-pockets in Naples station, but actually

found it very peaceful, and the train was beautiful.

Having arrived in Venice in our private boats from the station, landing 100 yards from our hotel, we checked in, then began our Venice restaurant takeover, via a stunning floodlit walk over bridges and canals. On Thursday we visited gorgeous Sirmione, birthplace and inspiration of Catullus, on the shores of Lake Garda. After lunch and shopping, the fog cleared enough for boat rides, which

turned out actually to be white-knuckle speedboat rides around the lake. We then had 2 hours in Verona to appreciate its Roman origins, inspiration for Shakespeare, general beauty and shops!

After another night out in Venice, our last day was spent there, sight-seeing

and riding in a spectacular flotilla of 17 gondolas along the grand canal and under the bridge of sighs. We all arrived back late on Friday, exhausted but content that we had achieved all of the most ambitious goals of our trip, and had a great time.

I Peel

“Jammy Who??!!” Italy, China, Spain….To the list of fabulous trip destinations for our students in the

half term, let us add Exeter. The L6 and S6 Theatre Studies students spent three rather exhausting but exhilarating days at Exeter University in the Drama Department working with lecturer Emily Kreider, Artistic Director of the internationally renown women’s theatre company ‘Jammy Voo’.

The students were led in a series of workshops, based on

the teachings of French theatre practitioner Jacques Lecoq, which culminated in the presentation of devised work on the final day. We also visited the ‘Bicycle Theatre’ to see a new play entitled ‘Happiness’ and met one of our alumnae who

works there, Justine Bock, who was one of the students on our first residential trip to Exeter University 10 years ago. At times during the weekend we laughed so hard we cried, and at other times the students produced such moving work, we just cried. All the students thoroughly immersed

themselves in the workshops, taking

risks with their work and challenging themselves. They were, as ever, fantastic ambassadors for the school.

S Sweeney

Trip to Partner School in Ghana On 11 October, 19

SWPS students and 5 members of staff embarked on a visit our

partner school in Bantuma, Ghana. Prior to the trip, the girls had been very busy

fundraising so that we could fund and participate in valuable building projects for Bantuma school. Subsequently, each

school morning of the trip was spent working on various projects at the school such as re-painting the exterior walls,

designing and painting self-help slogans around the interior and constructing cupboards for classrooms so that books can be kept in situ.

As well as participating in

projects, the group got involved in several cultural activities with their buddies. These included a food bazaar where we sampled local food, a bead making session, a drum and dance workshop and a highly

competitive quiz. Over the weekend we also went on trips out to Kakum National Park, a cocoa farm and Elmina Castle. All who went agree it was an incredible eye-opening experience and can’t recommend it highly enough to anyone who wishes to go in the future.

R Boyce

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Rowing News On Sunday 15 October,

the Perkins S e n i o r

Rowing squad travelled to

Banyoles, Spain for their training camp. We were delighted to arrive to Barcelona Airport with

sunshine and clear blue skies and everyone was eager to quickly get the Lake of Banyoles; our training ground for the next week. We were all especially excited to row on the lake as it is famous for holding the rowing events for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and hosting the 2004 World Rowing Championships.

Every day we would take a brisk walk from our accommodation to the lake through the traditional Spanish town, and we were met

most mornings with a perfectly flat lake much to everyone’s delight.

After a hard session of training, ice cream was a well-deserved treat

keeping everyone in a positive mood to make the most of every session even when fatigue was starting to kick in. We were also lucky enough to be there for a traditional Spanish festival where there was a firework display and a traditional market which everyone enjoyed.

To finish off the camp, we prepared all week to race a flat out 2000m piece, this tested our ability to persevere even when everyone is feeling tired from a high volume training week. Everyone’s performance throughout the week

was very consistent and we are all excited to see how the

training pays off in the upcoming races this school year. Bella Daniels (S6)

Vice Captain of Boats

Y7 Globe Theatre Trip T h i s T h u r s d a y , Y e a r 7 enthusiastically embarked on the

English department’s annual outing to The Globe Theatre.

Students had the opportunity to visit the Globe Exhibition which informed them about all aspects of the Bard’s plays and Elizabethan life, picking out their favourite props from the

Properties Store and listening to music which would have been performed during Shakespeare’s time. After lunch, we all descended on the open-air theatre and were given a highly informative tour by Globe actors who were able to tell us all about the construction of this

magnificent theatre and what it is like to be backstage! To finish our fun-filled day, students participated in a

workshop based on ‘A Midsummer

Night’s Dream’, where they worked in pairs playing Oberon and Titania. We seem to have some budding

Shakespearian thespians in our midst!

R Lawrence

Artwork of the Month Here’s one of our four Artworks of the Month, for November, selected by the Art & Design Dept staff. It’s by Miranda

Bennett (Y8). Take a look at more student artwork on the Firefly Art pages.

Book of the Week This week’s BotW is ‘Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand’ by Helen Simonson, selected by our Librarian Mrs Vidgen.

Follow @SWPSLibrary to keep up-to-date with the Library’s activities!

SWPS Haiku Competition The results from the first SWPS Haiku Competition are in, and the winner is Amy Twyford (Y8) for her Haikus: ‘Sunset’

and ‘Wishes’.

Please submit any content for Sir William Perkins’s School to news@swps.org.uk

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Chertsey Goose Fair

Chertsey Goose Fair is looking for high quality stall holders. Please support this longstanding community event.

December 2, 10am—2pm

www.chertseygoosefair.com

Admin@chertseygoosefair.com for more information.

Community