worth school insight magazine summer 2013

Summer 2013

INSIGHTWorth School enizagamWorth School enizagamWorth School enizagam

Worth School enizagamWorth School enizagamWorth School enizagam

Pages 6 and 20

The rise of the musical at Worth

Br David and his icons0

Worth School magazine

One year on in the new St Bede’s and new St

Anne’s

The Good

Life

Pages 8 and 9

The greaT DeBaTe“By the very act of arguing, you awake the patient’s reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the result?” - C.S. Lewis

There is nothing quite as good as an argument; unless, perhaps, it’s a debate. It’s the thrill and the rush of attacking, dodging around a point, striking them where we think they are weakest. It’s the small shock of adrenaline as you come upon a point of information, a rather savage creature indeed, and the acrid buzz when you step from the stage wondering why you only remember your best points after it’s over.

A good debater has “confidence, clarity, passion and knowledge” according Mrs Watson-Saunders who has been leading the Debating Society successfully for eight years. With the recent victories in the Rotary Club public speaking competitions and a proud history of Oxford Union, UNA and Youth Speaks, debating is a truly defining feature of Worth School.

“I’ve always believed that the Society should be somewhere where people can share ideas; where they can come and talk about current affairs and ethical issues” she explains. “For me, setting up the Society was all about opening up debating for everybody; it’s a valuable skill. And I wanted it to be fun, a chance to share an opinion and have it questioned.”

The Debating Society has covered topics ranging from balloons to biscuits and pretty much everything in between; there is definitely something for everyone. Whether it’s listening, thinking or acting: “the only way to learn is through experiencing; watch, learn, listen, then have a go yourself”.

“A good debater needs to be a bit of a chameleon,” comments Oliver Pateman, our most recent committee chairman, “it helps if they can, at least mentally, change their personal political allegiance and see things from a different point of view … Aside from this, I would suggest that a sprinkling of good vocabulary, a dash of quick wittedness and liberal helpings of erudition would combine to make an unstoppable debater.”

There is something at Debating Society for everybody, whether you jump in head-first or take a back seat and admire the sheer talent of some of our speakers. The community is one of the best I’ve seen - everyone has a strong opinion or something to say. Although Mrs Watson-Saunders is leaving us at the end of this academic year, we will have a new Head of Debating next year to build on the Society’s successes, lots more sandwich lunches and a variety of hot topics to discuss. So go ahead Worth, get debating!

Worth School magazine2

James Fullalove

3www.worthschool.co.uk Summer 2013

Mrs Watson-Saunders, Head of Debating, with Olivia Wilson, Isabella Lee and Genny Lewis who won the Intermediate team trophy at the Youth Speaks competition.

4

Tuesday 5th February marked the tenth annual Safer Internet Day, a landmark event in the online safety calendar, celebrated in more than 90 countries worldwide.

The Safer Internet Day focus for 2013, “connect with respect”, had particular resonance at Worth, being such an important principle in our close community.

“They should each try to be the first to show respect to the other, supporting with the greatest patience one another’s weaknesses of body or behaviour.” - The Rule of St Benedict

Many online tools, particularly social media sites, actively encourage users to communicate. This is often made so easy that the appropriateness of such communication can easily be overlooked. It is an issue of which we must all remain mindful.

During tutor time in February, pupils in Years 7 to 11 were actively engaged in developing responses to this theme. Year 7 and 8 pupils produced posters to raise awareness of the need for suitable online communications. Tutor groups in Year 9 generated a charter of their Top 10 wishes to make the Internet a better and safer place, the results of which were collated and fed into a government survey on the topic. Year 11 tutor groups assembled their Top 10 pieces of advice for junior pupils, the results of which were displayed in the refectory for the benefit of the whole school.

The Safer Internet Day project represents just one strand of a whole school programme on the subject of e-safety. Work this academic year has included various year group lectures, including ones on social networking, sexting and how to protect your online reputation. A new e-safety activity has run as part of the Wednesday afternoon programme, culminating each term in Year 10 and 11 pupils presenting to Years 7 and 8. Parents have been actively engaged too, with a chaplaincy seminar on digital parenting and a more general session on how parents can respond to the challenges posed by such ubiquitous Internet access.

As the Internet and technology become increasingly integral to our work and social lives, it is important to reflect on the difference between our real and online relationships. Whilst technology can be a great enabler, we must not allow ourselves to lose sight of the need to engage in a real sense with those who make up our community.

Simon Fisher, Director of ICT

Connect with respect


6

The musical revue I love you, you’re perfect, now change showcased the acting, vocal and comedic talents of the small cast of senior students - Michele Gilling-Ulph, Abigail Glover, Henry Jacobs, Katie Kenward, Finn

Lurcott, Hugh Lurcott, Morgan Lujan and Jenny McGregor. While the audience enjoyed pizza and a glass of wine, they were entertained by the trials and tribulations of a group of lovers of all ages.

Congratulations to the cast and co-directors Helen Brown and Worthian Ashley Beauchamp for such a sizzling production.

If you were there, you are always going to remember the version of A stud and a babe by Greg Plummer and Olivia Brent. Mingling with the audience in the Pitstop, they sang across the table and then on the table in a fabulous vocal paso doble of first-date manoeuvring. If you weren’t there, you missed a treat of a production.


A delicious slice of MUSICAL REVUE in The Pitstop


Greg Plummer and Olivia Brent rip it up

8

What a difference a new house makes. Pupils in St Bede’s and St Anne’s come to the end of the first year in their new locations.


The gooD

life

Mrs Cook and St Anne’s pupils enjoy the space and light in their new location.


After the switch around in September, the St Anne’s girls are enjoying everything in their refurbished quarters that the St Bede’s boys miss – notably the proximity to the Pitstop and classrooms. “I’d also add that the Clock Tower is seen as something of an iconic location,” says Housemistress Mrs Julia Cook, “We all enjoy the space and light in the new House and the sympathetic way in which the refurbishment left the period features. With Chapman, Farwell and Austin Houses just around the corner, I’ve also noticed a new ‘flow’ to the day now that all of the day pupils are the same area.”

Meanwhile, the St Bede’s boys have settled into to their new purpose-built

house. The boarding house lies just beyond Gervase in the area known as the Hydrangea Garden, near to the Alex Leiney memorial pond. The design and décor of the new house were highly praised when it was opened in September, but how have the boys found it actually living in their new location?

Cornering a group of Year 12 students on the subject, there was consensus that the location was ideal to “get away from everything when not in lessons.” As well as a general appreciation for the fact that the showers are always hot, Connor Thornton Clark added: “Of course it’s newer and shinier and it helps that all the rooms are the same because it’s

ended all the room squabbles! We’ve got the best garden out of all the Houses and I know Matron likes her new room.” Sportsman Harry Coreth points out that the new location is “closer to the tennis courts, closer to the astropitch and closer to the golf course”. The only downside now seems to be the distance from the Pistop and, as current Head of House Ashley Thomas has found: “You soon learn not to forget any books for lessons. A teacher will give you five minutes to go from the teaching block to St Bede’s and back – so you have to get a move on!”

The school made a significant financial investment last academic year in a new building to accommodate the boys of St Bede’s and in refurbishing the old St Bede’s, the first floor of which has become the home of St Anne’s.

icons: a tradition in the making

10 Worth School magazine

Francesc Mora Ortega talked to Br David Jarmy about his passion for icons.

“Icons have always intrigued me,” says Br David, member of the monastic community and Chaplain to St Anne’s, “ever since I collected photographed icons from churches

and basilicas around the world”. He started to handcraft reproductions of icons in 2007, and now has a monastic icon studio located just off the Narthex in the Abbey Church.

Br David at work in Worth’s icon studio

www.worthschool.co.uk Winter 2012

The process of making an icon, which is much harder than one might think, involves many delicate steps and it took Br David many attempts to perfect the technique. In essence, these icons are high-quality photographs mounted on carefully prepared boards, surrounded by a filling of a traditional colour for icons known as ‘bole’. Br David completes about six icons every week which are sold in the Abbey bookshop.

Over the summer, Br David will be going on a one-week course at Minster Abbey near Canterbury to learn the skills involved in the process of writing an icon. He is looking forward to this with great joy. During 2014, Br David will start to write icons himself and begin a monastic tradition

of iconography within Worth. It will take him a very long time to master the art but, with dedication and faith, anything can be accomplished.

Icons can be found in many churches. They have been, for centuries, a help for the faithful in prayer and contemplation. What distinguishes an icon from a conventional painting is the different positioning of the perspective. A painting tries to take you in and make you experience the painting’s depiction. However, an icon seeks the exact opposite: it reverses the perspective back to you. So it’s not about what the icon shows, it’s about how the icon impacts your prayer and personal life. An icon “conveys the spiritual reality of the person depicted,” Br David

claims and that is why icons have become such a popular form of art in places which have faith at their core. The physical ‘painting’ of an icon is relatively simple; the challenge is within the intricate symbolism, and hence the term ‘writing’ an icon.

The icon tradition in the western world had declined as centuries passed, but in recent years many very skilled iconographers have emerged in the West, from whose work Br David has been given permission to make some of his reproductions. We hope Br David develops his skills, encourages others to follow his footsteps into the icon studio and continues to have a remarkable impact on the prayer life of many followers of Christ.


12

Moving in the Spirit

“We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of Life.” That’s what we profess each Sunday; and today we are celebrating God’s spirit at work in our lives and in our world.

“This is the time of year when the Bishop travels round the Diocese anointing with the oil of chrism those candidates – mainly the young – who have chosen to receive the sacrament of Confirmation. And there’s a lovely prayer which the Bishop says as he invokes the power of the Holy Spirit over them: “Send your Spirit upon them to be their helper and their guide. Give them the spirit of wisdom and of courage; the spirit of knowledge and of reverence. Fill them with the spirit of wonder and awe in your presence.”

“That’s a poignant moment in their lives, one which all of us have experienced in our own day when we were confirmed

and that power of the Spirit is the same as the first disciples experienced in the Upper Room on the first Pentecost, and described by the author of Acts as a “mighty power”.

“The spirit of the Lord fills the whole world, says the Psalmist; the spirit does not act in a vacuum; it works through us and – as we too have been anointed – we are all asked to share in the work of spreading the word of God and his love. But first let us leave ourselves open to God’s grace, and allow the spirit, in the words of the sequences, to bend our stubborn hearts and wills, to melt the frozen, warm the chill and guide the steps that go astray. Above all, let this be a day of individual renewal. Then, please God, we shall be more effective instruments of the Holy Spirit in the world.”

Fr Kevin Taggart stepped down as Abbot on 2nd June 2013. He has been, in the words of the Head Master at Speech Day, “a wonderful spiritual leader for our school” and below we share one of Fr Kevin’s last homilies as Abbot, delivered on Pentecost Sunday.



Moving in the Spirit


Making a Meal of iTNaomi Dring is in Year 13 and has served this year as Chaplaincy Prefect. In addition, she has made extraordinary efforts on behalf of Mary’s Meals, a charity that provides meals at school to 730,000 young people in impoverished areas around the world.

Naomi has been involved with Scotland-based charity Mary’s Meals for seven years. The meals are provided at school, which means that children have an incentive to be in education where otherwise poverty might force them into child labour. Naomi began working with the group in Brighton which sponsors a school in Malawi and, since coming to Worth, Naomi has led large-scale initiatives in support of this worthy cause. Last year’s Carol Service at Worth raised over £3000 for Mary’s Meals and this year’s Battle of the Bands brought in a further £1700. Through the charity, £10.70 is enough to feed a child for an entire year. Naomi was supported in this by Father Peter and the Chaplaincy team which consists of four Year 13 Prefects and two Representatives from each house in Year 12.

Naomi is modest about what she does, despite the fact that initiatives like this can mean the difference between life and death for those who she helps. In addition to her work with Mary’s Meals, Naomi also helps at a night shelter in Brighton, all whilst managing her academic commitments and duties as Chaplaincy Prefect. The Chaplaincy Prefects meet each week with Father Peter to plan events and discuss how Lectio Divina groups are working in the Houses. She said that she feels it is an honour to be able to make a difference to the spiritual life of the school. Naomi has also worked with Brother David to organise a school trip to the Taizé monastery in France.

A true representative of the Worth spirit of community and charity, Naomi has made a great impact over her two years here. She would encourage anyone to visit www.marysmeals.org.uk or to watch the film Child 31 to find out more about this extraordinary organisation.

Dr Daniel Koch


The poWer of arTToday it would seem that art has ceased to be an important part of society and has been sidelined by other forms of entertainment. Many people seem to believe that art has lost

its purpose, or that it doesn’t even have a purpose.

Is this true? Is art just supposed to be enjoyed on a purely aesthetic level? Or does it have a deeper meaning? Oscar Wilde famously said that “all art is useless because its aim is simply to create a mood. It is not meant to

instruct or influence action in any way.” Many people believe that the purpose of art is to elicit an emotional reaction from and convey a message to the beholder; it expresses something that cannot be expressed directly.

If we did not have art there would be certain things we would not be able to communicate.

So it could be argued that Oscar Wilde is wrong in his assertion that art is useless: it influences people

to feel something, and whether or not they act on this feeling depends on the individual. A good example

of this is Picasso’s Guernica, a powerful and moving portrayal of the now infamous bombing of a small town

during the Spanish Civil War. It influences people to feel anger at the injustice in the world; this feeling could inspire

people to campaign for peace, become disillusioned, pacifist, angry or violent.

But why do we need art? Many people would say that art is a superfluous aspect of modern life. Then let us imagine how

colourless life would be without painting, or how shapeless art would be without sculpture. People need art to make sense of

complex emotions and to find solidarity with fellow man, but people also need beauty in their lives to remind them that there is good in the world. The power of art to convey meaning and to bring beauty

to the world means that people will always need art. My contention is that art is, and will remain, an important part of human culture.

Image is a detail from a GCSE piece by Toby Wild.

Emily Richardson

18

What brought you to Worth?

HK: I was the Head of PE and Senior Line Master at Stonyhurst College in Lancashire for 12 years. I was obviously aware of Worth by its reputation, and when the position of Director of Sport became available, it was the opportunity that I was looking for.

SK: I worked at the prep school for Stonyhurst College within

the games department. As Mr Kaaber was the Head of PE, it was inevitable that our paths would cross at some point. As it turned out, we were married just 12 days before our move to Worth.

Tell us a little bit about your sporting background.

HK: I played County U17 and U18 rugby before spending a year in New Zealand. At university I started playing Rugby League and made various regional and national representations. After that, I spent a season with London Irish rugby club before an injury put me on the sideline. I went on to train for my PGCE. I still jump at the chance to play any sport if the opportunity arises.

SK: My parents took me to a local gymnastics club when I was just five. From the age of ten, I was training 13

SporTing ChanCeKaeshini Sivananthan

Writing an article with a word limit isn’t the easiest thing to do, especially when talking to Mr and Mrs Kaaber (pronounced Kor-ber). Mr Kaaber is the Director of Sport and Mrs Kaaber is Assistant Housemistress in St Anne’s, working specifically with the junior girls. From coaching Team GB gymnastics, to acting in a Star Wars movie, Mr and Mrs Kaaber seem to have taken on the world, and are now throwing themselves into life at Worth.



days out of every 14. It was extremely hard work but it taught me about commitment, discipline and integrity. It made me appreciate that you have to have immense dedication and determination to achieve the things you want. I competed in my last British Championships at the age of 20, after which an injury ended my career. I was appointed the coach for GB in 2001 and coached in three World Championships and two European Championships over a five-year period.

How important is sport in a person’s life?

HK: What you learn and derive from sport translates into lessons for life – the link between effort and reward, the value of honest hard work, humility, courage, integrity and loyalty. I appreciate that sport isn’t always for everyone, but there are a lot of sports out there waiting to be tried, and there’s bound to be something you’ll enjoy even if you haven’t found it yet.

What about sport at Worth?

HK: There are a number of developments in the pipeline which will improve the provision for sport at Worth, and there are some exciting plans for the future. In the interim,

I feel it needs to be highlighted that the opportunities available to pupils at Worth are huge. Representing your school is an honour and should be respected and treated as such.

SK: As an assistant housemistress in St. Anne’s, I feel my main contribution to sport here has been in the form of encouraging participation and trying to alter the mindset of some of the girls. I believe everyone should experience the feeling of being part of a team and sharing a win with your friends.

Can you give us an interesting fact about yourself?

HK: I was a background extra in the Star Wars film, The Phantom Menace, filmed at Leavesden Studios. I was a Naboo foot soldier, and got to chat with Ewan McGregor and Samuel Jackson between takes.

SK: Whilst deciding whether I wanted to dedicate my whole life to Sport, I was a police officer in Greater Manchester for 5 years working undercover with the drug squad.

Sandi and Henning Kaaber with dogs Monty and Milo


have you heard the one about the duck?Worth juniors won hearts and much applause with their production of Honk!, a musical re-telling of the story of the ugly duckling. There were strong lead performances by Jack O’Hea as the ugly duckling with Bella Blowey as his mother Ida and Felix Richards as Drake the father. Bella Enoizi delivered a slinky performance as the cunning Cat and there were highly enjoyable group numbers from the RAF goslings led by Sebastian Gilling-Ulph and Bella Lee and the tap-dancing Froglets fronted by Lenny Rush’s larger-than-life Bullfrog. There was lots of fun, lots of talent and a battery of poultry jokes. We can’t wait to see what the juniors will do next.

Gurdip Ahluwalia as The Turkey and Lucy Simmonds as Henrietta


have you heard the one about the duck?

It didn’t rain, but it was definitely cold for this year’s Sports Day. Undeterred, the Worth athletes turned in some terrific performances, especially Cameron Pring who set a new school record for the 200 metres. At the end of the competition, St Anne’s took home the girls’ trophy and Butler and Rutherford drew for the boys’ trophy.

Below are Tom Poynder, Sandy Hills, Tom Chandler and Louis Gorringe basking in the glow of success following their decisive victory over the Staff and Gapper teams in the 4 x 100m relay.

on yourMarkS!



hoMe TurfHead of MFL, Stefan Steinebach, proudly led a group of Worth students back to his home town for the second year of Worth’s exchange with Lahnstein. As well as polishing their spoken German and greatly enjoying the food, students visited Cologne, Koblenz and the Lindt Chocolate factory.

Worth students at Deutsches Eck (German corner) in Koblenz

BAINES design & print 01707 876555 A58033Printed on environmentally friendly paper made from raw materials sourced from managed and sustainable forests.

Insight Editorial Team:Simon FisherCatherine ForresterDaniel KochFrancesc Mora Ortega (Year 12)Henry Jacobs (Year 12)Emily Richardson (Year 12)Kaeshini Sivananthan (Year 12)

For the latest Worth School news and events, please visit www.worthschool.co.ukWorth School, Paddockhurst Road, Turners Hill, West Sussex RH10 4SDt: 01342 710200 e: [email protected]

Registered charity number 1093914Company registration number 4476558

Photography: Images by Emma Duggan Photography, except Power of Art by John Everest, Sports Day photo by Ed Hermitage, back page image by Peter Langdown and German Exchange.

Breanna Alleyne enjoys an informal moment with fellow choir members as the Worth choir continues to go from strength

to strength. Look out for an autumn programme which includes Fauré’s

Requiem (Sunday 10th November), a concert in the Abbey Church (Sunday 17th November) and the School Carol

Service (8th December).

worth school insight magazine summer 2013

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