The 2018/19 results and final positions are made up of the following 3 key areas of the competition:

House Activities

House Conduct

Sports Day

1^st Place: Galahad with 36,384 points.

2^nd Place: William with 33,666 points.

3^rd Place: Alfred with 33,198 points.

4^th Place: Nelson with 30,652 points.

5^th Place: Henry with 29,915 points.

Congratulations to everyone for another fine year of competition and a special congratulations to Galahad for another back to back victory.

On Wednesday 3^rd July, 10 people from years 7, 8, 9 and 10 left School bright and early to go to Wimbledon. We took the coach from School at 7:00 to London, we arrived at about 11:00 to see the sights of Wimbledon. To start with, me and a few others walked around Wimbledon to go to the shop and see some lower ranked matches at courts 12 and 18, they were great quality; we saw some excellent rallies. We also settled down for lunch at about 12:30 in front of one of the courts.

After that, we watched Women’s Britain number 2, Heather Watson get destroyed by Kontaveit in straight sets on court 1. It was a thrilling match with exciting tennis! Then, we had a break and looked around Wimbledon some more, we saw some amazing sports stars such as John McEnroe. We also watched Feliciano Lopez lose to Khachanov in a thrilling 4 set match and Wozniaki, a top women’s tennis player, beat Kudermetova in straight sets again!

Following that, we visited Henman hill/Murray mount to watch Djokovic play. He’s a great player! That match finished at about 7:30 and we were ready to leave but then we found out the 15 year old sensation Cori (Coco) Gauff had been moved courts to play on court 1 and we had tickets! She is amazing, especially for her age. The game finished and she had won 2 sets to none and she progressed to the 3^rd round of Wimbledon.

We eventually left and we prepared for a very long journey home. What a thrilling day, I’m sure everyone had a great time even though it was a very long day! It was a once in a lifetime experience and I will never forget it. Thank you to the PE department for letting us go on this amazing trip.

Timothy Lowman (8 Galahad)  

On Wednesday the third of July, me and 9 other pupils went to Wimbledon. As soon as we arrived, you could truly see how big it actually was. All around there were tennis matches, singles and doubles, with a big crowd at each court. We had tickets all day for Court 1. The first match I saw was Heather Watson versus Anett Kontaveit. Although Heather Watson (GBR) lost, it was still such an exciting experience to see both professional players hit the ball over the net at such a fast speed. Additionally, another favourite moment of the trip was when the 15-year-old Cori Gauff beat Magdalena Rybarijova at two sets to none. Even when we were not on court one, there was still a lot of things around Wimbledon to get involved in. This was probably the best and funniest school trip I’ve had!

Oliver Martin-Panther (7 Nelson)

On Wednesday 10^th July, 57 students (and 5 staff) headed to Preston Montford Field Studies Centre near Shrewsbury for 2 nights.  For all students taking GCSE Geography, this residential was important as it helped us to prepare for Paper 3, which makes up 35% of our GCSE.

We set off at roughly 10:00 on our coach for the 1 hour and 30 minute journey.  Upon arriving at Preston Montford, the first thing we noticed was the smell, probably a result of the large number of sheep in the area!  We had our lunch before heading to Shrewsbury CBD car park to carry out a survey regarding the ‘Park and Ride’ scheme, comparing the number of unoccupied and occupied spaces. Subsequently, the staff produced an average of each group’s figures – 289 unoccupied spaces and 107 occupied spaces. This suggests that the scheme wasn’t very popular and more people didn’t use it compared to those who did. We then travelled to the Town Centre where we carried out surveys at a number of sites. We asked people in the shopping centre several questions to gather more information about the ‘Park and Ride’ scheme to reinforce our knowledge of the scheme and to find out if it was considered to be useful or not. Overall, we found that not many people used the scheme and that the most popular way of transport was by car. Once we had arrived back at the Centre, we wrote down our findings and analysed the data. After we had dinner and had finished our work for the day, we had free time, which, for many people, included playing football against another school.

On Thursday, we switched from human geography to physical geography and took a trip to Carding Mill Valley to climb up hills! This required a lot of energy but we were able to stop a few times to have something to eat and drink. Once we got to our highest point, we retraced our path down but carrying-out measurements, field sketches etc at 8 sites. Our enquiry was to see how features of the river changed. We determined the width, depth and velocity at each river site using different tools such as a hydroprop, an impeller, measuring tape and a ruler. After gathering our results, we headed back to the Centre to write up our results, analyse data and make conclusions related to the enquiry.

Friday was our final day and, after packing our luggage, cleaning the rooms and eating breakfast, we headed back to the classroom to analyse further our surveys and questionnaires.  We also presented our findings to the rest of the group.  After lunch we boarded our coach for the journey back to school.

We did work hard on the residential, but there was time to relax too; it was a great opportunity to complete our work in a different environment and spend time with our friends.  Thanks to Mr Bird for organising the trip for us.

Ibrahim Zaman

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On Friday 28th June, all of Year 8 made the journey up to the Peak District. Starting at the stepping stones in Dovedale, we walked south, taking in the scenery. You could find marine fossils in the stepping stones, if you looked closely. This is evidence to show that the British Isles was once submerged underwater as it travelled up from Antarctica over a billion years, to where we are today.

The air was clean, fresher than most urban areas that usually give off many particles full of dust and pollutants. For this reason, national parks are a great place to relax, especially for those who work in major urban cities and towns in a busy environment.

Next we carried on until we reached limestone arch where we learned about how it was formed. Firstly, a deep crack penetrates the limestone layer; then, the crack widens due to the weathering process from acid rain. The acidic rainwater continually dissolved the limestone. This combined with freeze thaw weathering causes a small arch to form. This arch continues to widen as weathering continues. Eventually, the base will widen so much that the arch will collapse.

As we carried on, we passed Ilam Rock and studied its shape. The 25 metre high rock is the fossilised remains of sea creatures that lived in the shallow tropical lagoon. We were amazed about how it formed and it shape.

Next, we stopped at the Dove Holes to take a break while learning about how these caves formed: rainwater picks up carbon dioxide from the air and as it filters through the soil, turns into a weak acid. This slowly dissolves out the limestone along the joints, bedding planes and fractures, some of which become enlarged enough to form caves.
As we carried on we passed Ravens’ Tor where we learned about its formation:

• First of all the rainwater fills up the cracks in the rocks
• Second of all at night the temperatures drop causing the water to freeze and expand, making the rock weaker
• After it causes the rocks to shatter creating debris
• Next repeating the process makes what we can see today.

To end our journey we reached Milldale: a nice and quiet village where there was no litter at all. Milldale is at the bottom of a fairly steep hill and has a minor stench (only the animals!).

Overall we enjoyed our journey to Dovedale, learning about the history and the rocks. We would like to give an extra special thank you to the Geography Department for organising such an amazing trip.

Muhammad Yaqub, 8 Alfred

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The National Space Centre in Leicester was a great trip as we all learnt many things about space and Earth’s satellites. First, we arrived at the space centre and saw the great view of the rocket from outside the building; it looked cool and was huge. It had a glass chamber around it, and the visitors looked like little ants walking around the different parts of the rocket. We then arrived at the entrance and went inside. We were welcomed by the staff and we all were staring at the cool mini games we could play and the gigantic Earth globe. We were able to play on the games and look around and we saw many satellites which had been in space. We then went to learn about many things about satellites and Earth in a special workshop. We learnt how objects orbit other objects like a satellite (the moon or a man-made satellite) orbits the Earth. We also had to work out where to place the satellite and moon in comparison to a small Earth, and we guessed the moon close enough to where it was supposed to be, but we were totally wrong about the satellite! It needed to be placed so close to the Earth, it was touching.

We were able to look around the gadgets and information, and the coolest of them all was the satellite we could control on a little piece of land which was said to be Mars – not the real Mars! We had to do little missions and collect materials and move the satellite around. But the problem was that everyone was crowding around it, so it took a while to play on it… There was some information about our planet’s closest group of stars and other information about the planets in our solar system. We also visited the planetarium. This was a different experience as we could tilt back on the seats and look up at the circular screen and observe the whole planetarium. It was a weird journey through the movie, as we first saw the bloodstream of human veins, and later a rocket in. We learnt that to be an astronaut, you must train underwater as being in the water is like being in space. Then after training they are sent off to space and while they are in zero gravity, they must train to make sure their muscles don’t waste away. If they don’t exercise when they come back to Earth, they won’t be able to walk. It was an amazing experience and was funny at the end when the cartoon characters were tested to see what would happen in space if you didn’t have oxygen, heaters and a door on the spacecraft.

After the Planetarium we went and looked around the tall rocket which involved climbing 146 steps to see the top of the rocket. There were also some gadgets and games we could play there as well but there was mainly information about rockets. We ate our lunch in the lunch hall and then went to buy things in the shop. I bought a mini 3D picture of our solar system which looks amazing, and there were all sorts of other things like, pens, pencils, posters, pictures, stationery, and even chocolate and sweets. At the end of the day, we had time for one last look before returning to Earth! It was an amazing trip and I would like to visit again.

Darius Ehssan 8N

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