On Thursday, Mr Enrico Ciccone, admissions tutor and teaching fellow at the University of Bath, spent the morning in the Modern Languages department, where he led three different inspiring and interactive presentations about the importance of studying languages.

During his visit he spoke to classes in the Lower Sixth, Second and Fifth Forms, talking to them about why talented linguists are needed in industry and government to negotiate and connect with other countries. In the developing economic and political climate, Britain needs to work with countries all over the world, and linguistic skills are and will be essential.

In addition to the importance of language skills, Mr Ciccone talked about international studies and the concept of ‘culture’. He argued that cultures are not mutually exclusive; they ‘flow, change and intermingle’, and he encouraged pupils to shed preconceptions and explore what lies below the surface.

Over the last few years, the Modern Languages department has been forging a close relationship with the Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies at Bath, and is seeing more pupils interested in applying for their courses.

The House competitive spirit was raised a bar during last week’s interactive quiz evening organised as an enterprise of Oundle Charity Venturers. Quizzes are rarely considered ‘trivial’ affairs, and the life-sized version of Trivial Pursuit that filled the Great Hall was a seriously fun evening. 

Pupils from every year group from six Houses participated: Fisher, Kirkeby, New House, Sanderson, School House and St Anthony. 

Also involved were pupils from The Berrystead, who played the role of human counters and die throwers, providing some extra entertainment for an enthusiastic audience.

Mr Gunson was the charismatic quiz master, marshalling the teams who battled through a range of simple to complex questions that had been set by heads of department. The contest was a close race between School House, St Anthony and Kirkeby, but in the end Kirkeby girls were crowned the champions in a sudden death round.  

The event was expertly organised by Anjola Solola (Sn), Riko Munakata (N) and Harriet White (L), and raised over £1,000 for the charity Camfed, which is dedicated to supporting girls in sub-Saharan Africa go to school in order to help eradicate poverty and inequality.

Sixteen pupils participated in the county round of the National Schools Badminton Championships on Wednesday 16th Jan. 

The KS3 (Years 7, 8, 9) and KS4 boys (Years 10, 11) were runners-up to a very strong team from Caroline Chisholm School, and despite Daphne Ngan (N) winning all of her games the KS4 girls only manage third place. 

The KS3 girls all made brilliant performances. Pearl Potluri (Sn), Dawn Ngan (By), Season Fung (By) and Khayali Kanabar (Sco) won all of their matches and qualified for the regional round later in the term.

Four pupils were invited to the newly opened Museum of Armed Policing in Chatteris to assist the BBC Breakfast programme in producing a segment about the new museum. 

With the police use of firearms a growing and changing area within the police service, the Police Firearms Officers Association (PFOA) believes that it is important for the public to have an opportunity to understand how armed policing has evolved over the years, and how it serves to protect the public. 

The Oundle pupils learned about significant events that have required armed responses and were able to experience first-hand the rigours faced by firearms officers by training on a firearms simulator. The virtual reality shooting range provided an intense virtual experience of how police are tested in real-life situations.

The museum’s main aim is to warn young people about the consequences of carrying weapons. A large cache of seized weapons and firearms are on show, and the tragedies at Hungerford and Dunblane feature as case studies.

The pupils were interviewed by the BBC and appeared on the BBC Breakfast news programme.

The museum was founded and is run by the PFOA which offers support and appropriate services to armed officers and their families who have been impacted by work-related incidents that have caused distress and worry.

Over 700 enthusiastic pupils took part in this week’s Inter-House Indoor Rowing Competition. British Rowing ran the event, which was equipped by Concept 2 with thirty machines. 

Third, Fourth and Fifth Forms rowed individual timed races, while the Sixth Form rowed four-person relays, covering 2000 metres. 

The competition was fierce, and the support from the spectators was so enthusiastic that their encouragement and cheers could be heard outside the building for some distance.

Crosby House rowed the fastest relay, followed by Bramston and Fisher with only two seconds between them. Kirkeby House and Laxton boys were “miles” ahead of the competition in the final overall points tally, and claimed the two House trophies. 

Former champion rower Kristina Cowley (L 2013) came back to School to present the team awards, including the House indoor rowing trophies, which were awarded for the first time since the 1980s. 

On a bright January day, The Head, Mrs Kerr-Dineen joined Mr Robin Fletcher, Chief Executive of the Boarding School Association (BSA), to plant the 150th tree of the Boarding Orchard.

The Boarding Orchard was launched by the BSA in 2014, and aims to create the largest orchard, by distance, in the UK. Boarding schools across the country have been planting trees in their grounds to symbolise the tree of knowledge, and to demonstrate each school’s commitment to growth and caring for the environment.  

Mr Fletcher planted a Liquidamber, sweet gum ‘Lane Roberts’, at the edge of Home Close on Glapthorn Road. The tree will one day provide shade to pupils under vivid red maple-like leaves.

For the Head, planting the 150th tree in the Boarding Orchard represented a full circle; the very first tree planted was a cherry tree at her own childhood school in Sussex.

Fifteen pupils from Oundle have received offers this year to study at Oxford and Cambridge. Eleven of these are conditional on A level and Pre-U results, with four former pupils receiving unconditional offers.

The offers received were made across a variety of subjects, reflecting the wide range of fields in which pupils impressed interviewers, and the success is testimony to the diligence of Oundle’s pupils and the dedication of their teachers.

The full list of offers can be read here:

Oxbridge Offers 2019

The Boat Club have enjoyed a solid start to the new race season. 

At the Northampton Head of the Nene on 19 January, seven pupils competed in a time trial race over a 2km river course alongside crews from clubs across the East Midlands.  

The crew won three of the five races entered. There were wins for Holy Kunzer (N) and Lily Wolfson (D) in the womens Junior U18 double scull event, and Ella Aisher (W) and Ekaterina Tarlo (K) in womens Junior U16 double scull. 

In the mens open single scull, Henry Stringer (Sc) won by two seconds over a sculler from Stowe School.

There were two second places for Harry James (L) in the mens junior U18 single scull – just three seconds behind a sculler from Stowe School. Olivier de Lenquesaing (G) raced in the mens junior U17 single scull, and was pipped to the top spot by a sculler from Falcon Rowing Club (Oxford).

On 2 February the Club set out again for the Peterborough Head of the Nene, a race over 2.5km, where conditions included snow, ice, gusts of crosswinds and cold headwinds. Wins came in the womens double scull for Lily and Holly, and Henry Stringer in the mens single, with Olivier finishing a close second. The girls double came away with fourth place in a very competitive W.J16 event, and Harry James came a close second in the J18. 

Upper Sixth Form pupils in Design, Engineering and Technology had the opportunity to work alongside seven mechanical, aeronautic and electrical engineering undergraduate and postgraduate students from Swansea University.

The students are members of the current Swansea University Race Engineering (SURE) team, which has been racing, designing and building cars for Formula Student (FS) competitions since 2001. SURE work alongside academic and industrial partners in order to create the most successful race car possible, and compete in FS events across Europe.

One of their recent models was installed in the SciTec foyer, where pupils enjoyed racing the car on a computer-simulated race course.

This continuing collaboration between Oundle School and Swansea University is now in its third year, and pupils working on their A level Design and Engineering Product Design Projects have been inspired by the students’ knowledge and passion for the study of engineering, 

Oundle staff and pupils will make a reciprocal visit to Swansea University’s bay campus in June.

Angelo Giacco (L) and Evan Ball (G) had the distinction of qualifying for the final of the HSBC/British Council Mandarin Speaking Competition in early February.

Over 600 pupils who are studying Mandarin took part in the initial heats of this very prestigious competition, and Angelo and Evan were judged to be among the top 10 in their respective categories.

Held at the British Museum last week, the grand final of the Mandarin Speaking competition saw more than 130 pupils from across the country vying to be recognised as the country’s best non-native Mandarin speakers. Winners of each of the categories won a trip to China.

Pupils were required to make a two minute presentation in front of the judges and audience, followed by questions on their speeches. In the intermediate-plus category, Evan was then presented with a scenario to talk about which he had 45 seconds to prepare for. In the advanced category, Angelo was given three translations to complete on the spot, and then had 45 seconds to prepare a speech about the topic of healthy eating. 

Neither were selected winners, but both are to be highly commended for their two fantastic performances.

In early February, the Fourth Form Academic Scholars went to the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, to see Tartuffe, the 17th century French comedy by Molière, modernised by Anil Gupta and Richard Pinto. 

The play centres around Tartuffe, a falsely pious man who lures Imran Pervaiz into fully trusting him, to the disgust of his family, who realise that he is a fraud. To try to remove him from the house, the family plot to make Tartuffe confess his feelings for Imran’s wife, Amira, who he then touches inappropriately. But, when Imran’s son, Damee, reports this, the son is kicked out of the house for suggesting Tartuffe could do such a thing. Still convinced by Tartuffe’s saintliness, Imran signs over all his possessions to Tartuffe. 

When Imran finally realises that Tartuffe is a fraud, and kicks him out, he is left with a tricky situation because the house now belongs to Tartuffe. Tartuffe then kicks the family out. But when Imran confesses that his immigration papers are invalid, the family faces being sent back to Pakistan. In the final twist, when Tartuffe brings an officer to the house to arrest the family, he is arrested instead. It turns out that Tartuffe had a long criminal history and had been wanted for many years.

The story presents many themes. It’s a story of betrayal, manipulation, gender and identity, and questions religious hypocrisy, highlighting the proclaimed virtues of Christianity and Islam. This contemporary adaptation also had a topical spin, touching on Brexit, for example, and modern-day Birmingham, where this new version of Tartuffe is set.

Whilst on the surface, the play might appear to have a serious storyline, the balance between the storyline and Moliere’s comedy was superb. 

The play was extremely enjoyable and highly entertaining, and I think the whole group had a very good evening.

Charlie Martin (C)

Over the Half Term holiday, nine Sixth Form pupils from the Computing department headed to Silicon Valley for a week of tech based activities in the global tech capital. 

The first stop put the development of computing technology into context, where pupils learned about the earliest - and nosiest - computers and saw them in action at the Computer History Museum.

Moving on to the newest and shiniest developments, pupils dressed up in a “clean suit” at Intel,

met the inspirational 33 year old multimillionaire CEO of BOX, created a Snapchat filter in Python at Berkeley,

walked through a super computer at NASA, visited the Tesla production line in a building bigger than the Vatican city,

and experienced a virtual reality game where they fought off aliens.

They also visited an Old Oundelian who is studying for a PhD in artificial intelligence and machine learning at Stanford. 

As well as visiting Alcatraz and the sights of San Francisco, pupils relished the best of American cuisine. They feasted on In and Out Burgers, cooked waffles for breakfast, and enjoyed the biggest deserts they had ever seen.

Twelve Lower and Upper Sixth Form pupils studying Spanish enjoyed a week’s work experience in Cordoba, Spain over the Half Term. The aim of the trip was for pupils to experience full language immersion in an authentic environment. 

Pupils worked for four hours a day in a variety of different placements. Grace, Tavi, Ruben, Olga and Daisy all worked in pre-school crèches, where looking after large groups of very young children proved the most challenging placement. 

Grace and Emily worked in shops, Harry worked in the reception of a museum, and Hugo worked in an Arabic baths. 

Lily worked in a vets washing dogs all week and Emily and Ollie both worked for a language exchange company. 

In the afternoons pupils enjoyed trips to the cinema to see a Spanish film, which they managed to understand without subtitles, and cultural trips around Cordoba. Pupils stayed with families and were able to practice their Spanish with the families in the evenings, too. On the weekend, pupils went to both Granada and Seville where they visited the famous Moorish Alhambra palace in Granada, the Alcazar and cathedral in Seville, giving them all a real sense of the rich legacy left by the Moors in Andalucía. 

On Wednesday, the girls U16 hockey team travelled to the two day Investec Girls’ Schools Championships at the Lee Valley Hockey Centre in London. In the final of the Tier 2 championship, Oundle took on Sherborne School for bronze.

Sherborne scored an early goal, but Oundle equalled just four minutes later with a penalty corner from Emily McParland (D), finishing 1-1 at half time.

The second half was tough and tense, with spectators on the edge of their seats, until Tallulah Gurney (K) scored a field goal in the 47th minute. The final score was 2-1, with Oundle taking bronze in the championship.

This year, the Mather Cup competition has entertained, informed and delighted. Over the course of two Terms, every House has participated in debates that ranged from whether music is more important than books, to whether we would rather be happy than rich.

The year ended on a more topical theme, with Fisher and Grafton going head-to-head to debate whether the problems caused by the internet outweigh the benefits created.

Ed Day and Jake Darke-Christopher of Grafton proposed the motion, and made the case that the rise of mental illness, the prevalence of fake news polarising society, and the illicit harvesting of data, meant that the internet is indeed dangerously harmful.

This was rebutted eloquently by Jack Campbell and Jerry Li of Fisher, who proposed that it is not the internet itself that causes harm, but the way it is sometimes used. Because it is a tool that can be used to promote freedom, it is often considered dangerous by oppressive societies and dictators. They argued that the internet’s power as a tool can reduce social disparity by expanding access to information.

After some deliberation, the adjudicators unanimously agreed that Fisher House had won the debate, and the 2019 Mather Cup was presented by Mrs Kerr-Dineen.    

Laxton House’s wry and devilish performance of C S Lewis’ Screwtape, adapted by James Forsyth was first up this Term. Directed with real wit and clarity by Sophie Lee, and ably assisted by Charlie Willis, this was a singular evening as C S Lewis’s quirky novella was brought to life by the young players. Special mention to Joseph Meisner and Edward Cubitt as the principal devils. They brought these supernatural fiends to life with a humanity that was pivotal to the stories success. 

In October we were treated to the rehearsed reading of Lizzie Martin’s (N) new piece The End Of The Line. This was an impressively polished affair for a new play’s first outing, and was a fine example of how the Stahl Theatre is inspiring a new generation of auteurs as well as performers. 

The last School production to grace the Stahl stage before the Christmas break was Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Directed by Stahl Director Simon Aylin, and with musical direction by Head of Music Quentin Jones, this was a vast undertaking. With drama and music departments pulling together a cast of thirty-five and a band of twenty, the Stahl was filled with thrilling creativity.

With the help of a twelve strong team of student backstage crew, every inch of the stage was used, along with every light, microphone and plug socket.

The result was an extraordinary evening of high notes and low deeds. Charlie Willis (L) and Lizzie Martin (N), as the vengeful Sweeney and the grotesque Mrs Lovett, were a revelation, whilst Harun Tekin’s (S) Antony was as open and sweet a performance as you’ll see on any stage. This was a production full of gleeful dread that many will not forget in a hurry.

S Aylin

There were twists and turns aplenty in this night full of intrigue and deception, as ten strangers go to an island and none of them return. And Then There Were None is arguably Agatha Christie’s most popular and challenging story, and Grafton House truly brought it to life.

Evan Ball took the helm as director of this claustrophobic masterpiece and proved very adept at leading the audience exactly where he wanted them to go. This was crisp, sophisticated storytelling, handled with clarity and maturity. For whilst this classic “who done it” has much to recommend it as a piece thrilling escapism, it is also a fascinating study in morality, and this production was constantly concerned with  the consequences of each character’s past. 

It was a real ensemble piece - with every cast member essential to the play’s success. Special praise goes to Minty Kunzer (N) for her spirited portrayal of heroine Vera, not to mention Arthur Burgess’ handsomely presented turn as Mrs Rogers. 

This was a gripping evening’s entertainment; just what the doctor ordered on a gloomy January evening.

S Aylin

The Sixth Form production of George Orwell’s 1984 was a pure, visceral and essential piece of theatre. This was a main House play directed with an astute and vital urgency by Ed Hodgson (Sc) and Lily-Rose Tebbutt (W). They squeezed every ounce of tension from Matthew Dunster’s taut adaptation, whilst always maintaining a clear focus on the political and moral questions that permeate every moment of the play. 

Declan Boyle (L) shone as the central Winston, imbuing the character with just the right balance of wide-eyed idealism, and gnawing fear. Lily Hunter’s (W) Julia was run through with revolutionary energy, whilst never losing the character’s necessary fearless charm. 

Then there was Henry Worsley (Ldr) as the calm, calculated and undeniably alluring O’Brien. Part monster and part pragmatist - this was a character you didn’t want to be near but couldn’t look away from. 

Special mention to the technological complexity of the production - mixing real-time theatrical wizardry with live and recorded multimedia. The audience were left breathless.

S Aylin

The 2019 Hepburn Music Competition took place over three days, and involved some 320 performances across seven venues, judged by a panel of seven distinguished adjudicators.

The Hepburn Competition is one of the largest musical events of the year, and is effectively a complete music festival with all instruments represented across all age groups.

The finalists’ recital on Sunday evening was an extraordinary and thrilling climax, adjudicated by Will Bersey, Director of Music at The King’s School Canterbury.

Some nine finalists all played Grade 8 and diploma repertoire with impressive precision and convincing musicianship. The evening was a credit to the sustained efforts of individuals and their teachers alike, and bears testimony to the value of the Hepburn and the work of the Music department.

The winner of the Hepburn Cup was Ed Pelham (Sc) on clarinet. As runner-up, Ken Zhao (StA) was awarded the Tatum Cup for his performance on cello, and Harun Tekin (S), vocalist, was presented with the David Bateman Cup.

This year’s highly anticipated charity Fashion Show was a stand-out evening of entertainment featuring a cast of models from the Fourth Form upwards from eleven different Houses.

The organising team, Phoebe Hornor (W), Tilly Salmon (W), Poppy Chatterton (W) and Georgie Pringle (W) partnered with six fashion brands including Religion, Brora and La Llama, and programmed their show into themes from grunge to black tie. 

Together with the Porters and Mr Pettitt on tech, the team transformed the Chapel with a theatrically lit raised runway extending down the central aisle.

Each model pairing strutted the walkway with tight and usually amusing choreography, displaying remarkable flair and confidence before a cheering audience.

In between the walks, while the models went backstage to change, musicians took the stage, including Sophie Lee and Declan Boyle (L), Phoebe Gammell (K), and an unexpected duet of Miss Dawes and Mr Barnes impressing the audience with “Diamonds on the soles of her shoes”. The final walk section featured a cast of teachers showcasing their “signature looks” to the audience’s immense enjoyment.

The evening raised over £7400 for Changemakers, a new summer programme that the pupils will be participating in to provide a week of outdoor experiences in Derbyshire for children from Peterborough schools.