Weekly Bulletin (20.5.16)
The First Year has been on the road this week, with the English and RS Departments taking the boys out on trips. I had the pleasure of accompanying 1B and 1J to the Sri Guru Singh Sabha Gurdwara in Southall, the West London Synagogue and Regent’s Park Mosque. At the Gurdwara, we enjoyed a very interesting talk about the central tenets of Sikhism before being treated to a delicious curry lunch in the langar, or communal kitchen. At the Synagogue, we looked at one of the torah scrolls, wore kippahs and were able to spin a dreidel. And our visit to the Mosque saw us receive a talk in the prayer hall before exploring an exhibition about the life of the Prophet Muhammed. It was a fascinating day, and the boys impressed me with their interest and their astute questions. I have heard similarly positive reports of the boys in 1H, 1L, 1P and 1W on their trips on Monday or Wednesday. Meanwhile, the English Department took the boys to the Globe Theatre for a morning of Shakespeare-themed fun. They enjoyed a tour of the theatre, and the day finished with a workshop in which our budding thespians got to undertake role plays, dramatic games exercises and improvisations.
Mr Passmore has furnished me with the results of the Junior Maths Challenge, and very impress they are too. Suffice to say, all the boys did extremely well, with many winning gold, silver and bronze awards. Congratulations to everyone, but particularly so to the thirteen boys who demonstrated such mathematical prowess that they have earned themselves the reward of sitting an even harder Maths paper, as they compete in further rounds of this national competition! Luca Boucher, Lucas Carbajal, Riyaaz Khan, Sandy Mitchell, Nayaaz Hashim, James Langdown, Luke Jansen, Billy Hutchings, Zebedee Aylin, Ben Strong and James Emery have all qualified for the Junior Kangaroo round, whilst Younes Tahir and Andrew Lees (our top performer) have qualified for the prestigious Junior Olympiad Round.
The U12 Tennis team enjoyed great success in a recent fixture against Dulwich College. Jai Saha, Ben Bird, Rohan Vasudev, Billy Atkinson, Rafferty Lucking and Xander Wright won all of the doubles matches they played – well done boys! Top seeds Billy and Rohan won 6-1, 6-0, 6-2, second seeds Ben and Jai won 6-1, 6-1, 6-0, and third seeds Raff and Xander won 6-0, 6-2, 6-1.
The cricketers produced some very impressive performances against St Benedict’s. The U12A team posted 141-1, with Zak Dyer scoring 77 not out, and Freddie Seddon 46, before dismissing the opposition for 51, with five wickets for Arjun Bhat. The U12B team bowled St Benedict’s out for 44, and chased down the runs for the loss of two wickets. And the U12C team overhauled a target of 70 with five wickets in hand. Xavi Murtagh took a wicket with the first ball of the match, Luca Parrish took two wickets and Fergus MacEacharn scored 24.
Some slightly dated sports news – apologies to the rowing fraternity – but I am delighted belatedly to report the success of Louis Middleton and Sam Davidson at the Richmond Indoor Rowing Championships a few weeks ago. The competition was judged based on the greatest aggregate distance that a pair of rowers could cover on an ergo in two minutes. Louis and Sam clocked a superb 978m, nearly 80m further than their nearest rivals. It looks as if the Searle brothers’ rowing legacy at Hampton is in safe hands!
And finally, merit-related congratulations this week go to Kabir Sait (60 merits); Luke Michels and Sohan Sodhi (70 merits); and Ben Francis (110 merits).
Mr J. Partridge
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