Welcome to the Third Year Blog!
And here we are! Easter!
Of course, the Easter break brings with it many questions…
Does the Easter Bunny have elves to help them? If not (and the Third Year Blog has heard no mention of elves), does that make the Easter Bunny more impressive than Father Christmas?
At what point do you put your ‘big coat’ away properly?
What percentage of your bodyweight is it safe to eat in terms of chocolate in a single day?
When do we stop buying daffodils in the supermarket and start buying sunflowers?
What do teachers even do when School is shut?
If you are asleep for longer than you are awake, does that make unconsciousness your natural state? What would Descartes make of that? I sleep, therefore I am?
Are the rowers rowing today? (probably yes)
Will the Hampton ducklings arrive while we are all away?
If I know that I have some homework (though the Third Year Blog sincerely hopes that you don’t), but it isn’t on Teams, do I still have to do it? (the answer is yes)
How long does it take for an ill-judged haircut to grow out?
Is the Easter holiday actually better than the summer holiday?
All valid questions, but not necessarily ones that you will find answers to.
And you may not want to trouble your mind with these things, particularly when it has been such a busy term. This week, we have a fairly hefty Interform update, along with some coding and some Rowing… Have a great Easter!
Heads of Year Message
Thank you all for supporting the mufti day today raising funds for Form Charity and to all those who contributed to the food bank collection this morning.
We wish safe travels to all Third Year pupils heading off on trips over the Easter holidays. We look forward to seeing the photos and reading the reports, and we trust that all the boys will acquit themselves with distinction in all their endeavours.
Spring Term Grade Cards will be available for parents to view via My School Portal from 4.30pm today (Friday 27 March). Form Tutors will conduct grade card reviews with their tutees at the start of the summer term.
End of Year Assessments – Whilst attention will inevitably start to focus on Assessments week (May 18-22) from the start of the summer term, we do not expect pupils to be revising throughout the Easter holidays. Pupils should take the opportunity to consolidate notes and catch-up on any missed work from the spring term. Otherwise, we strongly advocate the need for time to relax and recover from a busy term over the holidays. Form Tutors will provide guidance and support towards planning a revision schedule and executing effective revision during Study Skills PSHE lessons early next term. Subject teachers will include revision advice and activities during lessons next term. There will also be a two-week “homework holiday” ahead of exams, during which all boys should aim to complete their revision and exam preparations.
Well done to Third Year pupils for all your efforts and achievements during this busy term. We hope that you all have a happy, relaxing and restful Easter holiday. We look forward to seeing you refreshed and ready to go again on Tuesday 21 April for the start of the summer term.
Best wishes
Mr T Rigby & Mr H Moore
Junior Sculling Head
On Monday, the A and B rowing crew took part in the Junior Sculling Head at Dorney Lake in Windsor (the site of the 2012 Olympics rowing) for our first official race of the year.
Buzzing with excitement, the A and B crew came into School in our kits (I also got a race plan from my coach). At 12:35 pm, we rushed to lunch, quickly eating and then going to the minibuses, embarking on our journey. Upon arriving at the gates and after a funny episode of an awkward ‘situation’ (“which will not be named for security reasons”), we finally entered the grounds. After getting our equipment, we dropped off our bags and had some free time to go to the toilets and do our own things (our boating time was around 3:00 pm). At around 2:30 pm, we gathered around the boats for a short pep talk and making some final adjustments to our boat. Getting into our racing kit and gathering all the equipment we needed, we got on the lake and started our warmup in the secondary lake. The feeling of nervousness was finally setting in.
Turning at the 1000m mark, we made our way to the start. It was very funny watching the boat in front of us drifting into the reeds on the bank and trying to then get out of the mess. Finally, we made our way to the front, starting with our ‘Build Ten’ phase with around 100m to get into race-pace before the start line. We reached the end of the lake, performed a short turn, raced back down and got back onto the landing stage.
After the 3600m race, everyone was tired. After carrying our boat onto trestles near our trailer, we started derigging the boat, nervous for the results to come in. Unfortunately, the B crew did not secure a medal, coming 13th overall but 3rd in the B group (they only do Golds for the B groups) with their second run back down the lake being 24 seconds faster than the first leg.
The A crew also unfortunately missed out on a medal, coming 4th overall, partially as one of their team snapped his oar. Overall, it was a fun experience but hopefully, I would be able to participate in more of these events in the future.
By Ian L (3J)
Perse Coding Challenge
In late January this year, Max and I took part in round 1 of the Perse Coding Team Challenge – a national competition where pairs of pupils have 40 minutes to work through a series of progressively harder programming problems on a single computer. We coded in Python, the most familiar language to us; however, we both quickly realised that algorithmic problem solving was not our speciality. The 40 minutes felt manageable, but a little chaotic in terms of who was at the keyboard at any moment.
One question stumped us completely, which was a good reminder that there is a whole side of computer science that we practically never touch. But, somehow through all the chaos, we managed to qualify for round 2.
By Sasha B (3D)
Interform Chess
Having heard from some of the competitors last week, this week we hear from Dr Gallagher who presided over the competition, with his expert opinion on proceedings.
The Third Year Interform Chess tournament (9-team knockout, 3+2 blitz with 1+0 bullet chess deciders) was, on paper, always going to be decided by one thing: whether anyone could survive long enough against Luoke W.
In the end, the answer was mostly “no”, and 3F took first place, with 3B finishing runners-up and 3J and 3D sharing third.
With a ~2000 rating in a field largely around 1200, Luoke was, politely put, a bit of a problem. For most of the tournament, 3F progressed as expected.
The final, however, was unnecessarily dramatic. Luoke did his job in the 3+2, winning despite briefly dropping to around six seconds — which caused mild panic among spectators, though the position was never really in doubt.
On the other board, Aneesh A contributed to the entertainment by blundering in time trouble, allowing 3B to equalise and force a 1+0 bullet playoff.
Bullet followed, as it does, with a complete abandonment of dignity. 3F held it together slightly better than 3B, which was enough.
Final standings and Williams Cup points:
1st: 3F: 9pts
2nd: 3B : 8pts
Joint 3rd: 3J, 3D: 6 pts each
The rest: 3 pts each
Interform Football and Rugby
Yesterday afternoon saw the long awaited Interform Football and Rugby competitions.
We have the Football results in:
1st 3G: 9pts
2nd 3J: 8pts
3rd 3F: 7pts
4th 3A: 6pts
5th 3B: 5pts
6th 3C: 4pts
7th 3E: 3pts
8th 3D: 2pts
9th 3H: 1pt
Unfortunately, we are still awaiting the Rugby results, but will look to update you all in the first blog after Easter…
In the absence of any specific reports on the Football, each class was asked to offer their view on their performance in two words or less.
Let us see what they all said…
3A
Football: Absolute cinema
In truth, this seems like a bold claim when you came 4th.
3C
Football: Exceeded expectations
Bearing in mind they came 6th, there is a humility, but also a pride to this response which is not necessarily present in many of the other Form’s self assessments, which only makes the Third Year Blog feel that they will be rooting for 3C in future Interform events.
3D
Football: Absolutely awful
This feels like the sort of self-assessment that would leave Mrs Clarke and Ms Doncel-Cervantes with little choice but to start firing people involved, like a Third Year Interform Football version of Evangelos Maranakis.
3E
Football: Absolute fluke
3E came 7th. The idea that even this lowly performance was somehow a fluke suggests that their self-belief, in terms of football, at least, is not what it could be.
3F
Football: Absolute horror
Contrastingly to 3E who described coming 7th as a ‘fluke’, 3F viewed their 3rd place position as ‘horror’. As someone who has taught lessons recently in 3F’s form room and saw the level of detail in the tactical planning written on the whiteboard, the Third Year Blog can understand their sense of shame and disgust at barely making the podium.
3G
Football: Light work
The arrogance of the winner’s response is sure to grind the gears of many of the other teams, though the Third Year Blog cannot help but feel that the bravado here is actually representative of an underlying feeling of shock at what they managed to achieve.
3B, 3H, 3J
No response.
Was morning registration too busy a time period for these classes to formulate a response? Quite possibly – it is often a well filled 10 minutes.
Was reducing their thoughts to just two words too much of a challenge in amongst the turbulent emotions that the Interform Football (and, ultimately, the Williams Cup) can inspire?
Were they so numb after the titanic effort that Interform Football entails that even finding one or two words was an insurmountable task. We will never know.
In particular one can’t help but imagine the scene in 3J where Mr Hurst, one of the premier school football coaches in the country, was presumably delivering a hairdryer treatment for his side only finishing 2nd.
Williams Cup Standings
But what does this all mean for the overall Williams Cup standings?
There’s still so much to play for!
1st 3B: 57pts
2nd 3J: 51pts
3rd 3G: 49pts
4th 3D: 48pts
5th 3F: 40pts
6th 3E: 38pts
7th 3A: 32pts
8th 3H: 28pts
9th 3C: 27pts
Two truths and a lie
Last week we had Fourth Year tutor, English teacher and previous Head of Third Year, Mrs Bedford stepping into the hot seat. What were her claims??
- Mrs Bedford has been swimming in open water with sharks and sea lions
- Mrs Bedford has five cats, named after the main characters in The Famous Five
- Mrs Bedford once read the news live on the radio whilst standing in a pond of koi carp
Which was the lie? Miss Bedford laughs in the face of danger, so swimming with sharks is nothing to her. Miss Bedford was once a radio news presenter and did once perform her job with her feet being nibbled by koi carp. Which means that Miss Bedford does not have five cats named after the Famous Five. That would be ridiculous.
Two Truths and a Lie will be back to lie a little bit more in the summer!
Connection Corner
Well done to the everyone who had a go at last week’s Connection Corner. Well done to everyone who correctly guessed that the answers were all Salads, big shout out to Rishi V, Asher C, Sujay N, Alex P, Toby B, George W, Reuben N, Alex A, Daniel O, Matthew T, Richard C and Charlie F.
In case you’re still perplexed, here are the answers to last week’s conundrum:
King Edward, Jersey, Maris Piper and Yukon Gold, are all types of what? Potatoes
Rhodes, Santorini, Mykonos and Zakynthos, are all more commonly known as what? Greek Islands
Who led the Roman invasion of Britain in 55 BC? Julius Caesar
Guava, acai, dragon and durian are all types of what? Fruit
Connection: Different types of salad (Potato Salad, Greek Salad, Caesar Salad, Fruit Salad)
Connection Corner is having a well-deserved rest over the holidays – lots of Easter eggs to get through!
Have a great Easter break!
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