Category: School

Senior School Prize Giving

On Wednesday 4 July, the Senior School gathered with friends, families and staff to celebrate the achievements of our pupils this year. There were some amazing music, dance and drama performances and every year group was represented in the prizes across subjects and disciplines. The afternoon was a wonderful showcase of all the talent and dedication at Sydenham High School and we were delighted to have GB Gold medallist and conservationist, Crista Cullen MBE, with us as our key note speaker.

She spoke about her journey to her career in hockey and her life in Africa, as well as her passion for conservation through her charitable foundation Tofauti. She told us about the setbacks she had along the way to achieving her gold medal and how important it is to have a positive attitude in life:

If you have a good attitude, you can be taught. Whether that is in the classroom or on a sports field, it’s no different. If you feel that you want to excel at something it’s up to you to seek that guidance. You have two choices: you can either sit in a corner and think your dream is over or you can take the bull by the horns and ask what do I need to practice.

– Crista Cullen MBE

After the ceremony we enjoyed a wonderful afternoon tea in the sunshine, where Crista was kind enough to allow people to hold her gold medal! We very much hope to see our girls bringing back their own medals in the future.

 

Photo gallery coming soon

 

Year 10 enjoy Sydenham Arts poetry workshop

Year 10 poets channelled their muses in a workshop led by Isabel White and Sydenham Arts today as an end of term treat. The workshop required our young writers to consider the term ‘hero’. They then began to reflect on the word’s different meanings in their own creative work. Some students celebrated superhuman strength in their writing; others considered the quietly heroic deeds of the everyday; some (tongue-in-cheek) even paid homage to the well-loved chocolate brand! A fun time was had by all and have a strong set of entries for this year’s Sydenham Arts Poetry Competition, which we are proud to have won last year.

Junior School Prize Giving

It gave the Junior School great pleasure to welcome Cheryl Giovannoni, Chief Executive of the Girls’ day School Trust, to Prize Giving on Tuesday afternoon in the Senior School Sports Hall. Cheryl inspired a packed hall with her passion for the GDST family and why belonging to the community is so special for pupils, parents and staff. Reading from her favourite Dr Seuss book, she reminded us all that we can achieve whatever we want when we set our minds to it.

Ms Boyd outlined the success of this year’s Collaborative Endeavour project at Junior School and Mrs Woodcock praised all pupils for their hard working attitude and kindness as well as passing on messages of good luck to our year 6 leavers.

Music and drama performances punctuated the ceremony and included a solo by musician of the year, Josie Sambidge (year 5) and monologue excerpts from the year 6 production Suffragette: The Fight by Nyama Swaray and Marnie Ugo Evans. At the end of the afternoon, the sports hall roof was raised with a rousing rendition of ELO’s Mr Blue Sky.

Congratulations to all our giraffe girls on a brilliant year and and big well done goes out to all our Prize Winners.

Olivia dives into the medals

We are delighted that year 7 Olivia won a silver medal on the 12/13 age on 3m springboard at the National Age Group Diving Championships and another silver on 12/13yr synchro. She also came 4th on the 12/13 platform, and 17th on 12/13 1m springboard.She has done incredibly well having only dived for a short period of time, and being one of the youngest in her group. Well done Olivia!

 

Senior School Sports Day

The senior school staff met at the field at 7am on Monday 2 July to help set up for one of the biggest days of the school year.  By 8.45am there were 600 pupils, staff and parents raring to get going on the 14 events spread out across our beautiful sports ground on Worsley Bridge Road. Our new house banners and house feathers lent themselves perfectly to the wonderful vibe of house pride which permeates sports day and our fun run raised £171 for the Bone Cancer Research Trust, in memory of two former pupils. 28 degrees heat did not stop our girls as proven by the fact that 13 records were broken, some records had stood for 12 years.

Notable successes:

Tilly Stevens-Cox now holds the record for 1500m in year 7, year 8 and year 9

The 50 metre hurdles record is currently held by Sophie Harris for year 7, 8, 9 and 10, whilst the year 12 record is held by her sister Chloe Harris!

This year Ellie Osmond broke the record for the 300m, 800m & 1500m.  A phenomenal achievement!

The Victrix Lidorum trophy for most amount of individual points scored on sports day went to Jamilah Balogun (year 12) with new records set for both the 100m and 200m in her year group.

A special well done must go to the year 12s who threw themselves wholeheartedly into sportsday and epitomised #sydspirit.

A huge thank you to all staff and pupils for a fabulous day.

Have a lovely summer and keep fit.

– Mrs Bhadeshia

 

 

 

 

 

Final results:

Gurney  983

Shirreff  1027

Grey   1269

Stanley   1270

Two young reporters celebrated at awards ceremony

We are delighted that two of our pupils, Zahra and Ellie, were recognised for their journalism skills at the 10 year celebrations for the Young Reporter Scheme 2018 this summer. The Award Ceremony was held at the Newsquest offices in Quadrant House where, following the ceremony, a buffet was enjoyed by the winners, their families and representatives from their schools. There were thirty-three awards in total, presented to students from Years 10 through to 13 and two students were presented with the Top Reporter Award from each category. We look forward to seeing how our girls continue to develop their skills and hopefully scoop further prizes!

Girls from Sydenham High School compete in the Young Reporter Scheme every year and we’re delighted that two of our students are 2018 winners. We firmly believe that our girls should learn to challenge the world around them and think independently; we recognise the important contribution that the Young Reporter Scheme makes to the development of key life skills. Our year 10 students thoroughly enjoy the experience of competitive writing, with a clear link to the working world.

– Miss Feehan, Head of English

Art School taster workshop

On the afternoon of Thursday 28 June, Mireille Fauchon, lecturer from the Royal College of Art, visited the Art department to run a workshop for art students in year 10 and year 12, introducing them to the methods of teaching used in an art school environment.

The workshop was based around the theme of Migration, and students had to work intuitively and independently in areas including collage, moving image, performance and 3D making.  The focus of the afternoon was on risk taking and creating responsive ideas, rather than refined outcomes – a whole new way of working for SydArtists!  Both year groups rose to the challenge, and showed how SydArtists really do ‘fear nothing’!

Well done to the participants for their energy and enthusiasm, and thank you to Mireille for planning and delivering such an inspiring workshop.

Language students learn about linguistics at UCL

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