Following House Music 2025, 31 singers travelled to the Costa Brava for a five-day choir tour, combining rehearsals, performances and cultural visits.

The tour began in Lloret de Mar with an initial rehearsal before heading to Girona. There, the choir gave an impromptu performance on the cathedral steps and later presented a full programme inside to a large audience.

Highlights included visits to the Sagrada Família and performances at the Basilica de la Mercè in Barcelona, Montserrat Monastery at the conclusion of Mass, and a final concert in Barcelona Cathedral. Each venue offered unique acoustics and an engaged audience.

The final day allowed time for reflection and sightseeing in Lloret de Mar and Girona.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a rapidly advancing technology that brings a huge amount of potential to the world of education.

Our vision at Gresham’s is to harness the power of generative AI tools to enrich teaching, enhance learning, empower pupils (in terms of their own learning) and encourage creativity. 

Ways pupils can benefit from the use of generative AI tools:

• Using Large Language Models (LLMs) to explain concepts they are uncertain of
• Creating examples of sample tasks for revision
• Enabling retrieval practice through rapid generation of multiple choice and other questions
• Producing revision schedules tailored to their individual need
• Summarising complex concepts so they can be more easily accessed by all abilities
• Assistance with research for essays and other extended writing tasks.

Many universities are embracing AI with their students, allowing its use in a controlled way to help support the generation of assignments. In addition, use of generative AI tools is becoming an integral part of the modern world of employment, creating time saving opportunities and the potential to make organisations more efficient and effective. It is likely that pupils will be starting university courses and jobs in a variety of sectors where confident use of AI tools is of great benefit.

We are fortunate to have an AI consultant working with us on this journey, to support both staff and pupils as we navigate together the challenges and opportunities a world with AI brings. Izabella Bessenyey is a graduate of Harvard University, and she has completed an MPhil with the University of Cambridge in the Ethics of AI, Data and Algorithms. She is currently studying for her PhD at the University of Cambridge in Human-Inspired AI and has been working with the school one day a week since September.

In that time, she has led staff training on how to prompt LLMs effectively to get the best output and has met staff one to one to discuss their training needs for AI use, including attending a lesson where she worked with Year 13 pupils on how they could use AI for a specific task. She has worked with Year 11 on a field day, showing them how to prompt effectively and how to use AI tools to help them prepare revision materials, as well as how to use it to test themselves on content to prepare for exams.

She has now started working with small groups of pupils in Year 13 and Year 9, giving them guidance and tips on how to use AI to help with their work (not simply how to do it for them) and how it can be useful as a revision tool. She has also taught the importance of checking for bias and hallucinations too, and what AI use looks like at university. The plan is she will meet as many pupils as possible in the school in small group settings over the course of the year.

Izabella will be presenting some tips for using AI to support research and revision at our upcoming parent’s AI information evening event on Friday 14^th November. A letter about this went out just before Half Term, so any parents interested in attending are asked to please complete the form via the link in the letter. 

On Monday, five RAF Air Cadets from Gresham’s School CCF were selected to go for a once in a lifetime flight on an RAF C-17 Globemaster. Along with 70 other cadets from Norfolk and Suffolk Wing Air Training Corps, they travelled to Wattisham Flying Station in Suffolk to take part in an RAF evacuation training exercise. After receiving a safety brief about the aircraft and flight, they boarded and had a flight around the local area. 

FS Ella said “It was such an incredible experience, being able to see how big the aircraft was and getting to fly in it. It was definitely not an average day at school”.

At Gresham’s, pupils can opt to join the CCF at the end of Year 9 in the Royal Navy, Army or Royal Air Force sections, each with their own uniform, identity and training programs. Many choose to continue all the way through to Years 12 and 13 as Senior NCO’s.

Last Friday, as part of our third annual Diwali celebration, pupils came to enjoy the spectacle of 250 candles glistening in a dimmed Chapel as we observed the Diwali message of good over evil, light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance. Some of our pupils took the opportunity to learn some Indian dancing to traditional Indian music with Chetanya Y. Everyone received a tilak as a mark of honour and sign of welcome. The tilak, placed on the ‘third eye’ or ‘ajna chakra’, symbolises spiritual awareness and focus.

A highlight of the evening was decorating the chapel floor with rangoli, made from coloured sand and stencils. Rangoli’s significance is rooted in its role as a traditional Indian art form that welcomes deities, brings good fortune and wards off evil. Created at the entrance of homes and temples, particularly during festivals like Diwali, rangoli designs are believed to welcome the goddess Lakshmi and invite prosperity into the home. Beyond its spiritual importance, it’s a communal and therapeutic activity that fosters family and community bonds. 

No festival would be complete without the sharing of food and so, as pupils departed, they enjoyed a sweet treat or ‘mithai’.

A big thank you goes to pupils Shreya, Chetanya and Rohit for their hard work, advice, and for enabling us to take part in this wonderful Indian festival.

Year 12 IB Film Studies pupils visited the British Film Institute in London for an Auteur Theory workshop and a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’.

Presented by a lecturer from University of Wales, Swansea, the session explored some of the ways in which Hitchcock can be considered an auteur, analysis of sequences from some of his other films, and chances for our pupils to share their film knowledge with pupils from other schools around the country.

This year’s Fright Night plunged audiences into The Hollowing—a twisted cult shrouded in secrecy and terror. Guests encountered eerie leaders, deranged disciples and cannibalistic inhabitants lurking in the darkness, each more disturbing than the last. The night built to a spectacular, explosive finale that left everyone reeling.

The makeup team delivered truly nightmarish creations, transforming performers into haunting figures of the cult. The production also featured a chilling soundscape, composed by Harry L, that enveloped guests in an atmosphere of dread during their meeting with the cult’s religious leader.

A huge thank you to our incredible performers, makeup artists, lighting crew, and Music Tech team for making The Hollowing an unforgettable Fright Night experience. The real question is—will you dare to visit Fright Night next year?

The last Friday of term saw an incredible team effort from every house to present House Music 2025. Our esteemed judge, Rollo Armstrong, notably known as the producer in Faithless and for the artist Dido, joined us for the occasion.

Each house presented three items:

Instrumental

Woodlands stormed to the top with an incredible rendition of Tune 88 by Jeff Corder – the band sounding like a professional jazz-funk set-up. 

Part Song

There was a dash of traction from most of the boys’ houses, keeping with the barbershop style and adding some contemporary twists. However, it was Oakeley’s stunning arrangement of Aurora’s Runaway, with complex harmonies and textural variations, that completely transcended the space and took us to another world entirely.

Unison Finale

Every pupil in the school took to the stage, with dance moves, costumes, and (fortunately!) impressive singing to match. Everything from The Fratellis to Madonna was performed, but it was Oakeley’s party anthem “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” that took the category.

This meant that Oakeley took the overall House Music competition, with Woodlands an incredibly close second place – only one point behind!

Well done to all, and it shows that the house spirit is still very much alive.