On Saturday night we held our annual Bunfire Night on the Senior School grounds. Relocating this year to the new venue by the Auden Theatre proved hugely successful, and despite the rain over 500 members of the School community were in attendance. FOGS kindly offered refreshment stands throughout the evening to support the busy food vendors. Farfield, Edinburgh and Tallis jointly won the Guy Competition with their various eclectic efforts. The grounds team with the support of the Headmaster put on a great display for the crowd; all in all the event raised nearly £2000 for our School Charity, The Holt Youth Project.
Our stunning Chapel was given a fresh look last week as we received delivery of two beautiful new altar frontals. The frontals have been created by the talented team of broderers at Norwich Cathedral as a kind gift from FOGS and the Gresham’s Foundation. The frontals were blessed in a special service by the Archdeacon of Lynn.
Gresham’s School awards Ormiston Academy Trust scholarship to Ormiston Victory Academy pupil, Isla
News > Gresham’s School awards Ormiston Academy Trust scholarship to Ormiston Victory Academy pupil, Isla
Isla, who is currently in Year 11 and attends Ormiston Victory Academy in Norwich, has been awarded a scholarship for a Sixth Form place at Gresham’s from September 2023. Here, Isla will experience independent school life, benefitting from a multitude of enrichment activities, a wide range of sport and the Dyson Building, the School’s centre for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths (STEAM) education. This is well fitting for Isla, who expressed a keen interest in the STEAM subjects and co-curricular activities surrounding Design and Science.
Once Isla completes her GCSEs at her current school, she is looking forward to studying Spanish, Geography and Maths. Going forward after her time at Gresham’s, Isla hopes to be studying at a Russell Group university where, post-university, she hopes to broaden her language skills before going travelling and potentially volunteering with non-governmental organisations.
Headmaster Douglas Robb said “We will be delighted to welcome Isla to Gresham’s in September. She will have the opportunity to develop her current skills and interests here, by making use of the School’s facilities and co-curricular activities. I wish her every success both during her time here and in the future”.
Gresham’s has been partnered with the Ormiston Academy Trust for a number of years, offering scholarships to Ormiston Academy pupils every two years. In 2020, Gresham’s awarded the OAT scholarship to Gabriella, who is now in Year 13 and studying Maths, Spanish, Physics, and Chemistry at A level. She is also enjoying a range of extracurricular activities on offer at Gresham’s such being involved in Team-Eco.
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Gresham’s School awards Ormiston Academy Trust scholarship to Ormiston Victory Academy pupil, Isla
Our pupils in the school’s choir, or Schola Cantorum, visited Malta during the half term to perform at multiple concerts around the island for their choir tour.
The pupils performed at the Rabat Concert at Basilica of St Paul in Rabat, where they also had the opportunity to explore Rabat and see the beautiful views that Malta has to offer.
The trip also included a guided tour around Valetta, Malta’s capital. Pupils later performed at the Birgu Church and finished the tour with an incredible concert at the breathtaking Mosta Dome. we hope that our pupils had a great time and look forward to seeing them back at school after half term.
Many of the major world religions have ‘Festivals of Light’ (such as Hannukah, Advent and Diwali) as the nights draw in at this time of year.
Pupils were invited to celebrate, Chapel was filled with hundreds of candles (and doughnuts)! on the evening of the 13th October.
Our Charity Committee help tackle rising Cost of Living
News > Our Charity Committee help tackle rising Cost of Living
The pupils and staff at Gresham’s School, Holt, are acutely aware that we live in difficult and uncertain economic times and that many people in the local community are struggling as a consequence. All three Schools have been working closely with local organisations this half term to do what they can to help the most vulnerable. These projects have included collecting a vast amount of quality clothing for the Community Clothes Bank at the Holt Youth Project, Gresham’s long-term charity partner, as well as raising £1,000 for the Holt Community Fund which will help those who need support with their energy bills this winter.
The Charity Committee are committed to helping those in need in as many ways as possible, and have reached out to a number of local charities to help provide support. They have raised £1,000 for the Holt Community Lunch, which will provide local residents in need with a traditional Christmas dinner on Christmas Day. The Committee also organised for left-over food from the school kitchens top be distributed to the local community, and helped facilitate the donation of books, toys and practical help to Norfolk YMCA, who support people across the country who struggle to afford adequate accommodation.
The school also recently collected one tonne of food during Harvest Festival, to then be distributed to local families via the North Norfolk Foodbank, alongside donating food to the Community Fridge at The Treehouse in Holt.
The Charity Committee are planning many more projects next term, including support for families who might struggle to buy presents this Christmas.
We were treated together with community school pupils to a superb, charismatic and inspiring enrichment talk from Yasmin Al-Ani Spence on her Architectural Journey. Yasmin is Director with WilkinsonEyre Architects https://www.wilkinsoneyre.com/ and was the lead architect on the Dyson Building.
Her talk got pupils buzzing with awareness of integration, diversity, sustainability and innovation in architectural projects and encouragement into “Taking An Original Thought and Taking it Further”.
For Black History Month, we were lucky enough to have guest speaker Andreena Leeanne; author, poet and diversity advocate speak to our pupils. Andreena, who speaks from life experience, spoke about her authenticity, intersectionality, equality, diversity, inclusion and belonging from a lived experience perspective. https://www.andreena.co.uk/
Old Greshamian speaker
OG Keith Bunker (OSH 1957 – 61) returned to the school and gave two fascinating talks in the Makerspace in the Dyson Building on his experience of engineering, design and business. Keith talked using the example of designing and engineering a car of the range of different skills and careers involved including marketing, artistic design and craft skills, engineers on design/manufacture/construction/project management, accountants, city finance and fund raising, legal and compliance/contracts.
Degree Apprenticeship Information Session
This was an opportunity for current sixth formers to hear from Exeter University on the degrees they facilitate for degree apprenticeships in Financial Services / Digital and Technical Solutions / Civil Engineering.
Plus the opportunity to hear from two Old Greshamians both doing a degree apprenticeship. OG Zara Raslan with investment bank JP Morgan and OG William Retter doing an undergraduate degree apprenticeship in Law with Cohen Davies.
Degree apprenticeship applications are through the employer
OG Frederick Todd (k & H 2015 -22) is doing a degree apprenticeships with investment bank JP Morgan.
OG Alexander Roper (k & H 2008 – 22) is doing a higher apprenticeship with NFU Mutual in North Norfolk.
OG Charles Howard (W 2017 -21) is doing a degree apprentice with RG Carter Degree – UCEM (University College of Estate Management) Undergraduate BSC (Hons) Construction Management
In English lessons this half-term Year 9 students have been studying a range of poetry, written by a variety of poets, all linked by the theme of conflict. This unit of work is very much designed to enhance the students’ experience on the History Department’s trip to the WWI battlefields in Ypres. In Mrs O’Donnell’s class, students were assigned a ‘conflict’ poem to present to the class in House ‘teams’. The results were newsworthy! The presentations showcased the students’ research skills, IT skills and presentation skills – and, most satisfying of all, their growing confidence to independently analyse poetry with an insight that will serve them well at GCSE. Some of the poems we were treated to included Evacuee by Isobel Thrilling, To My Brother and Perhaps, both by Vera Britten, Mametz Wood by Owen Sheers and Refugees by Adam Zagajewski.
Year 9 pupil achieves bronze medal in Judo competition
News > Year 9 pupil achieves bronze medal in Judo competition
Congratulations to Year 9 pupil Pullo W of Tallis, who managed to win a bronze medal in the East of England Championship and British Championship/British Schools Championship qualifier. This is even more impressive as he had moved up an age group so was in a category with 16 year olds! We wish him the best of luck going forward in the competition.
On Saturday 8th October, Gresham’s first football team took on Culford school at home in the Eastern Region Independent School League.
The game started end to end, but within 10 minutes Gresham’s were the dominant side and some excellent work by George B led to the first goal. He battled to win the ball on the half way line before evading several challenges to take the ball into the Culford half and passing to Jude P, who was able to thread it through to Albert W to score his first goal of the season. Having gone ahead Gresham’s continued to push forward and had chances to score through Jude P, Albert W and Ru M but an excellent goal line block from George B kept the game at 1-0 at half time.
In the second half, Culford came out strongly and pushed for the equaliser, but mid-way through the half Gresham’s scored a second following an excellent free kick from Henry B, which caused confusion in the defence, allowing Albert W to score his second goal of the match. The third followed shortly after, when Jude P turned in the penalty area to fire in to the bottom right corner of the goal.
Cheered on by a good crowd, the side showed excellent mentality and controlled the rest of the match to win the game 3-0. This was an outstanding team performance where every player worked hard and played their part in an excellent result.
On Tuesday 11th October, the first team travelled to Woodbridge school and quickly dominated the opening exchanges of the game, going 1-0 from a confident Ru M finish when one on one with the keeper and this soon became 2-0 with a super finish on the volley from Charlie H. Max W scored the third before Ru M was brought down for a penalty, which was duly converted by Charlie H to take the score to 4-0 at half time.
Woodbridge played better in the second half, scoring two goals themselves before Ru M scored his second of the game and Max W ran down the right and fired in a powerful strike to silence the crowd and take the game to 6-2, which was how it ended. These were two excellent results for the football team and set us up well for next round of fixtures.
