Art Through Lockdown

Life Drawing is a key component of the Sixth Form curriculum in Art. We have a lively programme of life drawing, which usually includes weekly classes, and weekend drawing and painting workshops. During lockdown, we felt it was important to maintain the practice, as it is so good for building students' competency and fluency in drawing. As they were not able to draw from a live model, the students worked from historical paintings and sculptures, learning from painters and sculptors of the past.

The Art Department were excited on their return to be able to unload from the kilns work that had been in there since before the Christmas break. The firing was completed before the end of term, but the kiln was still too hot to open before we all left the site for longer than we imagined. These tile designs by Year 7 students, were among the work unloaded.

UK Intermediate Mathematics Challenge – 21 Golds!

Last month almost 160 Year 9, 10, and 11 students put their logic skills to the test, by participating in the UKMT Intermediate Maths Challenge. The results are now in and we have much to celebrate - 21 students were awarded a Gold Certificate, 23 achieved Silver, and 32 achieved Bronze! The highest scoring student was Hebe in Year 10, with a fantastic score which qualifies her for the Hamilton Olympiad later this month. 19 more students have also qualified for further rounds in the competition, and we look forward to the next challenge. Congratulations to all who took part!

Voice Workshop with Liz Flint

There was a wonderful virtual voice workshop with the West End resident voice coach on Matilda the Musical, Liz Flint. She introduced a group of Year 8 pupils to a range of detailed vocal exercises, to extend their breath control, articulation, and vocal projection. It was a real insight into the type of exercises a professional actor would experience. The pupils really appreciated the chance to experience the exact same warm-ups that are used by the cast.  

‘The chance to do this workshop was a wonderful experience, so thank you so much. I felt the vocal warm ups done with Liz were extremely helpful, because now that I know them, I can practice them. It is important because if you don't warm up your voice it can be damaged. Liz was so amazing and helpful walking us through the workshop. For example my favourite was the one where you lie on the floor as it felt relaxing as well and it was super helpful! I loved hearing and finding out about how Liz works with the children for the theatre production Matilda, and how she coaches them so they don’t hurt their voices. It was an amazing experience and I would love to do it again!’ Jamie (Year 8)

UK Linguistics Olympiad

Well done to four daring Year 12s, Megan, Olivia, Thea, and Toni, who entered this year’s challenging UK Linguistics Olympiad – they are the first entrants from Roedean in a good number of years, perhaps ever, and they took on the 2.5-hour challenge before half-term. The organisers acknowledged that this year’s papers were even more difficult than normal, because of the difficulties of taking the test on-line, and also because the material needed to be non-searchable on the internet, to achieve parity between the entrants. All four students acquitted themselves well, but particular congratulations go to Olivia, who achieved a Bronze. Our intention is that this will become a co-curricular activity in the future – there are different levels for different ages, so watch this space!

Race Around the World 2.0 – for Health and Community Spirit

Following the success of Roedean’s Race Around the World last lockdown, Roedean took on a bigger challenge this term - to travel from Brighton to Brighton, visiting each of the 31 countries where our students live. The journey is over 65,000 kilometres! We hoped that this might help us all feel close and connected to each other, at a time when we are all forced to be apart from one another. Girls, staff, parents and ORs are invited to take part in the race. ORs and Former Staff can log their distances by going to: https://roedean.wufoo.com/forms/p1g7zhue01t9wmg/. 

There is also a charitable element to the challenge too - given the difficulties many people are going through, we hope to raise funds to go towards a Roedean hardship fund, as well as for our chosen charities (Off the Fence, Liberian Chimpanzee Rescue and Protection, and Beachy Head Chaplaincy). You can donate through Just Giving by going to: https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/RoedeanRaceAroundtheWorld2?invite=true.

For more news from the School, please see the Head's Weekly Reviews for March below.