Neha in Year 7, recently entered the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) School Science Prize competition, for which she had to write a short essay about ‘Why I love Science’. Neha’s piece was so good that she was shortlisted for the final, which took place on Friday 8th December and for which she had to prepare an additional two-minute presentation.
We were lucky to have a local published poet to come along to Kendrick School to run two workshops with our students at Kendrick School. Some of these students were part of the Poets' Society and some of these students were keen writers in the younger year groups. Two students who were in the younger year groups, Shathana and Kaavya, shared their reflections on the events below. It is very pleasing to see how these events make a difference to young people's perspectives on poetry, and help improve their writing, editing, and analysing skills. We thank Claire Dyer for her visit.
We are very proud to announce that two students, Gabby (a former student) and Noemi (a current student), have received prestigious awards for their poems, which were selected to be in the top 100 2023 Foyle’s Young Poets of The Year Award, which is the most prestigious poetry award for young people. You can read copies of their poems attached below. They attended an exclusive event in London, at Shakespeare's Globe.
Gabby shares her heartfelt and passionate reflections with us in the following article:
This school year has seen excellent attendance at Chess Club, with students from all Years taking part in friendly games, followed by knockout tournaments. The Year 7 tournament was won by Neha in Year 7 and the Year 8 upwards tournament by Saswathi in Year 10.
Over the last year, Mudra in Year 8 has achieved some outstanding success at the National Level Badminton competitions.
At the U13 English National Championships held on 18th and 19th November at the National Badminton Centre in Milton Keynes, she won a Gold medal in the Girls Doubles, a Silver medal in the Girls Singles and a Bronze medal in the Mixed Doubles.
On 2nd and 3rd December, at the Yonex West of Scotland U13 and U17 Junior Championships held at Sir Craig Reedie Badminton Centre, Glasgow, Mudra won a Gold medal in the Girls Doubles in the U13 category, a Gold medal in the Mixed Doubles in the U13 category and reached the quarter-finals in the Girls Singles U17 category.
On Tuesday 14th November, we were excited to launch our Widening Horizons programme for the 2023-24 academic year. Parents and students of girls in Years 3-5 who are in receipt of pupil premium (free school meals), service premium (children with a parent(s) in the British Armed Forces) and who live in our designated area and children in care or previously in care attended an Information Evening at Kendrick School.
From the 15th to 20th October, I attended the Honeywell Leadership Challenge Academy at the U.S. Space and Rocket Centre in Huntsville, Alabama, a course designed to allow students to experience real-world, hands-on activities in aerospace, astronautics, engineering, computing, and other STEM-based activities while also developing our leadership skills.
Following on from National Poetry Day, students were invited to submit poems based on this year’s theme of ‘refuge’. We were highly impressed with the quality of the poems we received interpreting this theme in a wide variety of ways – many students wrote with great empathy and sensitivity about the plight of refugees around the world, but other poems reflected on how refuge can be found in other people, places and books.
On Saturday 14th October, I was invited to the Arc Centre in Winchester for the award ceremony and announcement of the winners of the Hampshire Young Poets Competition 2023 run by Hampshire Cultural Trust and Winchester Poetry Festival
The theme this year was ‘Home.’ I entered this competition back in July with my poem, ‘three boys’ inspired by my dad’s childhood home which I have visited on occasion during trips to India.
Students from all year groups showcased their creative flair on National Poetry Day by writing haiku (a Japanese poetic form comprising three lines and seventeen syllables) and placing them in the English Department’s Haiku Box. A total of 179 haikus were submitted on subjects ranging from nature and the seasons to disability awareness to the canteen at lunchtime!
I recently had the great privilege of visiting Oxford University for the awards ceremony of the John Locke essay competition, where I received a commendation. With over 19,000 participants globally, I wrote an economics essay titled ‘What would happen if we banned billionaires?’ A question which intrigued me as billionaires have a profound impact on the economy even in ways that may not seem related, such as their influence on politics.
Over the summer I had the opportunity to take part in a month-long German language scholarship, run by the Pädagogischer Austauschdienst (educational exchange service) and fully funded by the German government. After the application process, which included essays in German, I was one of ten students from the United Kingdom selected to take part.