This year we celebrated an incredible 147 years of Kendrick, 147 years of girls' education! Kendrick School, came into existence in 1877. It is named after its founder, John Kendrick who was a 17th century merchant and clothier left a bequest, a sum of money – some £12,000 to the towns of Reading and Newbury to provide employment and education for girls and boys. In 1877, our school first opened in Watlington House, in Watlington Street.
On 4th July, we held our mock election, which mirrored the general election, in order to give students an insight into how the electoral system works as well as into each party's political ideologies and manifestos for the 2024 general election.
The four parties involved were the Labour Party, Conservative Party, Liberal Democrats and Green Party. Each party prepared a campaign video to present to the school, outlining the policies from their manifesto and plans as the incumbent party, alongside posters put up around the school in the lead up to the election. The candidates for each party also went to form rooms and presented their manifesto to students to inform them of the upcoming election and encourage them to exercise their right to vote.
Founded in 1923, All England Dance (AED) is a biennial dance festival that celebrates dancers aged from three to twenty-one years. Performers qualify through a network of nationwide nominated festivals to participate in one of the five Regional Finals. I started competing at AED when I was eight years old, and it is one that I hold very close to my heart. This year I was fortunate enough to take part once again. It is always wonderful to see all the dancers perform in their different styles, and I am incredibly grateful to have won the National Finals at the competition this summer.
9C and their English teacher, Mr Dilley, were overjoyed to discover that they were this year's winners of the UK Literacy Association's Our Class Loves This Book award for their work on Manjeet Mann's The Crossing. This prize is awarded jointly to a class and their teacher, and Kendrick School is the first ever secondary school to have won this national competition.
The Poets’ Society, The Poets’ Editorial Team and The Poets’ Communications Team proudly present the fourth poetry anthology! This special launch celebrates the importance of taking writing seriously and this anthology marks how poetry has evolved at Kendrick School over the years. One of my missions as the founder of this society was to peel back the layers that young people might have to write creatively and to re-gift this as an option for them to express what is important to them and their world. The love for poetry and the number of students who have actively participated in it through competitions, author workshops, seminars, and talks has increased massively – which is fantastic!
Readathon Club, which includes over 20 students from Year 7 all the way through to Year 12 along with several keen staff members, has just finished making its way through its second classic novel, Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. In Terms 3 & 4 we enjoyed A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, but after all the violence and bloodshed of revolutionary France, it was a relief to switch to something more civilised and genteel. Austen’s first published novel follows the sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood as they grow up and fall in love.
Chess has been very popular throughout the year, with the standard of play steadily increasing as students take part in online tournaments as well as a live competition.
Throughout the school year there have been 2 online tournaments:
ShePlaysToWin: for Girls Schools across the UK, taking place once a short term. The KENDRICK team have dominated play, always amongst the top teams. They are in overall FIRST place after the final tournament which took place on June 26th.
On our MFL German trip, we explored many different, lesser known parts of Germany, and we all learnt more about German culture through this experience. We strengthened our language skills and understanding of German culture, while having fun as a group through all the varied activities we did, many of which we had never tried before.
The trip was split into two groups on our arrival: one stayed in Sankt Goar, the other in Kaub, two towns along the Rhine river. We all completed the same activities, but on different days for the first three days.
A few weeks ago, Year 10 had the pleasure of going on our MFL trips to France and Germany. We went to Tours in France and stayed with our host families, who were extremely welcoming and patient with our French-speaking skills.
We set off early on Sunday morning, at 6.00 am, and although many of us were tired, we felt extremely excited to be heading on our way. We arrived at the meeting point in Tours, full of anticipation about meeting our families. After we had properly introduced ourselves at our homes, we ate our delicious first dinners, glad to be in safe and welcoming hands.
On Tuesday 25th and Wednesday 26th June, we were delighted to welcome the award-winning poet Luke Wright to inspire many of our poets. Luke is the author of twelve books and travels the country performing his work – after Reading (where he was also performing with John Cooper Clarke at Reading Town Hall), his next stop was Glastonbury Festival!
Last week, Mrs Cooper and Mrs Nicholson took twelve very talented Kendrick students from Years 10, 11 and 12 to visit The Avenue School in Reading to perform some music and songs for the students there as part of Kendrick’s outreach work. It was a lovely sunny day and our students were able to perform outside as part of a summer festival at The Avenue which the children looked to be thoroughly enjoying.
On Wednesday 12th June, ten teams of three students each competed in the annual Royal Society of Chemistry Analyst Competition 2024. This Chemistry challenge aims to provide some tasks which are relatively familiar to students, such as titrations and others that are likely to be unfamiliar, such as chromatographic separations and molecular spectroscopy. The competition allows Year 12 students to demonstrate and expand on their existing knowledge of Chemistry, skills and aptitude for analytical science through practical analytical experiments based on relevant societal or industrial problems.