of the excellent work that the pupils produced. Similarly, those of you who attended the Art and Design show will have noted the incredible display of talent on show but I’m sure couldn’t help but notice the resilience required to produce their sketchbooks - with the constant drafting and re-drafting that is needed to produce their final pieces. It is not surprising, therefore, that we gained a 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize at the Annual Canterbury Art Prize competition and also that two individual and one collaborative piece are being exhibited at the Turner Contemporary, after being shortlisted for prizes in their respective age categories. We have also seen some superb Drama performances this year, with Lodge maintaining their grip on the House Drama and excellent productions of A Christmas Carol for our Kirby players and Romeo and Juliet for our Senior Production. A number of these pupils have also progressed to studying for their Bronze and Silver Arts Awards this year, through Trinity College. The number of LAMDA results are a testament to the strength of drama and performance throughout the school and similarly the number of pupils who gained medals and trophies at the Thanet Festival is our highest ever.
It was lovely to hear the Community Choir’s rendition of Vivaldi’s Gloria, as well as the highly popular and successful Cabaret Night this year. The range of music on display has been wonderful to see and through informal and formal concerts, the steel drumming workshop, Broadway acting class on the New York Trip, House singing and Battle of the Bands, there has been something for everyone! The Duke of Edinburgh award is designed to develop resilience and to enhance life skills, environmental awareness and an understanding of community. Last month, as with last year, all of our 4th Form pupils completed their Bronze DofE expedition and are all now able to gain the award (as long as they complete the paperwork!) It is also very pleasing that our first cohort of Silver expeditions, under the new framework, completed their expeditions this week and once complete, we are hoping that some of them will move on to their Gold Awards in the Sixth form. The 3rd Form CCF Camp have just returned and 40 of our cadets have taken part in Fieldcraft, Patrolling, Rifle Shooting, Adventure Training and a Survival Skills Day. The CCF have also offered Field Days throughout the year and the CCF Dinner was an excellent example of our pupils being taught the importance of etiquette, tradition and manners as well as the importance of looking after your guests. We have certainly shown a great deal of resilience on the sports pitches this year and this has been ably led by the example of our current Upper Sixth , six of whom have played internationally – which is 10% of our Upper Sixth leavers! Whilst there have been some outstanding individual performances, we have also had great success with our team performances. Our 1st XI girls’ and boys’ teams both made it to the last 16 in the country in
their National Cup competitions and featured in the regional finals of the national indoor hockey cup. Our U14 boys’ rugby team and U15 girls’ hockey teams both registered undefeated seasons and our U12 cricket team are into the finals of the Kent Cup next week. Last week, our U15 girls cricket team, after beating top schools such as Brighton College, Bromley High, Cranleigh and Surbiton High progressed to the National Finals Day as South East Champions. We have also developed a relationship with St Benedict’s School in Johannesburg, which saw an exchange of pupils, with 5 of our pupils spending 6 weeks in South Africa playing rugby or cricket and getting to experience the different culture and sporting provision. Since Covid, the School has had to show a great deal of resilience through its financial recovery and I know that this is a theme that a number of our parents have had to contend with as well. Unfortunately for the College, there are still a number of threats on the horizon, as a change in Government could result in the loss of Business Rate Relief and the imposition of VAT on school fees. Schools such as ours are charities, employing a lot of people in the local area, giving access to education that a number of people would not otherwise be able to access through our extensive scholarship and bursary programme, and by virtue of the fact that any profits made by the school are reinvested back into the College. The energy crisis hit all of us, however, to gain greater resilience in our finances, we are embarking on a programme of solar panel installation next week, which means that at least a third of our peak power usage will be able to be produced though solar PV next year. Not only will this safeguard us against future energy issues, but it is also a good step forward towards net zero carbon, which is an aim that the school has. We have already reduced the vast majority of our single use plastics throughout the College, changed our lighting to LED and looked at our recycling capabilities.
Another area of our academic curriculum that we have been working on this year are the external competitions that enrich and develop our pupils. Our performances in the various Science and Maths Olympiads continue to yield excellent results, and we also gained great success in the New College of the Humanities essay competition, in which 75% of our Lower Sixth entries were awarded the position of finalist – which means they were among the top 6% of over 4500 entries. We have also recently had the results of the National Design Ventura competition, in which 4 of our pupils gained Third place in the Independent and International Schools category, with their design of a kitchen utensil with 5 inter-changeable heads on a bamboo handle. After being shortlisted, they had to refine and develop their product and produce a three minute video pitch. Our 3rd Form poster competition developed further this year with even more entries, from topics such as plastic pollution in the seas, concussion in rugby, the application of mathematics, architectural developments and microscopic creatures called tardigrades! Academic extension has also been developed through our programmes of scholar’s lunches, where pupils have explored topics such as ‘Chemistry, Obesity and Chocolate’, ‘an Introduction to Archetypes’ and ‘Thinking Skills’. All of our scholars are now involved in our peer mentoring programme and helping others to develop their skills. We also recently introduced a new cross-curricular day for our 4th Form in which small groups of pupils had to produce a newspaper by collecting stories that were breaking throughout the day, or attending scheduled press conferences around the campus. Those of you that attended our academic fair would have seen examples
We also gained good recognition for our music in the Thanet Festival, winning five of the classes and the number of our pupils who are gaining merits and distinctions in their music examinations is also impressive.
LAWRENTIAN 2023
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