Category: Senior School News

Over the last two weeks, members of the FitzGerald Society (Woodbridge’s Junior Oxbridge Programme) have been meeting to discuss James Whorton, The Arsenic Century. Pupils considered the mass use of arsenic in wallpaper and fabric colourants, as well as modern analogies. The level of industrial poisoning in Victorian times caused some surprise, as well as the ease with which arsenic was added to beer, sweets and cakes. Fortunately, the cake which graced our proceedings was guaranteed arsenic-free…

The next FitzGerald event will be the Alan Turing Cryptography Competition, run by the University of Manchester. This will be followed by a moot (mock law trial). Logic puzzles and problem-solving books are also available to borrow over Christmas.

Last Saturday seven Woodbridge School athletes were in Oxford to compete in an annual Southern Inter County cross country championship against the fourteen counties that make up the might of the South of England in running terms.

We are delighted to report that young Ruby V brilliantly defended the title she won last year, retaining the South of England Inter County U13 Girls’ title.

Recovering from a head cold, Ruby made a steady albeit out of character start, before powering away from the best athletes in the South to win by a clear 10 seconds. This was a truly amazing performance, and Ruby has an exciting few months ahead in the build-up to the National Championships.

Other exceptional performances on the day came from Kit E-L who was 16th in the U15 boys (just 46 seconds from the lead after 4km of tough cross country) and Nathan G who was 21st in the U17 men (also just 46 seconds from the lead this time after 5km of cross country).

All of our other athletes representing Suffolk on the day finished in the top 100. April H and Amy G in the U15 girls (who also happened to be first and second Suffolk finishers), Charlie T in the U15 Boys and Alex E-L in the U17 Men.

Congratulations to all of the athletes who now enjoy a well-earned break from racing.

The last game of the season was upon us… that, and a long journey to Ely. The boys were in good spirits looking to add another scalp to their successful season, but things didn’t quite go to plan as missed tackles gave King’s the early lead. The second half effort was greatly improved with more bite to the Woodbridge defence and some quick hands in attack, Sam B and Toby N scoring the Woodbridge tries. Unfortunately the side left themselves too much to do from the first half and ended up defeated. Well done to Alfie G for a man of the match performance.

A chance to finish the season with a bang was given to the U13 A team on a freezing cold Wednesday afternoon. Woodbridge played a mixed game with some moments of magic and some rather more scrappy rugby but were comfortably good enough to win. George N produced a superb dummy and run to score a try; Fazil ran in another hat trick to add to his impressive tally for the season; Erwan scored a try but most impressively made numerous try saving tackles all game; and Theo used his impressive side-step to get himself over the line for a try. The squad finished off the season with a 30-10 win and are looking forward to a restful Christmas break. The team expressed their wishes to thank Mr Boyle for his hard work with his help this season.

The Girls’ First team continued their good run of form against Culford, delivering a very entertaining display to win 5-0.

Having weathered the early Culford storm well, Woodbridge started to build momentum, and it wasn’t long before they took the lead: a clinical finish at the far post by Victoria, perfectly set up by Georgia.  A little later, Ianthe made it 2-0 from a penalty corner to give Woodbridge a good cushion at half time.  This can be a dangerous score in sport and Woodbridge were determined to be the first team to score in the second half.  A series of attacks resulted in a penalty corner and a great move was put away by a deflection from Harriet, who then doubled her tally five minutes later in similar fashion.  Woodbridge played with flair, moving the ball around through the defenders and midfield and really working on maintaining possession, choosing the right time to go forward.  The team played with speed and passion and deservedly ended on a high, a string of penalty corners on the final whistle seeing the whole team involved in trying to get one more goal, achieved at last by Sophie G.

Well done to each player on a near-perfect performance and good game by everyone.  Player of the match went to two-time scorer, Harriet.

A large contingent of students gave up their lunch break on Wednesday 29 November to fill the SLT and listen to the latest History Society debate. Chris Long, Ellie Bakewell and Ellie Kilburn proposed that ‘This house believes that we should reduce the voting age to 16?’  Opposing the motion were the formidable Maud Peel and Lucy French. We heard that 16 year olds are so impacted upon by our government’s decisions that they have the right to determine who represents them. However for many it was considered that at 16 young people have insufficient maturity and life experience to make such a momentous decision. When put to the audience the motion was carried by only one single vote. Well done to all those involved and thank you to all those who attended.

On Saturday 1 December, over thirty Woodbridge School athletes competed at Ipswich High in the second Suffolk Schools Cross Country trial, having qualified through the first trial in October.  And they produced an outstanding set of results despite the constant rain. In summary:

Four individual medals: golds to Amy and April, silver to Nathan and bronze to George.

12 top 8 positions (the Suffolk Team comprises 8 in each age group to compete at England Schools in March).

15 top 16 positions (a wider Suffolk Team is selected to compete at Anglian Schools in February).

24 athletes qualify by right to compete in the final Suffolk trial to be hosted by Woodbridge School on 10 January (Top 40 finish).

These numbers exclude two of our superstars who were ill or injured and who, together with a few other runners close to qualifying, will be granted byes to the final trial.

Congratulations to every athlete that represented Woodbridge School so well in difficult conditions. The results are just rewards for all the hard work you are putting in and everyone should be extremely proud of their performance.

Full results as follows (with apologies for one or two missing placings):

Minor Girls:

• 8 Eloise
• 10 Rose
• 17 Lara
  And close behind, Millie and Sasha

Minor Boys:

• 5 Ethan
• 15 James
• 35 Jack
• 46 Arthur
  And close behind, John and Will

Junior Girls:

• 1 Amy
• 21 Anna
• 27 Isobel

Junior Boys:

• 7 Henry
• 19 Edward
• 23 Jonny
• 48 Fazil

Inter Girls:

• 1 April
• 5 Jess
• 10 Bea
• 22 Ella
• 27 Ashleigh

Inter Boys:

• 3 George
• 4 Charlie
• 6 Kit
• 28 Tom

Senior Girls:

• 6 Sarah

Senior Boys:

• 2 Nathan
• 5 Alex

I know that a couple of hours in the Dome at Woodbridge listening to speeches and applauding the year’s prize winners is not everyone’s dream Saturday morning.  But now I am retired I can choose not to attend, except that as OW president I am invited and so it seems churlish not to accept.  I was honoured last year to have a prize for French awarded, bearing my name, so I was keen to see who followed the worthy first winner, James Bellhouse (2017).

I was thrilled to discover that the French prize went to Gabriella Zins (2018) whom I knew to be another worthy recipient, simply from seeing her in language competitions, on exchanges and study trips not just in France but also in Spain.  Gabby is going on to study chemistry at Birmingham University, not surprisingly with a year abroad included; I hope she will choose France for that.

What I had not realised is that my youngest tutees in my last year of teaching had left school and they were both prizewinners too.

Alyssa Hedley (2018) won the Psychology Prize and will go on to study that subject at the University of East Anglia.  It was good to hear of the many other accomplishments she developed over her time at Woodbridge, including acting (she was a hilarious librarian last time I saw her) and playing the flute, on which I heard her play a solo at Snape Maltings.  She also helped out as a classroom assistant at Thomas Wolsey School in Ipswich.

Adam Wildbore (2018) won the Hewlett Cup for all-round contribution to school life.  In addition to A levels which are leading him to Exeter University to study geography, Adam managed to complete his gold Duke of Edinburgh award, was a sports leader and managing director of Young Enterprise, represented the school and the region in a range of sports and spoke at the Model United Nations in Paris.

I was so pleased that the final remaining members of B-GBB and the winner of the French prize were so successful at school and it was good to see these fresh new OWs once again; I wish them all the very best for their degrees and beyond.

There will be some people out there who don’t realise just how exciting maths is.  Add in an element of competition and the joy would be complete for Jonathan and John from Year 13 and Brendan and Jake from Year 12, our wonderful senior maths team.  All they had to do was to get to Northgate and answer a series of fiendish questions, against the clock and often ‘in relay’ (working in pairs, one pair providing a solution to a problem which itself enabled the other pair to answer theirs, to open up a third problem to the first pair… and so on).  It was cracking good fun!

We were one of the top fourteen schools from Suffolk and Essex vying for a place in the national final, and vie we did… 90% in the first round; amongst the top six going into the final round (with no idea of where in the six we were…); and then the final relay round… and a good start… four ‘races’ to complete… and the first was perfection!  The second was … nearly.  The third… was a little harder.  The fourth?  Don’t ask.

But we had enjoyed ourselves!  It’s the taking part after all…  And so to the announcement of the top three.  Third Framlingham; second Woodbridge!  You could have knocked us down with a feather (and not just because we were so mentally exhausted); and first (perennial winners) Colchester RGS (next year…).  So our best result for years if not ever and a fantastic achievement delivered with genuine enthusiasm and received with astonishment and humility.  Mr Streat was so over-excited that he forgot to take a picture, so you’ll have to imagine our happy smiles as we proudly held our certificates.  He also thereafter very nearly ran Jonathan over in the car park, which would have been a shame, and scant reward for Jonathan’s sterling efforts all evening.

Fables and Fairy tales

We all know the stories… don’t we?

It’s wonderful to be captured unawares, and right from the first moments so we the audience were caught – by a freeze-frame quartet: ensembles at the ready, caught, in their turn, between books and their own imaginings…

And then a moment of reflection – a clever device to introduce both cast and intention as we saw our stars-to-be on the big screen, preparing to tread the boards: the usual thespian route of stage to screen turned upside down.

And thereafter it was the joy of performance: The Golden Goose (was anyone else waiting for a golden egg?) caught me unawares – I didn’t know the story! That laughter should win the day was as it should be (though, as with the best fairy stories, it’s dark laughter at heart, just to keep you on your toes).  Rumpelstiltskin ran and romped, and the weaving was done to perfection… but what else was captured by the intertwining threads?  Ah yes; nothing is simple.  And nothing was simple for the misused and wishful Catskin either.  So nearly everything lost, but everything won in the end (though the old man may disagree): our happiest ending?  The Hare and the Hedgehog, and the defeat of hubris, looked set fair to trump it – victory to the underdog and lots of laughter on the way… only for a tragedy to tip the balance and draw the worst from the best.  And so the moral of our night exploring the medieval imagination is?  Modesty, humility and dignity in your victories; and much the same in all your trials and tribulations!  Yes, please!  And what a fine example our cast and crew set: terrific in their endeavours, marvellous in their performances, and dignified in their gratitude for their audience’s warm, lengthy and well-deserved applause.