In March, English students from Y11 to Y13 gathered for a session on poetry with this year’s visiting poet, Rachael Allen, a published poet, PhD student and online and poetry editor for the magazine, Granta, before some of us were to read own our compositions aloud at the annual Poetry Evening.

The poems we read during the session were all rather unconventional – none of them rhymed, and many of them were laid out in rather strange ways. When we think of poetry, a lot of us think of stereotypical rhyming couplets or iambic pentameter, not of poems without punctuation or arranged in a block of text. However, this session challenged out preconceived ideas that poetry does not have to be as conventional as we may believe.

Putting what we had learned into practice was most definitely the highlight of the session, as we were given some time to compose poems of our own. I chose to write some free verse entitled Internet Friend, taking inspiration from some of the works that we had read in order to be more subtle about writing about a specific event, instead focusing on imagery such as ‘purple potato salad’.

The session with Rachael Allen helped us to realise that writing poetry is a lot more accessible than it seems at first glance – there is no set way to write a poem or express yourself, and the poems read later on proved this as well. Even though some people wrote about exactly the same themes and ideas, all of them came across surprisingly differently. It was particularly interesting to have poems from different year groups juxtaposed next to one another, enabling us to see the range of styles and tones, from humorous to sombre.

The evening came to a close with a speech by Rachel Allen. She spoke about the atypical ways we can describe something or someone in poetry which come across as particularly effective. And for me, happiness is most certainly ‘chasing a plumed goose’, which would no doubt be seen as mad if it wasn’t in a poem.

Elissa Day Y12

In the workshop for Y7-9 with poet Rachael Allen we mainly focused on different forms of metaphor in poetry, reading poems such as A Martian Sends a Postcard Home by Craig Raine, Sometimes Your Sadness is a Yacht, by Jack Underwood and Metaphors by Sylvia Plath.

My favourite poem was A Martian Sends a Postcard Home. It was told from the point of view of an alien who was visiting Earth and writing about all the strange objects it encountered. I liked this poem because it showed how human cultures can be completely baffling to outsiders. We then wrote our poems using metaphors. The workshop was really interesting as Rachael Allen showed how poems don’t need to have explicit meanings and that you might have to dig a bit to understand them.

All the girls were really enthusiastic when reading their poems that evening. Rachael Allen said that she was very impressed and especially liked Kika Hendry’s tear-inducing poem about her sister. Overall it was a wonderful evening for the girls and the audience.

Eilah Kolvin Y7

http://www.jags.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Poetry-Evening-Poems.pdf

Sophie Lewis Ward had a brilliant weekend, selected by the England Racewalking Athletics team to compete in a European competition in the Czech Republic. Sophie finished with a huge personal best and won the silver medal. She also achieved the European Youth Championships qualifying time and is hoping for GB selection for a competition in Georgia over the summer.

Our U14 and U15 Hockey teams are back from a hugely stimulating and successful tour of Holland over Easter. The U14 team won the final in the Masterclass Hockey Tournament and the U15 team won the plate final. Well done.

Athletics Captains: Ella Dennis & Bella Gibbon

Tennis Captains: Sakshi Mangal & Sophia Brummendorf Malsch

Good luck to all our sports players this term. Have fun and thank you for representing the school so well.

It didn’t start too badly, as Wednesdays go, despite, as Y12 Riona puts it, ‘getting on the tube at a ridiculously early hour.’ Good reason, though - to be interviewed by Nick Robinson in a live broadcast on BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme. Riona was there to read aloud her sonnet, her winning entry in the Keats-Shelley Young Romantics prize. Also in the frame was Will Kemp, the adult winner. ‘In the studio I was terrified until I started speaking and then I was fine. I had practised saying the sonnet in my head but I hadn’t read it aloud.’

The sonnet was a direct homage to Keats, in particular the sonnet On First Looking into Chapman's Homer. ‘I gave my teacher, Mrs Edwards some of my poems and she told me that Keats taught himself by writing lots of sonnets, so I thought I’d write a poem for the Keats-Shelley prize after Frankenstein. Usually I’m more spontaneous about my poetry writing. I’ll just work on it till it sounds right, whereas the sonnet made me stop short. I had to work out what rhymes with what, how many syllables I needed, which kind of creates the images for me. Which was actually quite helpful because I’d say, ok, I need this number of syllables for this adjective, so I can’t be too conventional – what works, what can I do, how can I repeat phrases?

The BBC paid for me to go by taxi to the John Murray Historic Rooms in Abermarle St (home of the publisher) where we had a breakfast with the press.  I had to read the sonnet again. A playwright had taken some of the Mary Shelley letters and words from the novel Frankenstein and edited them which the actors Damian Lewis and Helen McCrory read.  Damian Lewis said I read the sonnet really well!’

Later Riona set off for the Royal Festival Hall Function Room for the official prize-giving, with all the winners. ‘I was awarded books and a £750 voucher for a residential course at an Arvon Centre, which will be great fun.

I quite like that I’m a Young Romantic Poet. I studied 18^th and early 19^th century poetry in English and I thought, this is really fun, because I really like Keats, but I hadn’t tried to write like Keats before. It turned out quite well!’

It was an exceptional day! Many congratulations to Riona, whose winning sonnet follows:

Sonnet after Frankenstein

Wreathed in laurels; glossy leaves unfurl, coiled,

The great pale gloaming thing unravels limbs,

Grins, hitches weeping gums wide, growling hymns,

Praising Father, Master, he who slaved, toiled

To build this monstrous structure - he is soiled

With these grimly yellowed stains, he who brims

With boundless love and wonder - awed, he skims

Round flat stones through his father’s

throat - unspoiled.

The night, a temptress, plucks his peeling heart,

Wet, from his dappled chest, as moonlight blinds

Him; stumbling, mismatched, made up of spare parts

And engine oil. He trips, and falls. He finds

Great pale gloaming blooms that feed on the moon:

He wakens not, with frail blossoms strewn.

Celebrating National Shakespeare Week and Shakespeare400, the Prep school enjoyed participating in a wide range of Shakespeare related activities across the curriculum. Y3 wrote acrostic poems based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Y4 created their own Shakespearian insults, Y5 took part in an ‘Active Shakespeare’ workshop focussing on Macbeth and Y6 gave a stellar and highly amusing performance of their own version of Macbeth in assembly.

“My favourite scene was when Macbeth was making terrible promises to the witches just so that they would tell him their secrets. It is weird to think that a man would offer to destroy everything, just for a few snippets of information.” Phoebe Y5

“In the workshop, we explored language and the key to understanding literature is language. By learning all of the words, you can understand what sort of feeling Shakespeare was trying to express in his writing.” Thalia Y5

“One of my favourite scenes is the first one with the witches. I like the scene because it starts off the play in a spooky and mystical way. You can tell it is going to be a dark story.” Uma Y5

Did you spot the JAGS contingent at the London Marathon yesterday? Not only did we see JAGS alumnae Camilla Read and Katherine de Rome, but JAGS Geography teacher Miss Mitchell too! Earlier in the day we were cheering for Megan Basham, Emily Callaghan, Ava Jackson, Bea Doherty, Beth Callaghan, Maisie Ballsdon, Kayah Wilks, Poppy Saunders, Lucy Olsen and Annabelle Evans who competed in the London Mini Marathon, selected to represent their boroughs. Well done everyone. None of the results are on the website yet.

On the ice skating rink, Y8 Rosie Hope has won a Bronze medal in the Junior Solo Short Dance at the Bracknell Solo Dance Competition. Rosie has also recently won Silver in the Copenhagen Dance Cup. She really is one to watch for the future! Congratulations Rosie.

Congratulations to Y8 Nikita Dhatariya who has recently gained her Junior Black Belt in Jujutsu.

Fixture results from last week:

U14 & U15 Athletics v Alleyn’s, Streatham and Sydenham - Won

U12 & U13 Athletics v Alleyn’s and Sydenham - Won

U13 & U15 Aegon Tennis v Croydon and Putney - Lost

After last year’s big success of our exchange programme with the Willy-Brandt-Schule in Munich, we were delighted to welcome and look after another group of German visitors. The German girls quickly adapted to British life and they explored a lot of sights in and around London. They enjoyed their day here at JAGS and commented on the friendly and welcoming atmosphere of our school.

We are looking forward to seeing them again this summer in Munich for the second part of the exchange (July 6 to July 12 2016)

Once upon a time someone dreamt of a scheme where students would spend a year between school and university discovering more about themselves and the world around them. JAGS pupils have seized these gap years with relish which have taken them in so many directions. The 2015 leavers are a case in point: some won coveted places on one-year courses at the Royal Academy of Music and at the Academy of Contemporary Music; also on Art, Media and Design Foundation courses at the Royal Drawing School, at the London College of Communication and at Camberwell, Kingston and Ravensbourne Colleges of Art. We applaud others who won internships in global companies, or got involved in conservation projects, making a difference to the wider community, for example.

Travelling certainly broadens the horizons. Imagine then our pleasure in hearing the good news that Y13 Hattie Seymour has been awarded an amazing scholarship to the US for the next academic year before she goes to Downing College, Cambridge to read Geography in 2017. She will be the Pomona-Downing Scholar, accepted by Pomona College, an American Liberal Arts College in Claremont, California for a fully-funded pre-university year, with all travel and agreed living expenses paid for from the Wilson Endowment. Hattie can’t wait. “I love California! Not only for its diverse geography, but also for its climate!” Hattie will be able to pursue her outdoor interests in wonderful weather.

She’ll be living on campus, taking part in all the extra-curricular activities. There’ll be time to go to the beach, perhaps with her new, American roommate. What a wonderful opportunity to be plunged into American culture for the year. The Pomona-Downing Scholar has the status of a second-year student at Pomona and takes the normal number of four separate courses per semester, helping to broaden the range of options subsequently available at Cambridge. Hattie says she’d like to continue her study of Drama and to start a new language – maybe Spanish, with a trip to Mexico in mind.

We applaud such initiatives. It’s good to see younger girls seeking out such opportunities to broaden their perspective. Y11 Annie Sheriff is waiting to hear whether she’s been accepted on a summer study programme at Yale University. Young Yale Global Scholars, selected from outstanding applicants, live on campus for two weeks and can study technology, innovation and entrepreneurship amongst other things. Does Politics, Law and Economics appeal? International affairs and security? Applied Science and Engineering? Look at the website

Even if you don’t know which direction your career path might lead, it’s good to use such opportunities as a platform from which to launch. Those Y16 leavers who are planning gap years – and about half the year group will be - are taking that on board.

JAGS pupils show A Different Viewpoint at the Royal College of Art     

It was a wonderful show. Congratulations to all those JAGS girls, age from 4-18, whose work was judged and exhibited at the annual Young Art exhibition at the Royal College of Art in April. It’s a unique experience for young artists to have their work publicly displayed at such a prestigious venue and to raise money for Cancer Research UK at the same time. This year’s exhibition was themed ‘A Different Viewpoint’. Special mention to Fatima Siddiqi who was awarded 3rd Prize in the Y10-11 section for her chalk pastel drawing (pictured) – a great achievement given the record 8300 entries.

Fatima used a tower of boxes, curious to see the shadows in the unoccupied space. Her different viewpoint was showing the way the boxes balanced. “I really like working with pastels,” she explains. “They blend the colours really nicely.”

Well done to all the young artists whose fresh ways of looking and bold designs entranced the judges.

From the Pre-Prep: Bella Starkin-Smith Reception (Commended), Olivia Asquith Y2,  Vishali Mistry Reception (Commended), Katherine Sperotto Y2,  Devika Das Reception, Tabitha Bakowski Y2, Lucy Mills Y1 (Commended),  Daniella Amesimeku Y2 (Commended),  Pyale Wifa Y1 (Commended), Florence Mills Y1 (Commended),  Maria Mera Y1 (Highly Commended),  Kayleigh Chan Y2,  Naia Rich Y2.

From the Prep: Y3 Amelie Baden, Yasmin Budd, Sophie Dellis, Jennifer Rates. Y4 Sanvi Agrawal,  Nia Keogh-Peters. Y5 Anjola Adesina, Anna Broadley, Santa Heaton, Onora Howard, Ola Kiezun, Mimi Lee. Y6 Elena Christev, Polina Ekaette, Florence Hately, India Hansra, Amelie Lührs, Louise Maignan, Rachael Proctor, Emma Postlewhite, Alexia Raymond, Ahrianrhod Thomas.

From the Senior School: Katie Kassam Y12, Georgina Byworth-Morgan Y12,  Lara Howard Y12, Ella Tatham Y12, Ilse Henderson Y12, Lily Burgess-Stones Y11, Olivia Gautel Y12, Lucy Bean Y9,  Tobore Azukaeme  Y9, Isabel Dudlyke Y9

We are delighted to announce that Mrs Elizabeth Channon has been appointed as Head of the Pre-Prep at JAGS with effect from 31 August 2016. Mrs Channon is currently Deputy Head of Sydenham High Junior School where she has taught since 2001. She currently teaches Reception and has previously taught Year 1 and Year 2, so is a very experienced teacher and leader. Mrs Channon is married with two young children and we look forward to welcoming the whole family to the JAGS community.

This follows news that, after ten years’ hugely active service, Mrs Sue Saunders is retiring as Head of the Pre-Prep at the end of this term. We look forward to the opportunity to acknowledge Mrs Saunders’ dedication and experience, celebrating her time at JAPS in the forthcoming weeks.

Watching astronaut Tim Peake running the marathon in space was remarkable. Here’s another space story to make you marvel. Y12 Rahma Alfarsy has more reason than most to follow the progress of Falcon 9 on NASA’s tv channel, as she explains:

“In the summer of 2013, I took part in a week long programme at King's College, London called Mission Discovery. The main aim of the week was to design a biochemical experiment to be sent to space. It had to be simple, original, beneficial and cheap. My friend Alice and I were in a group and, after thinking of several ideas, we finally found one that fitted the criteria. My idea was to see whether biological decomposers called saprophytes worked better in microgravity environments such as space. We were hoping this would help tackle the problem of organic waste disposal on board the International Space Station (ISS) as currently NASA is spending billions of dollars getting rid of it. Moreover, our experiment was incredibly cheap.

We presented our experiment to the judges and we were overjoyed to hear that we won. In the Easter holidays, we returned to King's College to set up our experiment and pack it up to send to SpaceX in Cape Canaveral. 8 April was launch day! We watched with wonder as our experiment aboard the Dragon capsule was being launched into space by the Falcon 9 rocket. It arrived 36 hours later at the ISS where the Dragon was captured by Tim Peake. Our experiment was initiated four days later by astronaut Jeff Williams and we will be observing the progress of the saprophytes over the next month and comparing the results with the control experiment here on Earth.” Y12 Rahma Alfarsy

Well done to Katherine in Y2 whose entry for the World Book Day Design a Book Token competition won first prize both in the Up to 8 years category as well as overall winner for the whole competition. What an achievement given that there were over 20,000 entries. Katherine can now look forward to seeing her wonderfully creative design of a book blossoming plant made into a real book token, plus spending the £100 book token she won!

Katherine says she really loves reading and is currently enjoying “Enid Blyton books especially The Mystery Series. I like that they are really exciting in the middle part of the story.”

“When I heard I had won I thought wow! I can’t believe I won against so many people.”

For more information and to see Katherine’s winning design

Spring is a good time to plant seeds….but there’s added excitement for Y7 as they watch the seeds germinate. Rocket Science is giving 10,000 UK schools the opportunity to engage their pupils in a UK-wide live science experiment to contribute to our knowledge of growing plants in space. Miss Parker’s Y7 Physics/Biology class are taking part in this global experiment planting seeds from Tim Peak in the International Space Station that have been in micro gravity for 6 months. We are investigating the effect microgravity has on germination and growth. We’ll let you know what happens!

Like other schools UK wide, we will enter our results in a bespoke microsite so that they can be collated and analysed by professional biostatisticians. Each participating school has received 100 seeds that have been on the ISS and 100 seeds that have remained on Earth. The seed packets will be colour-coded; however schools will not be told which packet contains which seeds until national results have been published.

Huge congratulations to Y10 Julia Mellers who won a GB competition last weekend and has now been selected as one of five to compete in the Optimist World Sailing Championships in Portugal over the summer.

Congratulations to the 10 girls who represented JAGS at the Surrey Tennis Festival last week. They played some superb tennis and there were some fabulous results. Elizabeth Boeckman and Kaitlin Stangroome reached the semi-finals and Emily Smith and Sakshi Mangal reached the final of the competition. This meant that our senior couple finished as runners up in Surrey.

Jamie Errington and Maddie Smith have both been selected for the Junior Regional Performance Centre for Hockey, a fantastic achievement.

Leah Baxter reached the National U16 Netball Finals with her club last weekend. They played some outstanding netball and finished as 5^th in the country! Well done.

Fixture results from last week:

 Y7 Tennis v Alleyn’s - Won

Y10 Tennis v Alleyn’s - Won

Y9 Tennis v Alleyn’s - Lost

Y8 Rounders v Streatham - A team Won,  B team Won,  C team Lost,  D team Won

Y7 Rounders v Alleyn’s - A team Won,  B team Won,  C team Lost,  D team Won

“In mid-April, five Y12 girls had the opportunity to attend the Women of the Future Event at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in Central London.  This programme aims to integrate sixth formers with inspirational female ambassadors. Not only was it a fascinating place to be in – the Durbar Court was very exciting for the history students amongst us – but we heard from some motivational women.

The afternoon started with speeches from five women from completely different subject areas. They ranged from Junior Research Fellow in Physics at Oxford to a female football coach to the former Ambassador to Afghanistan who is now the Chief Operating Officer at the FCO. Each woman talked about their jobs and in particular, women in their line of work. After a short break – and some delicious muffins – the founder of the programme, Pinky Lilani, spoke to us. Having moved from India to London to get married, she has achieved many incredible things.

The main objective of the evening was to allow us to network with female ambassadors. There were hundreds from all different jobs and backgrounds - there were some jobs that I had never heard of! I have to say, a highlight of the evening was meeting the Private Undersecretary to the Duke of Cambridge. The ambassadors were only too happy to talk to us about our futures, what their jobs involved, how to cope with stress, how to do the right work experience, etc. It was a very beneficial evening and I think I speak for us all when I say we have profited greatly from the wealth of knowledge these women had.”

Rachel Cordery Y12

"Last week 17 girls, Miss Raimes and Mrs Lynn went on their Prize trip to Mallydams Wood in Hastings. We won the prize for being the Outstanding Roots & Shoots School 2016. The wood is also home to the RSPCA Rehabilitation Centre.

We had rather a long coach journey to get there but it was worth it. When we arrived, we had a slide show about what the RSPCA do, and then we camouflaged each other with face paint. Then we played predator in the wood where one group had to try and hide from the other group. We were the ‘cubs’ because we were the youngest group. The Y6s were the Alphas, and the Y5s were the seekers.

We saw redwood trees with spongy, hairy bark. Did you know that Redwood trees are the biggest trees in the whole of the world? Then we played a survival game, where we had to find boxes which were full of bits that would help us to live on a desert island. Do you know that to filter water, you can put sand in a sock, and a bung of cotton wool. When you run the water through, it filters the water ….yuk (cheesy water!).

The most exciting part was seeing the rehabilitation centre. First we saw baby birds, swans, a red throated diver, and gulls. The gulls had pecked at each other and had injured each other. We then saw seals; one had a swollen flipper, and the other looked very happy and was about to be set free. One group saw some baby foxes which had been orphaned. We also saw the bird cleaning centre for oiled birds. There was a room for cleaning, with lots of spray showers and baths with towels so that the birds didn’t slip. The next room was a drying room for birds, with some hairdryers. It was really interesting to see the Centre and how they care for the injured animals. Although we didn’t see too many animals, it was kind of good because we knew that there weren’t many injured animals suffering." Ella and Sophie Y4

Over 100 children from 4 different schools took part in our annual Cross Country competition. It was a great competition, keenly run by all girls taking part.

The Y3s got off to a flying start with Anna Forster being the first of our runners to cross the line, finishing 1st and Scarlet Chatterjee crossing the line in 2nd place. In Y4, Trinity Shaw dominated the race and won comfortably. The Y4 team won their age group overall and were delighted with their trophy! The Y5s and Y6s ran double the distance and continued to gain individual medals. In Y5, Annabella Bailey led from the start showing blistering pace and was the clear winner! Gabrielle Stein also had a great race and crossed the line in 2nd place. In Y6, we had a clean sweep of medals with a 1-2-3! Phoebe Bowen, Louise Maignan and Alice King finished 1st, 2nd & 3rd respectively! This result meant they also won their age group.

There were a number of wonderful individual performances throughout the afternoon but JAPS also had great depth too in the team and we narrowly finished 2nd overall! Well done girls!

Congratulations to the four girls who competed last week at the IAPS Swimming Finals at the K2 Leisure Centre. Every girl performed really well, with all of them beating their personal best time. The results were: The Freestyle relay team of Polly Roberts, Olivia Ellender, Daisy Ludden and Eloise Jannaway swam a time of 1:01.47; they came 9th in the country. Olivia Ellender swam 50m Backstroke and swam a time of 36.60 and came 10th in the country. Daisy Ludden swam 50m Breaststroke with a time of 43.00 and came 12th in the country. Well done to all the girls on such impressive results in a national competition.

It’s not often that we have a resident composer in school, nor a world première to perform. We are so lucky that Mr Peter Gritton chose the concert at St John’s Smith Square to share the joy of his latest composition: the GREAT BIG Little Symphony, performed in its entirety for the very first time, by a combined orchestra from the middle and senior schools.

 Y12 Aisling Heneghan and Rosa Juritz interviewed the composer for the forthcoming jags mag. Here’s part of what he told them:

 Q When did you decide to write a symphony?

A I decided to write it about three years ago, and it was two years ago that I started to sketch it out on my honeymoon. On the aeroplane to Borneo, I started to write the themes for the first movement, and on the honeymoon I had ideas that came from where I was, such as noises I heard in the jungle, which can also be heard in the second movement. The third movement was conjured up by the thought that there were pirates, even today, out on the seas where we were. And the final movement, I completed as the plane was coming in to land at Heathrow airport!

The Great Big Little Symphony is now on youtube at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNzp2XrGAHE

The Prep school was delighted to welcome Tim Keyes, Trustee of the Himalayan Trust to update us on his trip to Deurali School, in Nepal. Also attending this special assembly were Y7 girls from JAGS who helped so much with the fundraising effort last year.

Tim told us all about his trip to Kathmandhu in March, during which he was able to experience first-hand the terrible devastation from last year’s earthquake. Once they had left Kathmandhu, Tim and his friends made the arduous trek up to the little school in Deurali, accompanied by porters who were laden with rucksacks, hygiene kits and umbrellas – all of which had been bought in Nepal using some of the money JAPS raised last year. Tim shared with the girls some moving pictures of the little school, and the delighted children receiving their new kit.

Tim was full of praise for the little school, whose headmistress has to climb 2000 feet and travel for 3 hours each day to get to her school, and then another2 hour descent at the end of her day! She was thrilled to receive the letters from our Y4 pupils, which she will be using in her classes!

The school itself will be rebuilt next year, but organization over in Nepal is a little chaotic, and Tim said that building work cannot get going until after the monsoon season…But he expects to see work starting in three months time!

Tim made a short film about his visit showing the pupils of Deurali School receiving their rucksacks.

Watch the film here

Well done to the following girls who came in the top three at the recent Y7 Bromley Championships. There were over 30 girls in each event so this is a tremendous achievement:

Emily Callaghan – 1^st in 70m Hurdles

Gabby Bromfield – 1^st in High Jump

Ella Coates – 1^st in Long Jump

Ella Ransley – 1^st in 100m

Anna Macchi – 2^nd in 800m

Maudie Miles – 2^nd in Long Jump

Lillian Wood – 2^nd in 70m Hurdles & 3^rd in Long Jump

Domini Fatuga – 3^rd in 200m

Congratulations to the Y7, 8 & 9 Athletics teams who won the Southwark Championships last week. 17 of them came home wearing Gold medals! Over 25 girls have now been selected to represent Southwark at the London Schools’ Championships in June. Well done everyone!

Fixture results from last week:

Senior Tennis v Alleyn’s - Won

U13 Tennis v Alleyn’s - Won

U12 Tennis v Alleyn’s - Won