radley newsletter 18

2 T H E R A D L E Y N E W S L E T T E R

Under the direction of former don, Max Horsey, the Radley Video Unit continues to go from strength to strength.

A team of Radleians from all year-groups work together to film and produce an increasing number of recordings every term. Their work involves not

RADLEY VI DEO UNIT

only operating the very latest filming equipment, like the sophisticated ‘Quadcopter’, but also using jibs and sound equipment at major College plays, concerts, sporting and other significant events, like the BBC-inspired ‘Question Time’ held in May.

The Unit is also increasingly making feature films, scripted, directed and filmed by boys themselves.

The Radleians involved are amassing a wealth of skills, which will prove invaluable experience for any boy wishing to go into the industry. The

T H E R A D L E Y N E W S L E T T E R 3

RADLEY VI DEO UNIT

Video Unit itself is, in addition, acquiring a bank of the latest technical equipment, nearly all funded by the sales of previous videos produced.

So successful is the Video Unit that it is increasingly in demand at other schools and organisations, such as the

Scouts’ “Gang Show”, who wish to have their plays and shows recorded.

To view the latest examples of its output, please see:

www.radley.org.uk/VideoGallery and www.radleyvideo.co.uk


In March, Radleians learned about Robert Hooke, the ‘English Leonardo’. The centre-piece of the event was a first edition of his ‘Micrographia’. A visiting theatre company performed a play, ‘Hanging Hooke’, in the studio theatre and Dr William Poole from New College Oxford spoke on Hooke to a packed Coffee Shop.

Speakers: It was another thrilling year for lectures. Highlights included: Captain Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown, the subject of a recent BBC documentary, gave a spell-binding talk on his wartime and flying experiences. Sculptor, Kevin Dagg, explained how his work ‘Breaking Point’, had its origins in images of the treatment of prisoners at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. Roger McGough spoke about his poetry.

Academic A-levels: Radley’s A*-B total at A2 (which will rise once all re-marks are in) was 89.35%. 17 boys gained three or more A* grades and there were some outstanding performances. The School’s A*/A total was 62.93%, compared with 59.85% last year. The number of A* grades was 126/526 (23.95%): even better than in the record year of 2012, which saw 22.4% A*. The Maths Department was responsible for 42 of these.

GCSEs: The GCSE and IGCSE results saw, before re-marks, 86.16% A*/A grades. These are better than GCSE results in 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2011. This year’s A*s were 52.54%, compared with 52.16 in 2013.

17 boys received Oxbridge places, the best figures since 2009: Christopher Baird (Cumnor House, a), Bertie Beor-Roberts (Cothill, h), Jack Brocklehurst (Ardvrek Prep, b), Bertie Brown (Horris Hill, j), Alexander Budd (Bedford Prep, b), Tom Gibbs (Ludgrove, j), Angus Graham (Swanbourne House. d), Euan Graham (Swanbourne House, d), Hugo Hesselgren (Westminster Under, e), Alexander Johnstone (Ludgrove, c), Charlie Karsten (Cheam, c), Charles Larminie (Elstree, h), Alec Murray Brown (Dragon, j), George Nikov (h), Edward Rees (Mouslford, j), Sam Ringer (Winchester House, b) and Toby Swift (Caldicott, f).

In the Remove ‘Biology Challenge’, nine boys achieved Gold Certificates (George Elworthy, j), Charlie Williams (Ashfold, b), Sebastian Berger (Dragon, b), Joshua Bowesman-Jones (Foremarke Hall, j), Johnny Dewhurst (Brockhurst, f), Merlin Williams (Summer Fields, a), Harry Campion (Cothill, h), Freddie Elwes (Cothill, j), Lysander Sandberg (Ludgrove, g); 14 boys achieved Silver and 26 achieved Bronze. In the 6.1 ‘Biology Olympiad’: Dan Chirita (g) achieved a Gold Certificate; Georgi Nikov (h) and Thomas Stanley (Dragon, b) achieved Silver; Michael Bell (Wetherby Prep, e) Bronze.

6.2 featured in the 2014 Chemistry Olympiad. Bertie Brown (Horris Hill, j), Georgi Nikov (h) and Sam Ringer (Winchester House, b) all achieved Gold medals and a further eight gained Silver medals. Bertie Brown, Sam Ringer, Georgi Nikov also gained Gold medals in the Cambridge Chemistry Challenge, along with Ed Rees (Moulsford, j) and Jack Woollett (Cheam, b).

Harry Constant (Pilgrims’, b) won the Senior Prose section of the Oxford Area Classical Association Reading Competition. 32 Removes and Dons visited Rome and the Bay of Naples on the annual Classics study tour.

A level students hosted the Institute of Economic Affairs Student Conference in February.

The Remove Geographers returned to Iceland over Easter, enjoying the magical experience of exploring this volcanic island. Eight 6.1 boys travelled to China in July, for the inaugural ‘Geo-nomics’ trip. It was truly insightful to experience, first hand, a country that will be at the forefront of Geography and Economics in the 21st Century.

A party of 42 Vth Historians visited the Russian cities of Moscow and St Petersburg. Charlie Bracken (Caldicott, e) and Jamie Adams (Moulsford, j) were awarded the Malcolm Robinson Travel Scholarship, covering the costs of travel to the College of William and Mary, in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, USA.

Bertie Brown (Horris Hill, j), Sam Ringer (Winchester House, b) and Alex McCulloch (Cothill, a) attained Gold Awards in the Senior Maths Challenge. 9 boys attained Silver and 13, Bronze. The Maths department has also formed a link with Shanghai High School. In Easter our strongest mathematicians will travel to China, where they will present a group project on a field of Science/ Mathematics.

Bertie Brown (Horris Hill, j), Euan Graham (Swanbourne House, d), Sam Ringer (Winchester House, b), Edward Rees (Moulsford, j), Jake Sopher (Beaudesert Park, c), Alex Budd (Bedford Prep, b), Thomas Gibbs (Ludgrove, j) and Jack Woollett (Cheam, b), took part in the International Online Physics Brawl, coming sixth in the world. Hugh Bowen (Dragon, d), Edward Christie (Westbourne House, j), Daniel Chirita (g), Oliver Padovan (Cheam, c), Tarquin Stephenson (Sandroyd, k) and Luke Wild (Cothill, b) delivered ‘An Investigation into the Properties of Cosmic Ray Muons’ at the International Student Science Conference in London.

Speakers in the Philosophy Society included Dr Anders Sandberg of Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute and 6.1, Bernard White (Hereward House, k) on the concept of Evil.

Professor Nigel Bowles, Director of the American Institute at Oxford, spoke to Politics students about the powers of the US President. In Summer Term Daniel Hannan MEP explained how ‘Britain invented liberty’. In October, 32 boys visited the US, where they met Kenneth Baer, adviser to President Obama.

THE RADLEY YEAR 2013/14


Young-il Kim recounted grippingly his defection from North Korea in the 1990s. Professor Glyn Humphreys addressed the Psychology Society. Lord Hurd of Westwell visited Radley to address

the International Relations Society. John Whittingdale MP also gave a

fascinating talk about his career as an MP. In

May, Radley held its

very

own version

of the BBC1 programme,

‘Question Time’. The panel of experts included author,

and journalist, Peter Hitchens; Conservative MP, Tim Loughton; Labour Candidate, Sally Copley and Lib Dem Candidate, Layla Moran. Sir Max Hastings gave a compelling address to the History Society on the First World War. Finally, Jonathan Fawkner, special effects supervisor with Framestore, spoke to enthusiastic film buffs about the making of the Oscar-winning Film ‘Gravity’.

Activities This year’s Declamations competitions were won by Artie Diamandis (Cheam, h) (from ‘Antz’ by Weitz), Freddie Elwes (Cothill, j) (from ‘Henry IV, Part 1’), Conor Mosedale (Christchurch Cathedral, f) (‘A Chip in the Sugar’, by Bennett), William Dodd (Westbourne House, d) (‘Phonetic Punctuation’ by Borge) and Toby Bevan (Ludgrove, k) (from ‘Don Juan in Soho’ by Marber).

25 Radleians developed a new business idea for Stabilo pens for the Deutsche Werbe AG Business Challenge: presenting their ideas to a panel,

including the Stabilo Marketing Consultant.

The Spens Trophy (for General Knowledge) was won, for the fourth

consecutive year, by H Social, with a team comprising Bertie Beor-Roberts (Cothill), Ben Horbye (Dragon), Ed Whitbread (Cothill) and Will Batchelor (Cheam).

The G Social team of Seb Kendall (Tower House), Ed Loftus (Aldro) and Dominic Davis (Moulsford) beat C Social in the final of the Senior Inter-Social Debating Competition.

16 boys achieved their Gold DofE Award: Nick Boyall (Woodcote House, b), Kit Haig (Cheam, b), Bertie Johnstone (Ludgrove, c), Hamish Laing (Bambletye, g), Sandy Pain

(Moulsford, b), Tom Symington (Ludgrove,b), Will Johnston (St

Hugh’s, h), Alex Stinton (Sandroyd, b), Ed Mocatta (Pilgrims, k), Thomas

Saunders (Woodleigh, h), James Bosson (Caldicott, d), Robin Eliot (Ashdown

House, b), Thomas Larminie (Elstree, h), Henry Mills (Cothill, h), Hugh Gordon

(Winchester House, c), Ben Horbye (Dragon, h), Angus Robinson (Ludgrove, g).

Adventure Training: 34 boys and 22 dons/adults successfully completed the Three Peaks Challenge (Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon).

Community Service: Fifth Formers spent Monday afternoons on a range of projects helping the local community. Three teams of musicians and actors provided entertainment in three different care homes each week. A team of classicists ran an introductory course in Latin at Fitzharry’s Secondary School. Nine local state primary schools hosted different groups for a variety of activities. Medsoc members also assisted at a local dementia care home. In July, ten 6.1 Radleians spent three weeks in Tanzania. They

climbed to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro (5,895m), before visiting Gehandu Secondary School to teach English and participate in extracurricular activities.

Charities: K Social raised £18,000 for the Rwanda Cricket Stadium, with a 24-hour basketball event. B Social raised over £14,000 for the Helen Clarke Fund, with boys undertaking an endurance event. Seb Kendall (Tower House, g), Will Tufnell (Cothill, g), Charlie Codrington (St Hugh’s Carswell, a) and Ben Ashmore (Dragon, h) completed the London Olympic Triathlon course and raised £4,500 for the charity Justice and Care. Jasper Bradstock (Farleigh, g), George Buckley (Moulsford, b), George Peele (Sandroyd, b), Ned Jacobs (Cothill, k), Orlando Manners (Ludgrove, c), Louis Haynes (Cheam, a), Tom Gibbs (Ludgrove, j) and Toby Bevan (Ludgrove, k) cycled from Paris to Amsterdam and raised £30,000 for Parkinson’s UK Charity. Xandie Hanbury (Cothill, j) completed the equivalent of 16 successive marathons, by walking over 400 miles from Coldstream to Wellington Barracks in aid of the Dougie Dalzell Memorial Trust. He raised £12,600 in the process. Freddie Florin (Ludgrove, j) swam the Channel in just over fourteen and a half hours, raising almost £50,000 for the Ufton Court Educational Trust and The Starlight Children’s Foundation. Archie Wilson (Horris Hill, j) cycled from Geneva to Paris to raise money for both Cancer Research UK and Save the Children, along with Will Swift (Caldicott, f), Rory Hanna (Brambletye, h), Charlie Purton (Winchester House, h), Thor von Stiernhielm (Eagle House, h) and Ed Sayer (St High’s, d). Together they raised just over £12,000. Olly Gillen-Toon (Caldicott, j) and Robbie Cleave (Abberly Hall, a) cycled from Windsor Castle to Bordeaux Airport, in aid of In Vision, raising £1,000 to help cure Infantile Nystagmus. Henry Tregear (The Hall, g), Ollie Atkins (Ludgrove, g) and Max Benson (Elstree, g) cycled from Land’s End to John O’Groats, raising £4,500 for the British Skin Foundation.

CCF: 16 boys attended a two-night climbing trip at Llangorse. 18 boys also attended a five-night camp in the Brecon Beacons, including canoeing, a walk along the Brecons Ridge, mountain biking, indoor climbing, abseiling, caving, high ropes and zip wire. In Summer Camp, 24 boys attended a five-night trip to the Lake District, including ghyll scrambling, orienteering, mountain biking, outdoor high ropes, indoor climbing, and an overnight ascent of Scafell Pike.

Chapel: Laura Dobrescu, from Portugal, was our Icon painter in residence: a visit which resulted in the beautiful Icon that adorns the ante-chapel altar in College. Amy Lockwood also brought her perspective of Christian Aid’s work in Columbia to Radley, again spending a week in residence.

THE RADLEY YEAR 2013/14


Rowing:

Arts Drama: The College Play was ‘The International Inspector’, an adaptation of Gogol’s ‘The Government Inspector,’ by RM Lowe, who also directed. The company was brilliantly led by Tom von Simson (Pinewood, d) and Toby Bevan (Ludgrove, k) as the Governor and the supposed Inspector.

The 6.1 play was a moving production of ‘Journey’s End’, marking the start of Radley’s commemoration of the First World War: led by Finn Salter (Summer Fields, d), who was then accepted into the National Youth Theatre. The Remove Play was ‘Red Noses’ directed by TA Barfield, a comic, absurd look at the Plague years. Theatre Studies exam pieces this year included a trio of diverse devised pieces from 6.2: a comedy set in a radio station; an absurd piece of theatre, and an adaptation of Jekyll and Hyde.

The 6.1 exam performance was a fine production of ‘Another Country’; this was followed by the Shell Play, ‘The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew’, directed by DCK Edwards, with a strong young cast thoroughly enjoying themselves.

Music: The Chamber Choir toured Ely and Cambridge and the full Chapel Choir also performed at Salisbury Cathedral. One of the highlights of the year was undoubtedly the production of Benjamin Britten’s ‘Noye’s Fludde’, featuring a huge cast, including children from a number of local schools, a recorder choir, a vast percussion section, and Remove campanologists.

The Lent Term Concerto Concert saw performances of Telemann by Daniel Shackleton (St Birinus, f); Shostakovich by Dominic Baum (New College, a); Mozart by Ignacio Urzaiz (Summer Fields, f); Elgar by Edward Walker (Ludgrove, h); and the Haydn Trumpet Concerto, divided between Charles Saunders (Woodleigh, h), Hugh Gordon (Winchester House, c), and Benjamin Rees (Moor Park, a). William Dodd (Westbourne House, d) conducted Barber’s famous Adagio for Strings. There was also a programme of baroque choral music in Chapel, including the Vivaldi Gloria.

A Michael Jackson medley won the Inter-Social Partsong for H Social. Badlands won the ‘Battle of the Bands’, in which competition Lorenzo Edwards-Jones (Woodcote House, b) took the honours for best instrumentalist, and Hector McDonald (Cothill, h) scooped the ‘best composition’ prize. James Swash (New College, e) won the Ferguson Singing Prize. Will Dodd (Westbourne

House, d) took the Hudson String Prize. Nick Bennett (Horris Hill, j) won the Woodwind class of the Gunn Cup, whilst Charles Saunders (Woodleigh, h) topped the brass category. Sam Ringer (Winchester House, b), Otto Burney (Cothill, b) and Lorenzo Edwards-Jones (Woodcote House, b) won the classical, acoustic and electric sections of the guitar competition respectively. William Dodd (Westbourne House, d) won the Wharton Piano Prize. SDJC has had a new composition included in the ABRSM Grade One piano syllabus. AJOH has performed and been broadcast internationally. SLN continues to perform with the Choros choir.

Art: 2014 saw the opening of the long-awaited new Sewell Centre Gallery and reconfigured studios, lecture room and Art History library. This was officially opened by British painter, Jenny Saville, at the Private View of an exhibition of work by Old Radleians, including Hamish Mackie (1987, f), Rupert Till (1982, b), Charlie Langton (1996, g) and Charles Mackesy (1976, e). BBC Arts critic Will Gompertz visited the new Gallery and gave an inspiring Sixth Form lecture on what Art means to him: generously donating his lecture fee to The Art Room, an Oxford-based charity.

The exhibitions programme included a mixed media Christmas show, featuring local artists. The spring saw the gallery’s first touring show from the Hayward Gallery of prints by Eduardo Paolozzi . The final show, by the Oxford Arts Society, was dedicated to former OAS artist and Radley Council member, Sir Patrick Nairne. His son Andrew, Director of Kettle’s Yard and an Old Radleian, spoke movingly at the opening of this exhibition about his artistic education at Radley and career in the arts.

Another innovation was the introduction of a changing ‘Four Plinth’ sculpture. ‘Breaking Point’ by Scottish artist Kevin Dagg, lent to the gallery for six months by arrangement with Radley parent and art dealer, Jeremy Wiltshire.

The Art Department enjoyed a successful GCSE trip to Florence, where Radleians were introduced to the giants of Renaissance art. There were also trips to the Ashmolean to see the Francis Bacon and Henry Moore show and to Compton Verney, to see an exhibition of Rodin and Moore.

Sport Rugby: The Rugby Club fielded 23 teams and won 60% of its matches. The 1st XV was captained by Tom West (Old Buckenham Hall, f), assisted by vice-captain Tom Stanley (Dragon, b). Tom West (Old Buckenham Hall, f) and Will Stuart (Farleigh, d) both played for the Wasps Academy team and signed professional contracts with Wasps. Elsewhere, the four Colts teams proved exceptionally strong, with Colts 2, 3 and 4th XVs remaining unbeaten.

A coxed four from the 1st VIII won the Reading Head, came second in the Fours’ Head and finished 7th out of 85 crews in the Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston, USA. The 1st Eight won the Head of the Trent and finished third in the Schools’ Head. They also won the Nottingham City Regatta, Metropolitan Regatta and reached the quarter finals at Henley. Charlie Elwes (Cothill, j) won a silver medal at the World Junior Rowing Championships in Hamburg,


Summer 2014. He was in the Great Britain coxed four which finished second behind Italy. The J16.1 eight won the Head of the Trent and the Kingston Head. Four of the boys from that boat won a silver medal in the Coxless Four at National Schools’ Regatta and the IM2 Coxless Four at Marlow Regatta. The J16.2 Eight won at Worcester Regatta. The J15.1 Eight won gold in the Junior Colts Cup at the National Schools Regatta. The J15.2 Eight won at Marlow Town Regatta.

The J14s’ highlight was the coxed quad who were

National Schools’ Gold Medal

Winners.

Hockey: 137 matches were

played, with 80 victories and 39 losses. In the Independent Schools

Hockey League Radley finished top of five of the sixteen leagues, with the 3rd XI, J Colts 1, J Colts 3, Midgets 3 and Midgets 4 all winning their leagues. Radley also finished second behind Eton in the ISHL super league. Fergus Clark (Downsend, k) and Hamish Wishart (Moulsford, k) both represented Oxfordshire at U15 hockey.

White Horse regional titles, Sam Way (Dragon, g) taking four medals at the Oxfordshire County Championships, and Harry Hiley (Horris Hill, g) having several attempts at the High Jump Intermediate school record. The term ended with the Inter Social Event and G Social won both the Blackett Jug and the Wallace Watson Trophy.

Badminton: The badminton club had a strong season, led by Jack Lovell (UWC Singapore, b) and Yannis Gidopoulos (Moulsford, e): indeed the latter won a place in the Oxfordshire U17 Gold squad. Notable performances came from Nic Billot (Sunningdale, b), Charlie Clifton-Brown (Maidwell Hall, a), Josh Dernie (Summer Fields, a), Tom Hradecky (Dragon, f), Damian Lumley (Elstree, f), James Sheppard (Summer Fields, c), Elliott Wood (Thorngrove, e) and Gus Woollett (Cheam, b).

Real Tennis: Henry Batstone (St Hugh’s, h) and Leo Boddington (Moulsford, g) were winners of National Schools U16 Doubles; Alex Rayne (Dragon, d) and Val Brooke (Winchester House, h) were finalists in the National Schools U14 Doubles; Benedict Yorston (St Hugh’s, b) was a finalist in the National U14 Singles and U15 Doubles.

Squash: The team had a strong season, under the guidance of new coach Scott Handley. The senior squad achieved its best finish in the top division of the Roehampton Schools Invitational competition. Hugh Gillen-Toon (Caldicott, j) led strongly, ably supported by Sam Austin (Cothill, c), Charles Stevens (Summer Fields, c), Hugo Besley (Winchester house, c), Joe Beckford (Sandroyd, c) and Freddie White (Shrewsbury House, g).

Polo: Max Rumsey (Papplewick, f) was one of a handful of boys to be picked to tour South Africa with the Hurlingham Polo Association [English Polo Association], in a training programme for England’s future international players.

Dressage: Angus Corrie-Deane (Port Regis, e) represented Great Britain at Dressage in Holland.

Golf: There were two major highlights on the golf scene this year: victory in the West of England Schools’ Championships at Burnham & Berrow G.C. in March and a win in the grand final of Independent Schools’ National Plate Final at The Shire G.C. in July. The victorious team consisted of captain Hugo Melvin (Beaudesert Park, h), James Todd (Cheltenham College jnr, g), Hugo Bibby (Cottesmore, g), Freddie Campion (Dragon, j), Tom Wright (Caldicott, c) and Alex Bibby (Cottesmore, g).

Cricket: Nick Gubbins (2007, h) hit a century for Middlesex CCC against Oxford Universities MCCU, captained by another OR, Wilf Marriot (2007, g). The 1st XI started the summer in Cártama in southern Spain and since then put spectators through the mill, with most games going down to the wire. The climax was a match against a strong St Edward’s 1st XI, which decided the destiny of the John Harvey Cup. Midgets 1 won three cliff-hangers in a row, with accurate bowling and committed fielding. Individual performances of note include Miles Greene (Cothil, c) and Harry Bartlett (Cheam, k) who made 143 and 138 respectively against Wellington and Ollie Farr (Belhaven Hill, h) who took 6-16 against the same opponents. June also saw the first T20 game played on Bigside, against Magdalen College School. Jonty Robinson (Dragon, k) represented the South West at

U15 cricket.

Football: The 1st XI toured SL Benfica in Lisbon. The club played

a record 107 fixtures (winning 43, and drawing 13). The 8th XI, run by DP, ended the season unbeaten, a season which included a remarkable 0-0 draw against MCS 4th XI. Under the management of JWS and LPG, along with five goals from Emmanuel Berhanu (The Mall, c), and four from Ignacio Urzaiz (Summer Fields, f) JC3 had their most successful season in history. The 1st XI (coached by AMHH and CASJ) made it into the final of the LB Cup, eventually losing 4-2 to Rugby.

Captain Jack Redley (Moulsford, e) led the club admirably all

year. In the Social competition, E Social retained their crown,

beating A Social on penalties. For the second year running, Tom von

Simson (Pinewood, d), 6th XI, took a share of the Golden Boot, along with

Edward Loftus (Aldro, g) (1st XI) and Kit Morland (St Hugh’s, d) (Colts 4) with seven goals apiece.

Tennis: The Club is thriving and currently has some 190 members. Following another high energy, pre-season tour to Mallorca, successes included block wins against Harrow, Winchester, Cranleigh and Tonbridge; and trophies for the 1st and 2nd VIIIs and Colts VIII in OXIST and RHWM competitions. The 1st VIII topped their division in the ISL and won the Clark trophy at the ISTA championships rounding off a rousting season.

Athletics: Individual highlights from this season included Angus Robinson (Ludgrove, g) claiming four Vale of the

Statesideto undergraduate courses and, once there, the almost Sisyphean struggle to balance studies and training. This can be demoralising, particularly if there is a 25 year old post-graduate on a part-time course breathing down your neck for a place in the boat. Ask Paul Gamble (Director of University Entrance) or Niall Murphy (Head of Oxbridge Entry) if your average able and hardworking Radley oarsman would have a chance of an undergraduate application to Oxford or Cambridge and you’ll probably find that, unless he has been enthusiastically reading fat scholarly tomes since the Removes and been writing academic papers and giving lectures during his time in the Sixth Form, his chances would be at best only slim.

What if he’s been rowing a bit too, you might wonder - doesn’t that help? Not one bit. The days, if indeed they ever existed, when sporting prowess might have aided rather than hindered an Oxbridge application are behind us, probably way back in the 1950s, and it is now commonplace for Oxbridge candidates to play down attributes such

There has been a steady trickle of our top Radley rowers heading over to enjoy university in the USA in recent years. This trans-Atlantic trail has been encouraged by RCBC Head Coach John Gearing’s popular Head of the Charles trip to Boston, where the Boat Club’s senior squad oarsmen not only compete in the biggest rowing event in the world, but also get a chance to look around the Harvard University boathouse and mingle with “Crew” talent scouts from the various Ivy League universities.

A quick scan down the current athlete roster of the Harvard University Boat Club tells the story: the oarsmen come from rowing schools like Radley all over the world and, unlike our University Boat Race crews, the list is populated almost entirely by undergraduates, rather than the twenty-something post-graduate oarsmen we see here each year here in the Boat Race.

It is not just the age of the of the crews in the UK’s iconic varsity springtime rowing contest which is dispiriting to the high-achieving Radley oarsman, but also the difficulty in gaining entry

as First Eight or Junior GB rowing, being selected as a Pup, DofE Gold or Head of CCF. This is a shame, as for us at Radley, together with proven academic success, these are part of our core values, things that would certainly make any parent proud and are proven to whet the appetite of potential employers.

Whilst there remain several rowers in recent years, such as Ed Rees, who have won offers in the Oxbridge process, notwithstanding their rowing pedigree, there are many more decent candidates who are instead now looking across the Atlantic for high-ranking university opportunities: finding the US system better suited to the well-qualified Radleian than the academically specialised Oxbridge regime.

Before you all rush to book your sons in for their SAT tests next September a word of caution here too. Recent data suggests that applications to top US universities have also hotted up, as the market turns increasingly global, and for the applicant without special attributes it is as hard to win a place there as it is at Oxbridge. Where the process differs from Oxbridge is that if you have clearly definable other strings to your bow, your application is likely to be strengthened: especially if it is clear that you are going to contribute to one of the university’s flagship athletic programmes, such as rowing.

It is my guess that the First Eight oarsmen of today will be far more likely to appear in the next few years in the Harvard - Yale race than in the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race.

Following in the footsteps of recent ORs (pictured here after this year’s IRA Nationals - left to right: Tom George and Charlie Shaw (Princeton); Arthur Sants (Dartmouth); Alex George and Ollie Wynne-Griffith (Yale)), and with Hubert Simpson completing a ‘rowing’ gap year before going on to Yale in September, our well-qualified Radley rowers look set to enjoy continued support on the other side of the Atlantic. There they will enjoy a well-balanced student life: comprising the tried and tested ying-and-yang of academic study, coupled with high level rowing training which, unlike at Oxbridge where rowing almost draws scorn from the academic community, brings out the best in Radleians and represents a natural continuation of what we do so well with boys here in the RCBC.

Angus McChesney

Master in Charge of Rowing

Rowing



HEALTH,

Fitness is defined as the state or condition of being physically sound and healthy, which enables an individual to execute a certain amount of “work” without excessive stress, fatigue or physical failure. The formation of “positive lifestyle habits” at an early stage can lead to a higher degree of fitness and should be encouraged. Positive lifestyle habits are behaviour that contributes to an improvement in an individual’s quality of life: walking instead of driving; making healthier selections when in Hall; taking time out of our busy schedule to relax.

Physical HealthThe NHS recommends that to achieve and maintain a basic level of health, we need to complete at least 60 minutes of physical activity every day. This should include a combination of “moderate-intensity aerobic activity”, “vigorous-intensity aerobic activity” and muscle-strengthening/bone-strengthening activities. Moderate-intensity aerobic activity is when you exercise hard enough to raise your heart rate and break into a sweat. (You can still talk but you can’t sing the words to a song.) More

density). It can also improve recovery from sport and exercise and will provide all of our protein needs. All we need to do is eat sensibly, choosing a range of foods from the five food groups: fruits and vegetables; bread, rice and pasta; milk and dairy foods; meat, fish, eggs and beans; fats and sugars.

Emotional HealthThis is an area of health and well-being that is often overlooked. There is no use being physically fit if you are emotionally stale, tired or exhausted. “Mens sana in corpore sano” (a healthy mind in a healthy body) definitely applies here. We need to give ourselves an opportunity to relax and take a break from the stresses of daily life. Socializing with friends and family, being physically active, taking up a hobby, demonstrating acts of kindness and courtesy to others and being more in tune with ourselves are all proven to improve our emotional wellbeing.

Mark Spivey

Director of Fitness and Sport

vigorous-intensity aerobic activity is when you are breathing hard and fast, and your heart rate is quite elevated. (You won’t be able to say more than a few words without pausing for a breath.)Muscle-strengthening activities are those that require you to lift your own body weight, or to work against a resistance; while bone-strengthening activities are those that produce an impact or tension force on the bones.

Nutritional HealthWe can all improve our body composition and general health, by making sustainable modifications to our diet and by meeting the recommended physical activity guidelines.The NHS recommends that a healthy and well-balanced diet is important for good health and suggest that eating a variety of foods in moderation can assist in weight management, boost our immune system and improve our general health and wellbeing. Sensible balanced eating can also lower the risk of developing certain diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, some cancers, diabetes and osteoporosis (low bone

& SPORTFITNESS


term ‘21st century skills’, I much prefer the notion of ‘global competence’. What is this? What are we doing to develop it? What might happen if we don’t?

Global competence is displayed when individuals can adjust quickly to other people and circumstances, which are not native to them. The globally competent person has knowledge of and is curious about the history of the world, its geography, cultures,

economic structures, science and technology and religious, social and cultural issues. Best of all, it is recognised that these matters are so interlinked that the wise person does not permanently shut down a sense of interest in any sphere, even if it is not a favourite or required area of work or study. The biggest lesson of globalisation is, surely, that those who cannot adapt to changing realities get left behind.

Attitude of mind will be central in all this. Recently, author Hilary Mantel was asked about her two Man Booker prizes. ‘They’re for what you know

ideas, not innovation. This is nonsense. In the period 1996-2009, patent applications by Pacific Asian residents went up by 56% compared with 10% in Western Europe.

What is Radley doing about all this? Over the past few years, we have been formulating responses to the challenges of globalisation. I am often asked: ‘what are you doing about ‘x’?’ The answer, in most cases, is quite a lot, although we could probably advertise the fact more effectively – hence this article. Rather than using the contentious and possibly nebulous

Global PerspectivesIt is pretty obvious that a revolution in world affairs has been taking place – at every level – for over twenty years. Globalisation is a huge and sometimes bewildering concept. Yet too many in the West still imagine that although China, India, Singapore, Indonesia and others are well on the way up, somehow ‘we’ will be alright. Is this a wise assumption?


By 2020, China will have 29% of the world’s graduates aged 25-34, many of them scientists, doctors, lawyers and engineers. The Chinese 2020 education reform plan has already seen 50,000 principals of schools and colleges being sent around the world to harvest the best ideas. However much defensive British teachers’ unions and other groups might seek to play down the evidence of advances in Chinese, Singaporean, Korean and other eastern education systems, condemning ‘rote learning’, the evidence is plainly against us. Also, we often make the mistake of thinking the East is good at ‘copying’

Shanghai High SchoolShanghai High School is the leading school in Shanghai and only those with the best grades get to go there. It is a particularly strong Mathematics and Science centre, with students making the National Maths Olympiad team and a suite of laboratories that would make most universities proud.

In October we will be hosting a group of their students at Radley with a reciprocal trip in the Easter break. We see this as a fantastic opportunity for our best students to be intellectually challenged. The aim is for those students we take to complete a Maths related project at the start of their 6.1 year with the intention of presenting these whilst in Shanghai. As well appreciating how high the bar can be raised academically, this will also be a

fantastic opportunity for our students to experience a completely different culture and indeed work ethic.

you can do’, she said. ‘The interesting thing is what you can do that you don’t know yet.’ Deliberately putting oneself in unfamiliar circumstances is a perfect means of finding out what you can do ‘that you don’t know yet’. If the life of the Radleian can sometimes tend towards affirmation of the familiar, the obvious solution is to seek to disrupt

(in the positive sense of introducing possibilities

for new ideas and experiences

and therefore progress

forwards) through

immersion into the

unfamiliar.

I would assert that a boarding

school in the Oxfordshire countryside can be as cutting edge as any ‘metropolitan’ institution. As ever, travel remains one of the best ways of broadening, disrupting and challenging attitudes. The Design and Art departments have been forging links with the remarkable Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in Georgia. It is worth mentioning that when its senior management saw some Radleians’ portfolios, it was remarked to be some of the best work they had ever

established links with schools in Romania, India and South Africa, which we may rejuvenate in future. In recent times, Radley boys have been winning History scholarships to study at the College of William and Mary – in Virginia. They come back thoroughly animated after the challenges to pre-conceptions which such an experience involves.

French exchanges – long established – build on the fact that there are still well over thirty countries in the world where French is an official language. It is not ‘dying’. The Spanish and German departments have their own vibrant programmes,

seen. The Maths department has been developing a partnership with a leading international state school in Shanghai, which will result in online Maths, chess and other competitions in the near future, along with pupil and teacher exchanges. Boys have recently visited a Japanese school on a Physics exchange and there has been a return visit. The Community Action partnership with Gehandu School in Tanzania offers a chance for boys to get beyond stereotypical views about Africa - as the ‘left behind’ continent - and develop leadership and communications skills as teachers. We already have

Global PerspectivesKent School, ConnecticutFrom March 28th to April 12th, two Radley Dons, Andrew Cunningham and Ali Hakimi, one an English don, the other Physics, were fortunate enough to visit Kent School in Connecticut, USA.

Radley’s formal links with Kent go way back to 1928, when the two schools started regular exchanges between US and British pupils. The original contact began the year before that, in June 1927, when Kent rowed at Henley (the first US school so to do), and used Radley’s facilities to train. (A wealth of Archive material on these early exchanges is held in Kent’s Library.)

Both Radley Dons were enormously impressed with Kent’s varied and vibrant educational ethos – and indeed with the School’s stunning setting, on the banks

of the Housatonic River. Nearly 600 boys and girls benefit from a stimulating academic programme: with, like Radley, strong sporting and pastoral facilities and activities too - including new “dorms” (Socials) and stunning “Crew” (rowing) resources. The Radley Dons enjoyed teaching classes there, becoming fully involved in the day-to-day life of the School during their all-too brief stay.

The good news is that this visit paved the way for what will now be regular one-week exchanges between pupils from the two schools, from 2015. These will involve parties of ten pupils, accompanied by two dons, focusing on the 6.1 year-group.

Those links from the 1920s are being firmly re-established.



‘global competence’. Our partnership with Desborough College in Maidenhead allows Radleians to interact with day school boys in the state sector. Both schools have said how much they enjoy the relationship and the enhanced classroom video links will help greatly.

There are ambitious plans for better use of the Old Radleian database and we wish to take up more of the kind offers regarding work experience and advice. The Careers Department (as a central part of wider school initiatives) pushes boys to be more aware of the social and organisational skills they will need and promotes foreign work experience where it is possible and fitting. Perhaps some Radleians require a more ‘American’ sense of drive, needing to develop the ability to make a case for themselves and their ideas. More public debating and speaking – in socials and in the coffee shop, as well as the classroom – is central to building such confidence.

Ian Leslie, author of ‘Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends on It’ cautions against the idea that so-called ‘21st century skills’ are largely a matter of IT literacy, since ‘the web is just as likely to neuter curiosity as supercharge it. It presents us with more opportunities to learn than ever before and also to watch endless videos of kittens.’ For Leslie, the intellectually curious will inherit the earth, since ‘twenty-first century economies are rewarding those who have an unquenchable desire to discover, learn and accumulate a wide range of knowledge.’ For me, this skewers perfectly the nonsense argued in some circles that students don’t need to know a great deal, since it is ‘all on the web’. A know-nothing with a computer is still a know-nothing. As Daisy Christodoulou, author of Seven Myths about Education, has argued, ‘When we try to solve any problem, we draw on all the knowledge that we have committed to long-term memory. The more knowledge we have, the more types of problems we are able to solve.’

So, Radley does not propose a diet of ‘skills’ at the expense of knowledge, in the quest to provide boys with a sense of ‘global competence’. At Radley, we recently introduced a termly general knowledge test – and quite a rigorous one at that – to alert all boys to the need for digesting and remembering facts and events, since they will be able to process and deploy information to solve problems far more quickly and effectively if they do so.

The ‘21st century skills’ advocates can overstate their case. Is it not true that Egyptian, Persian, Greek, Roman, medieval, Renaissance and Victorian engineers, inventors, architects and scientists had to use ‘critical thinking’ and ‘communications skills’, think ‘outside of the box’ (ugh) and ‘work collaboratively’? Old knowledge is not necessarily obsolete since, as Ben Goldacre notes, ‘Archimedes has been right about why things float for a couple of millennia… Newtonian physics will probably be right about the behaviour of snooker balls forever.’ Top decision-makers, innovators and managers will be the intellectually curious who, if prepared to work hard and think adaptively, will run Futureworld. This is what we are working on.

Stephen Rathbone

Academic Director

stressing the growing value of these languages. We offer Mandarin to those who wish to study it at GCSE or become acquainted with it at a basic level, but it will not become mandatory. Why not? Because, simply, it is too hard for most people, and skills are difficult to retain if not put to constant use. If the US State Department recommends that 2200 hours of teaching (including a year spent in China!) is necessary to reach reasonable competence, we would clearly struggle to fit anything else into our curriculum. Much better, surely, that Radleians should have a broad and rigorous education and are fully informed about the rise of the East.

Additionally, we aim to turn as many classrooms as possible into ‘media labs’, permitting mass-video links with external individuals and organisations. There will be joint lessons with other schools, interviews with academics, journalists, war veterans, businessmen, and so on. The possibilities are endless and exciting. This will help greatly with developing

lycée Ste Geneviève, Paris

There is some breath-taking software available on the market today, which allows an imaginative teacher to bring aspects of the flavours and textures of a language into their classroom, but virtual interaction can only go so far. Who can claim to have fully understood the Paris métro without buying a carnet of tickets, savouring that unmistakably rubbery biscuity smell and getting a little bit lost now and then? The exchange link that has existed between Radley and the lycée Ste. Geneviève in Paris, for the last 17 years, has allowed many A level French students to formulate lasting friendships, as well as instructive comparisons between our two educational systems and to experience French life and culture alongside the language. The reciprocal visit to Radley adds a little extra colour to College life in the Lent term as a dozen or so French boys and girls from a mixed urban lycée get used to the idiosyncrasies of an all-boys rural boarding school. “C’est vachement Harry Potter ici” is a standard reaction to the first meal in Hall. We have also been fortunate to have post baccalaureate Ste. Genevièviennes as assistantes in the French department helping boys with oral exam preparation and generally bringing an extra boost of native speaker authenticity to the department.

Website: www.radley.org.uk . Admissions enquiries: 01235 543174 . [email protected]

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