St Nicholas House Pupils Take Centre Stage At The Beginning Of A New School Year

Welcoming the pupils and staff to the new academic year, Head of Christ College Mrs Emma Taylor said: “Welcome back if you are old hand, someone who knows the school well; I hope you have had a wonderful summer and have the same sense of excited anticipation I have about what the new year holds. And welcome, too, if you are one of the 135 or so new members of our community. I am confident you will quickly come to feel at home here, and that those around you will make you feel very much a part of the Christ College family.”

Mrs Taylor then welcomed and introduced new members of staff.

• Dr Meredith is our new Head of Chemistry;
• Mr Cornish is our new Head of RS;
• Miss Hunter is our new Head of PE and will also run Girls’ Games;
• Mr Evans joins the Geography Department;
• Mr Bolderstone joins the Languages faculty, teaching French and EAL;
• Miss Yuna Laurans, our new French Assistant, who will be resident in de Winton;
• Mr Buck is our new Sports Assistant. He will be resident in Alway House alongside Miss Jaslyn Ahern.
• Mr Power is our new assistant organist;
• In St Nicholas House we have two new teachers, Mr Kerr and Miss Hallinan, as well as a teaching assistant, Mrs Gardner, and a Sports Assistant, Mr Jones.

We wish them, and their families, great happiness and success at Christ College.

Mrs Taylor then reflected on the summer’s A level and GCSE results, saying: “Although we broke up for the summer at the start of July, the school year is not properly over until the examination results arrive in August. I would like to congratulate both those who are still here and those who have now become Old Breconians for their successes. Last year’s Upper Sixth Leavers broke all the previous records and produced the best A level results ever recorded at the school. No fewer than 17 of them achieved three A grades or better!”

She added: “Of this year’s Upper Sixth, a good number achieved three or more A grades at AS level: Andrew Barry, Alexandra Byard Merialdi, Ric Cheung, Isaac Cho, Bronnie Davies, Alexander Dereham, Lloyd Donovan, Freya Felgate, Sean Gee, Leonie Halpin, Hannah Jachim, Athena Kwok, Aaron Lau, Edward Lewis, Kemuel Ngu, Edward Sham, Jade Song, Vicky Tam, Neil Wang, Freeman Wu.

“Those moving up from last year’s 5th form with 8 A*/A or better include David Dai, Matthew Dempsey, Emily Devoy, Rosie Evans, Annabel James, Harry Peach and Sky Treasure-Jeffreys.

“And new to our Sixth Form, a special mention to those with 8 or more As and A*s: Daniel Gray, Adam Bailey, Kate Griffin, Laura Levesque, Gwen James, Megan Jones, Ben Cuthbertson-Smith, William Perkins.”

A number of middle school pupils took part in the annual Biology Challenge, an online test run by the Society of Biology.

• Bronze awards went to Alex Kitcatt, Thomas Kiss, Rachel Norman, Alice Lilley and Sam Jones;
• Silver Awards were won by Tom Ashton, Luca Davies and Tom Birch;
• And a Gold Award went to Dafydd Owen-Newns.

A number of musicians took Associated Board Music exams:

• Grade 2 Piano: Tilley Thomas with Merit; Tilley also achieved her Grade 3 Violin with Merit;
• Grade 3 Singing Charlie McGee;
• Grade 3 Flute, Erica Morgan with Merit; Erica also achieved Grade 4 Violin;
• Grade 3 Double Bass Ashley Fletcher with Merit;
• Grade 3 Piano Isobel Edgley with Merit, and Isobel also achieved Grade 3 Singing with Distinction;
• Grade 3 Flute Rhiannon Coleman with Merit, and she also passed Grade 5 Piano;
• Grade 3 Cornet Archie Caithness, with Distinction;
• Grade 4 Piano Holly Gedge;
• Grade 4 Saxophone Artai Hernandez with Distinction;
• Grade 5 Saxophone Jet Treasure-Jeffreys with Merit;
• Grade 6 Singing Joseph Walker with Merit, Grade 6 Cello Hannah Mathias with Distinction;
• Grade 8 Cello Hamish Sennett, with Distinction.

Well done to you all.

A large number of Speech and Drama certificates were handed out, starting with our very youngest pupil, in fact the youngest pupil ever to attend Christ College: Sophia Johnson, who joined Year 3 in St Nicholas House, gained her Introductory Award with Distinction. Sophia was invited up to receive her certificate and received a warm round of applause from the whole school.

Other award winners include:

• Acting Combined Grade 2: Hannah Gower-Fox, Edwin Bullock with Merit, Isobel Edgley with Merit, Tilley Thomas with Merit, Barnaby Bullock with Merit, Iory Hughes with Merit, Artai Hernandez with Merit, Teisha-Lani Lewis with Merit, Niamh Draper with Merit, Isabel Phillips with Merit, Jessica Rayner with Merit, Hannah Mathias with Distinction and India Lilley with Distinction;
• Acting Solo Grade 2 Abbie Gould with Merit;
• Acting duologue Grade 2 Ben Masters and Phoebe Sussman, both with Distinction;
• Reading for Performance Grade 4 Tommy Helme with Merit;
• Acting Solo Grade 4 Jack Christian with Merit and Lenka Halpin with Distinction;
• Acting duologue Grade 4 Daniel Cummings with Merit and Jack Bell with Distinction;
• Acting Combined Grade 4: Ella Valentine and Nancy Doyle, both with Distinction;
• Using Spoken English: Tom Gould with Merit, Angharad Hill and Jet Treasure-Jeffreys both with Distinction;
• Acting solo Grade 5: Leon Cresswell with Distinction;
• Devising Drama Duologue Grade 5: Anna-Mae Barlow with Merit and Lily Price with Distinction.
• Reading for Performance Grade 5: Georgia Grady with Distinction.

Well done to you all.

Several pupils gained medals in their LAMDA exams.

• Acting Solo Grade 6 – Bronze Medal – Saoirse Fitzpatrick with Merit.
• Speaking in Public Grade 6 – Bronze Medal – Edward Harries with Merit and Amarachi Ihenacho with Distinction.

Very many congratulations to you all.

Mrs Taylor then presented Bronze DofE certificates and badges to Luke Roberts and Daniel Cummings.

Mrs Taylor then reflected on a summer of sporting success.

“Over the summer holidays a number of our athletes were in action, notably Amelia Reynolds, who competed in a number of major competitions, with the highlight coming last weekend, when she came 3rd in the 200m at the British Championships, competing against girls a year older than herself.

“Issy Morris also had a series of important meets, with her own high point coming in the British Triathlon Championships, where she finished in an impressive 6th position.

“One of our newest pupils was also in action over the holidays. Adelaide Francis, a Year 5 pupil in St Nicholas House, is an exceptional young golfer. During the summer, Addie won the World Putting Championships at Victoria Pines in California; she is a very exciting prospect and it is lovely to have her joining us at Christ College.”

Adelaide and Sophia are two of the 24 new pupils who are the very first members of St Nicholas House, our new Junior section. We’ve called it St Nicholas House for a number of reasons. The historical St Nicholas lived over 1500 years ago in a place called Myra, which is now in the country of Turkey. He was known for his secret gift-giving, and in particular for placing coins in the shoes of people who left them out for him. St Nicholas became a popular figure in the Christian church, perhaps because of this reputation for generosity and kindness; he is the patron saint of various towns and cities in the Mediterranean region, but also of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, pawnbrokers and students. He is most known, though, as the patron saint of children, and this is another good reason for our Junior house to take their name from him.

Mrs Taylor commented: “I hope, as we start this new year, that we are ready to be generous to others like St Nicholas; it’s easy to feel nervous and a bit worried about ourselves; will I make friends, will I do well this term, and so on. This morning let’s just make sure we are ready to be generous with our friendship, our time and our thoughts, so that we look out for those around us and make sure they are happy and successful too.”

Mrs Taylor then asked the new St Nicholas House pupils just to stand up and she presented them to the rest of the school, wishing them and their teachers the very best of luck in the exciting weeks ahead.

Mrs Taylor then drew the assembly to a close, saying: “As we come to the end of our assembly this morning I want to wish great success to all of you this term in everything you set out to achieve, and in particular to wish our sports teams the best of luck as they start their seasons.”

Captains of Rugby and Hockey, Alex Bush and Mimi Welch, were invited up to receive our encouragement and applause.

Mrs Taylor concluded by saying: “May the new academic year bring you and those around you every possible happiness and success.”