Guildford County School

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National success in basketball

Guildford County School can now boast a National Championship winning sports team. The year 8 girls 3 on 3 basketball team, consisting of Kate Evans, Jojo Tizzard and Chelsea Wilkinson took on teams from across the country and came out victorious in a tournament held at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham on the 17th January. The girls played in front of a 5000 strong crowd and defeated the Milton Keynes Lions in the final, winning 5-0. Our year 7 girls team, represented by Gina Curtis, Jess Starling and Zoe Seymour, narrowly lost out in the final to Sheffield Sharks, however still received a medal to demonstrate their stature as one of the nations leading basketball teams.

School's music teacher is best in the country

We are very proud to annouce that our Director of Music, Caroline Gale has been named Music Teacher of the Year Classic FM. Mrs Gale who has worked at the school for 12 years, was given the award at the Music for Youth School Prom at the Royal Albert Hall.

Nominations for the Music Teacher of the Year Awards were sent in from across the UK. Mrs Gale was chosen as a winner by a panel which included Clare Stevens, editor of Music Teacher Magazine, Lincoln Abbotts, chief executive of Music for Youth and Classic FM's managing director Darren Henley.

Mr Henley said: "Our awards have been credited to reward those music teachers for their work in instilling a passion for their subject into a new generation of music lovers - and none more so than Caroline".

GCS beats The Apprentice to Batfa!

Guildford County School is basking in Bafta glory after a BBC series about the struggle to get boys singing beat Top Gear and The Apprentice to win the coveted television award.

The Choir: Boys Don't Sing showed choirmaster Gareth Malone trying to form a choir at a Leicester boys' school. When the going got really tough he was filmed visiting GCS and turning to students at GCS, and musical director Caroline Gale, for inspiration.

In the BBC2 series boys from the specialist music college sang to Malone and then made suggestions about how he could motivate his choir. He left the Farnham Road school determined to continue his mission with pupils at The Lancaster School, who eventually performed at the Royal Albert Hall.

On Sunday night a television audience of 4.3 million watched Malone and the production team from Twenty Twenty Television accept the Bafta award for best feature, eclipsing fellow nominees Jeremy Clarkson's Top Gear, Alan Sugar's The Apprentice and Celebrity MasterChef.

Since filming the series, the GCS Boys Choir has gone on to perform at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, appeared at Guilfest and has recently been filmed in conjunction with Martin Ashley and the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain.

Headteacher Peter Costello said: “We were delighted to be invited to contribute to the programme. We’re very pleased that something so valuable for developing young people’s confidence and teamwork – which it has certainly done for our students for a number of years now – has been recognised by a national award.”

Musical director Caroline Gale said: “We are glad that we inspired Gareth and The Lancaster School. Our now 135-strong Boys Choir continues to raise the profile of boys singing across the UK.”

Read more about this award in a published article in the Guardian,

http://tinyurl.com/dzn4e7

Mock Magistrates Court Competition

On Saturday 14th March a team of year 8 and 9 students participated in the local heat of the National Mock Magistrates Competition at Woking Magistrates Court.

This was a high profile event with guests including Mrs Sally Varah, High Sheriff for Surrey, Councillor Peter Ankers the Mayor of Woking, His Honour Judge Christopher Critchlow, Resident Judge at Guildford Crown Court and Humfrey Malins CBE MP ,Member of Parliament for Woking. Students had opportunities to question the Judge, as well as discussing the legal system with magistrates and other court staff.

Student teams had been given a case antisocial behaviour and harassment and they had to play all the roles, from the court staff such as the Legal Advisor and the Magistrates to the witnesses and the lawyers. We competed against St Peter’s and Heathside schools. Our Prosecution team successfully secured a ‘guilty’ verdict and the Defence team managed to gain an acquittal for the Defendant. Even better than this – we won the competition! This means we are through to the Regional Finals on 16th May at Southampton Magistrates’ Court. Our team now has another case to prepare in a very short space of time. Jack Nicole as a Prosecution Lawyer also won ‘Best individual performance’ out of everyone participating.

We do have some entries in the Court Artist and Court Reporter competitions too but we won’t hear about their progress until later next term.

Well done everyone! Mrs Nurton

GCS Pupils take part in a ‘Sing Up’ Recording Session

‘Sing Up’ is a national programme to make sure that singing is at the heart of every primary school child’s life. Our school was very proud to be asked to record four songs for the project, which will eventually be included in the ‘Sing Up’ Song Bank on their website.

We had to audition get a place in the ‘Sing Up choir, which was a bit scary, but eventually 10 boys and 10 girls were chosen. Rehearsals, which were either during tutor time or after school, then began. As well as being really good fun, they were also hard work, because for some songs we had to split up into different parts. After a few weeks of fairly intense rehearsing, on Thursday 29th January, we set off in a coach to a recording studio in Peasmarsh. We had to sing each song lots of times to get it just right and when the backing track went horribly wrong we had to wait for it to be fixed! The person who wrote the lyrics for one of the songs was there and she told us that the reason for her song was to bring ‘hope’ during the big tsunami on Boxing Day 2004. It was such a different experience to singing live as you had to express everything through your voice alone. I thought the session went really well and the songs sounded great. Recording is extremely tiring but it was also an awesome experience and I think everyone there had a really great time.

Log on to their website soon to hear us in action!

Look for the titles:

Winter Nights

Viva, Viva La Musica

Hope for a Better Tomorrow

Land of Cogs and Wheels

www.singup.org

Aidan Goodwin

Yr 7

A New Project takes Centre Stage at Guildford County

Monday 26th January saw the launch of a very exciting musical initiative at Guildford County School - ‘REEDISCOVERY’

This new project, initiated and led by Mrs Dale, is aimed at getting younger children interested in playing the oboe and bassoon and is a response to the known national shortage of oboe and bassoon players.

The assembled Yr 7 pupils and subsequently the year 6 pupils from our local Sandfield Primary, were treated to some inspirational arrangements for the two instruments, including ‘Hedwig’s Theme’ from Harry Potter and an amusing rendition of ‘Ruby, Ruby, Ruby’ to which the pupils were invited to sing along. They then had an introduction to the instruments themselves before being invited to take part in a ‘hands on’ workshop.

The outcome of the day was an overwhelming interest in having the opportunity to learn one of these double reed instruments. The school, in association with Surrey Arts, is offering these lucky young musicians free lessons and the loan of an instrument for 6 months. The long term plan is that this becomes a rolling programme which will benefit many future students both at GCS and local primary schools. Mrs Dale said, ‘It is our continued vision to pre-empt and respond to national musical strategies and this project serves to highlight the continued enthusiasm and motivation of our students and feeder schools’.

Watch this space for our showcase concert at the end of this year.

Press Release

Guildford County School awarded “high performing” status from Government

The Department for Children, Schools and Families has awarded Guildford County School the status of a “high performing specialist school”. This means that it can take forward plans to adopt maths and computing as a “second specialism” in addition to its main status as a music college.

In a letter to the school, the DCSF praised it for its proposals to involve the local community, to help improve mathematics teaching throughout Guildford. Worth an expected £250,000 over three to four years, the programme will help the school to recruit and retain good teachers in a “shortage subject”, and to work with neighbouring schools to develop a strong mathematics curriculum.

The government also praised the school for its plans to address the needs of gifted and talented students, as well as giving extra help to students who underperform in mathematics.

Head teacher Peter Costello said:

“This new status recognises the progress we have made as a music college, and gives us a great opportunity to develop our maths department. We are committed to ensuring that all children get a good understanding of this crucial subject, and look forward to working with other schools to improve maths teaching in our community.”