ANNUAL REVIEWacademic year 2015-2016

Isleworth & Syon School for BoysRidgeway Road, Isleworth

Middlesex TW7 5LJT: 020 8568 5791 • F: 020 8568 1939

school@isleworthsyon.orgwww.isleworthsyon.org

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Annual Review

INDEX

A MEssAgE froM thE hEADtEAchEr

thE Arts

gIftED & tAlENtED

currIculuM

AwArDs

chArIty & coMMuNIty

wIDEr lEArNINg wEEk

thE school

sIXth forM

sport

DEvElopMENts & thE futurE

Click on a heading above to go directly to that Section.

Welcome to our Annual Review of 2015-16 and a chance to look backat some of the highlights of the last school year.

The school has a long and proud tradition for the high quality educationof local boys, and a more recent and growing reputation for similarlylooking after the best interests of an increasing number of Sixth Formgirls.

With an ever-growing local population and new schools on the horizon,we will continue to focus on our own priorities of ensuring a high qualityacademic education, offering an exemplary range of additionalopportunities, and retaining some of our long and fine traditions. Wehave always found this to be the best way to ensure the continuedsuccess of both our students and the school.

An analysis of the summer’s examination results confirms that weremain the most consistently top-performing non-selective school forlocal boys. It is important to measure our results against boys in mixedsettings both locally and nationally, and it is always pleasing to us thatour boys do perform better when measured against boys in local mixedschools and against boys nationally.

At A-Level, our student outcomes were excellent. The pass rate wasover 99%, with over 50% of all A-Level grades at A*-B. Across thewhole year, over 80% of grades were at C or above, cementing ourposition as being in the top 10% of schools nationally for added-value.

At GCSE, new progress measures show that our boys continue tocomfortably out-perform their peers nationally on every measure. Asimportantly, we remain extremely proud of the manner in which ourstudents develop over their time with us into mature, considerate andambitious young men.

At our Senior Awards Evening for 2015-16 we were delighted towelcome former student and award-winning architect and designer,John Edwards, back to school. A graduate of the University ofCambridge and of the Royal College of Art, John is currently workingfor Useful Studio and one of his currentprojects is our new teaching block. Itwas a delight to hear him reflect on histime at school and on his career to date.

The school does provide an outstandingeducation for our students and we lookforward to another excellent school year.

E Ferguson

I am grateful to Michael Kettle, former student and the school’sCommunications Officer, for compiling this Annual Review. I wouldalso like to extend my thanks to Beat Creative for the design andproduction of this publication.

Cover artwork by Robbie Whitmore (11C).

A MessAge FroMthe heAdteAcher

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The application process for dramaschools is somewhat different to theusual procedure. I had to apply throughthe websites of these schools and sendmy CV, personal statement andpersonal information separately. If theschools liked my application, I wasemailed an interview date! I had aninterview rather than an auditionbecause I want to go into technicaltheatre – the backstage side.

I was first offered an interview toLAMDA, the London Academy ofDramatic Art, and the assembling of theportfolios began. My portfolio includedphotos of the school productions and myoutside experience with the NationalYouth Theatre. On arrival at LAMDA,there was first a tour of the building andfacilities, alongside other trembling,portfolio-clutching applicants, then anagonising wait while the interviews tookplace one-by-one. I was accompanied bysome current students, who told me allthe gritty details; they were all reallyfriendly and encouraging. The interviewitself was really just a chat with some ofthe staff members. My one piece ofadvice is to go to an open daybeforehand and try your best to make agood impression – I did this and it turned

out that the course director rememberedme, which made the interview a loteasier and more relaxing. The next day, I received a call from the course director,to offer me an unconditional place.

RADA and Guildhall were later with theirapplication process, and they didn’t openuntil I had received most of my UCASoffers (Rose Bruford, Bath Spa andGuildford School of Acting). The RADAinterview day was identical to that ofLAMDA’s in regards to its informal nature –it turned out that I was the first intervieweethey had this year! Four days later, Ireceived a call from their course director,offering me an unconditional place.

The Guildhall interview was the lastinterview I had. It was slightly different tothe other ones as it went on throughoutthe day. It started with an introductiontalk, then a tour of the facilities and theaccommodation (one thing the otherdrama schools did not have) and then agroup exercise to show your skills underpressure, and, finally, the interview. Thisinterview was more formal - everyonewas asked to bring their portfolios andprogrammes from drama productionsthey had seen, and our GCSE Englishresults. Three weeks after the interview,

I received a call offering me anunconditional place!

My final decision came down to the twoschools that are, in my opinion, the mostprestigious: LAMDA and RADA. I hadbeen to see several productions fromeach party, and I was thoroughlyimpressed by the standard andprofessionalism, which made thedecision even harder. I also spoke tomany industry professionals, and formerand current students. I eventually had togo with my gut instinct, which wasLAMDA. Firstly, LAMDA's new facilitieswould be highly beneficial for me, as notonly would I be working on shows allaround London, I'd also have a brandnew, state-of-the-art set location to dothem as well! Secondly, the variety,bravery and innovation of LAMDA’sproductions was more impressive; as abudding Stage Manager, that is anaspect I look for in shows. Lastly, Iappreciated the convenience of locationand ease of access to the schools.

I would like to thank all of the dramateachers, especially Mrs Davies Jones,Mr McDonnell and Ms Dubell for theirsupport and guidance, and I finally feelthat I have made the right decision.

Ellis during the A2 drama piece.

ELLIS BLOOMEARNS PLACE AT

LAMDABY ELLIS BLOOM (13JST)

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The school production is a long-standing tradition at theschool, with students from Isleworth & Syon teaming upwith girls from the Green School for an epic two nights ofperformances on our stage. This performance, of festiveclassic ‘It’s a Wonderful Life!’, took place on Thursday 3and Friday 4 December. It is not an understatement to saythat every single student really rose to the occasion andgave the performance of their lives!

There were a number of Sixth Form students for whom,sadly, this was to be their final ever performance on theIsleworth & Syon stage. George Bridgewater (13ANO),Louis Kelly (13JST), Jack Takeda (13JST) and MoAbuelmeaza (13ALE) all gave show-stopping

performances, leaving the audience close to tears at severalpoints! Special praise must also go to some of the youngermembers of the ensemble, with students such as Tom Keenan(10F) and Aadi Mudhar (9B) doing fantastic work! It is,however, a little unfair to single out any one student inparticular, as there was not a weak link in sight.

A special mention should be given to Miss Phillips and themusic department. All ambient music in the production waswritten and composed by students and Miss Phillips, and themusical ensemble played an integral role in establishing asense of atmosphere. A huge well done to everyone involvedin all aspects of the production, from the actors to themusicians, the technical team and the teaching staff – suffice itto say that it will be incredibly difficult to top this next year

The school production is a long-standing tradition at theschool, with students from Isleworth & Syon teaming upwith girls from the Green School for an epic two nights ofperformances on our stage. This performance, of festiveclassic ‘It’s a Wonderful Life!’, took place on Thursday 3and Friday 4 December. It is not an understatement to saythat every single student really rose to the occasion andgave the performance of their lives!

There were a number of Sixth Form students for whom,sadly, this was to be their final ever performance on theIsleworth & Syon stage. George Bridgewater (13ANO),Louis Kelly (13JST), Jack Takeda (13JST) and MoAbuelmeaza (13ALE) all gave show-stopping

performances, leaving the audience close to tears at severalpoints! Special praise must also go to some of the youngermembers of the ensemble, with students such as Tom Keenan(10F) and Aadi Mudhar (9B) doing fantastic work! It is,however, a little unfair to single out any one student inparticular, as there was not a weak link in sight.

A special mention should be given to Miss Phillips and themusic department. All ambient music in the production waswritten and composed by students and Miss Phillips, and themusical ensemble played an integral role in establishing asense of atmosphere. A huge well done to everyone involvedin all aspects of the production, from the actors to themusicians, the technical team and the teaching staff – suffice itto say that it will be incredibly difficult to top this next year!

IT’SAwONDERfUL LIfE!

SCH

OO

L P

ROD

UC

TIO

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We were delighted to receive notice during the Autumn Termthat former student Taheen Modak has been accepted to studyacting at the Bristol Old Vic, one of the most prestigious dramaschools in the country.

This followed a long and complex audition process, whichbegan in December 2014. It is quite fair to claim this selectionas a real coup for the school, as Taheen was spotted bymembers of the performing arts department and encouragedinto a potential career path that he had not previouslyconsidered.

Everyone at Isleworth & Syon wishes him all the best as hepursues his dream of becoming a stage actor.

TAHEEN MODAK EARNS PLACE AT BRISTOL OLD VIC

‘OUR COUNTRY’SGOOD’ STUDY DAYSAt the end of September, our Year 13 A-Level Drama &Theatre Studies students were given the opportunity to takepart in a number of study days in support of their set text,Timberlake Wertenbaker’s ‘Our Country’s Good’. These dayswere organised by the National Theatre, and proved to be afantastic gateway into the text.

On Tuesday 29 September, the group took part in an all-dayconference on the play, discussing the text’s many nuancedthemes via a masterclass with the actors. In the evening, theytook in the National Theatre production of the play. The groupwere unanimous in their overwhelmingly positive verdict of theproduction, and were particularly impressed with the way thatthe play was staged. They also really enjoyed the musicalscore, which had been composed by former Catatonia leadsinger Cerys Matthews!

There were two further talks over the course of the next week,with one discussing the play’s historical context, and the othertaking the form of a question-and-answer session with theplaywright and the director of the production. This was afantastic, once-in-a-lifetime experience for the five students,who each came away from the week with a greatly-enhancedunderstanding of the play’s themes, which they then wroteabout in their summer examination.

‘THE wOMAN IN BLACK’There were frights lurking around every corner on Thursday 5November, as our Year 10 and 11 GCSE Drama cohort wentto see a terrifying production of Stephen Mallatrat’s play ‘TheWoman in Black’ at the Fortune Theatre in London’s WestEnd. As part of Section C of their GCSE, students have towrite about live performance, and there was certainly much tocomment on in this chilling production – it is fair to say that thestudents were very scared, although they did their best to hideit! It truly was a spectacular production, giving the boys afurther insight into the many creative and technical processesinvolved with live theatre.

One of our favourite school traditions is the annual CarolConcert, held just around the corner from school at St. Mary’sChurch. On a cold Monday night on 14 December, all of ourfabulous music ensembles came together for a Christmasextravaganza! The concert began with a warm welcome fromthe Reverend Rosie Hoad, and a number of Bible readingswere made throughout the evening, from Mr Ferguson, JudeCollie (7E) and Aadi Mudhar (9B).

We began with the jazz band, who performed two numbers –‘The Blue Brothers Rockin’ Soul Revue’ and the Christmasclassic ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’. They werejoined for this performance by three of our excellent peripateticmusic teachers from the Hounslow Music Service - Mr Ashton,Mr Frost and Miss Stoffer. Afterwards, it was time for theukulele group, who delighted with two traditional carols –‘Angels We Heard on High’ and ‘God Rest Ye Gentlemen’. Itwas great to see how much the group has progressed sincetheir first-ever performance at the 2014 Carol Concert.

The brass group is perhaps our most experienced ensemble ofthem all, and they gave a wonderful performance of ‘Hark theHerald Angels Sing’. Some of those boys stayed on for thechoir performance; it was fantastic to see such a mix of agessinging with gusto for their performance of Jonathan Larson’s‘Seasons of Love’, with representatives from Year 7 all the wayto Year 13! They were quickly followed by the string group’sperformance of ‘Mary Did You Know’ - it was great to havemembers of teaching staff as part of the ensemble, with MissLupton, Miss Low and Miss Phillips joining in with the fun!

One of the highlights of the whole concert was from theconcert band, as they played Poliakin’s ‘The Canary’. Theywere joined by Sixth Form’s Cara Doyle (12JST) whoperformed an absolutely spellbinding and incredibly technicalclarinet solo, which gave the audience goosebumps! The greatperformances just kept on coming, with both junior and seniorguitar ensembles giving great renditions of Christmas classicsfrom new arrangements by Mr Rolet. The audience particularlyenjoyed the steel pans ensemble, led by Rowan Thwaites(11F), while the roof was nearly blown off by the Rock School

performances of James Bay’s ‘Hold Back the River’ andWizzard’s cult classic ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday’– there was much toe-tapping to the latter!

Sammy Standing (9B) has become a stalwart of these sort ofconcerts, and he gave another breathtaking piano recital ofChopin’s ‘Mazurka in C’. The staff ensemble couldn’t resistgetting in on the action, singing ’12 Days of Christmas’ – withprops! It was then time for the final performance, as the concertband performed ‘Star of Bethlehem’ from the film ‘Home Alone’,and ended with a lovely performance of ‘Cantique de Noel’.

The retiring collection was once again donated to ‘Street ChildAfrica’, an important charity working with homeless children inAfrica – our sincere thanks to everyone who made a donation.A night like this wouldn’t be possible without the work of MissPhillips and Mr Rolet in the music department, so well done tothem for such excellent organisation of rehearsals and theevent itself. Finally, our thanks to every single one of themusicians who took part in the evening, many in multipleensembles – you continue to prove why Isleworth & Syon is thebest destination for budding musicians.

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fESTIVE CHEER ABOUNDS ATTHIS YEAR’S CAROL CONCERT!

Tom Keenan (10F) andAdam Greaves (11B) of

the Rock Schoolensemble.

Members of our stringensemble - Max

Lundlack-Orr (11C) andAdam Greaves (11B).

The event was very well-attended!

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‘RISE UP’On Tuesday 22 September, Mr McDonnell took his Year 10GCSE Drama group to the Green School to watch aperformance of the play ‘Rise Up’. This touring production isperformed by the company Theatre Centre, and is an hour-long piece about the civil rights movement in America. Itdramatises the true story of the ‘Freedom Riders’, a group ofblack and white students who rode buses across the southernstates of America and broke the rules of segregation.

As such, the play deals with important themes about racialtensions and divides, and it certainly received a strongresponse from our cohort, many of whom were experiencingtheir first piece of live drama. After the play had finished, therewas a question-and-answer session with the actors that furtherexpanded on the fascinating ideas raised throughout thepiece. The boys came away thrilled with this poignant andevocative experience.

VERBATIM THEATRE DAYAT THE NATIONALOur five Year 13 A-Level Drama & Theatre Studies studentsvisited the National Theatre on Tuesday 24 November for aday of workshops focused on the ‘verbatim theatre’ genre. Thistype of play is a form of documentary theatre which is basedon the spoken words of real people, using information fromsources like recorded interviews and transcripts. The day wasof particular interest to the group, as they were in the processof developing their own verbatim-style devised piece focusedon the Lance Armstrong doping scandal.

During the day, the students had access to archived scriptsand programmes, and watched a filmed production of ‘LondonRoad’ performed in that specific style. The day was extremelyhelpful as it gave them a sense of what the genre is about, aswell as providing them with ideas for techniques that theycould utilise in their own piece.

‘LES MISÉRABLES’A large part of the A-LevelMusic course is the study anddiscussion of live performance.To that end, Miss Phillips tookher cohort to Her Majesty’sTheatre in London’s West Endon Thursday 7 January, for athrilling performance of thetheatrical classic ‘LesMisérables’. The four studentswere treated to a sensory feast,with the live orchestra a

fundamental part of the production. They came away with amuch greater understanding of how live music can be used tocontribute to performance.

LONDON SCHOOLS’SYMPHONY ORCHESTRAThe first school trip of this year took place on Tuesday 22September, as Miss Phillips took a small group of studentsfrom Years 10-13 to the Barbican Theatre to see the LondonSchools’ Symphony Orchestra. It was an absolutely fantasticevening, made even more special by the fact that one of ourSixth Form students, Cara Doyle, played principle clarinet inthe orchestra!

This was an outstanding show that was open to the membersof the public. It was an absolutely huge orchestra, containing awide range of instruments, including the harp, clarinet, cello,violin, viola, and oboe. The students were absolutely blownaway by the scale of the concert, and had a wonderful time!The show will also have an educational benefit; Miss Phillipscommented afterwards, “This show will allow the students tounderstand how the different timbres of orchestra work in a liveacoustic space – this in turn will be immensely helpful for theirupcoming examinations.”

The school was given free tickets by the Centre for YoungMusicians (part of the Guildhall School for Music and Drama) –our thanks go to them. The cohort was a credit to the school,with a member of the public commenting on the exemplarynature of their behaviour. Well done to them!

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We were delighted to hear that former student RaymondAnum has been accepted into the Royal Academy of theDramatic Art (RADA), widely-recognised as one of thebest drama schools in the world. Famous alumni from thisprestigious school include Sir John Hurt, Sir Roger Moore,Dame Diana Rigg and Imelda Staunton.

Following long and arduous application processes,Raymond was faced with a tough decision, as he receivedfirm offers from RADA and Bristol Old Vic, the latter ofwhich is currently attended by his former classmateTaheen Modak. He also had a final recall to the GuildhallSchool of Music and Drama. It is a phenomenalachievement to get this far at all three schools, each ofwhich are extremely sought-after and competitive.

Raymond eventually plumped for RADA, and will study aBA (Hons) in Acting. This means that come September,three Isleworth & Syon alumni will be studying at top dramaschools across the country – a testament to the work fromMr McDonnell and the rest of the Performing Arts team.During his time with us, Raymond demonstratedoutstanding skill and commitment, consistently drivinghimself to be better, and he is now reaping the rewards ofhis hard work. We can’t wait to see where he ends up!

Following their time at theNational Theatre researchingthe verbatim genre, our Year 13A-Level Drama & Theatrestudents got to work devisingtheir piece, based on the story ofLance Armstrong. This three-month process culminated intheir final-ever Isleworth & Syonpractical performance, whichtook place on Wednesday 9March to a packed audience inRoom 100. The piece, titled‘Lines Crossed’, used witnesstestimony, interviews, and othertext-based sources.

It was an outstanding productionwith some truly inventive staging.All of their hard work paiddividends when it came to thefinal marks – both Ellis Bloom(13JST) and George Bridgewater(13ANO) achieved anastonishing full marks, whileLouis Kelly, Em Shanahan andJack Takeda (all 13JST) wereonly a few marks away. Welldone to the entire group – thisachievement is a testament totheir work ethic during theirseven years at the school.

OUTSTANDING A-LEVEL DRAMA RESULTS!

Raymond Anum during his Year 13 BTEC Performing Arts performance, for which he received top grades!

RAYMOND ANUM ACCEPTS PLACE AT RADA

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SUMMER ARTS & TECHNOLOGY EVENINGTuesday 28 June was a truly specialevening as we hosted our annualSummer Arts & Technology Evening.This event brings together the art,design & technology (DT), drama andmusic departments for a magical eventwhich truly drives home the breadth oftalent on offer at Isleworth & Syon. Theevening used the ‘promenade’ format,with half the audience starting in thecanteen (drama and then art and DT)and half starting in the hall (musicrotation), before swapping over.

The stage was set for drama in thecanteen, and our Key Stage 3 dramaclub did not disappoint as they put on aperformance of Erich Kästner’s ‘Emiland the Detectives’. It receivedrapturous applause from the audience,who enjoyed the dark humour present inthe piece. Particular standoutperformances came from Jude Collieand Cade Nation, two Year 7 studentswho clearly have bright futures on theIsleworth & Syon stage.

Parents/carers and guests had awonderful time exploring the art anddesign & technology departments. Thethree art rooms had a selection ofstudent work from GCSE and A-Level,while the corridor displayed someexemplar Key Stage 3 artwork. Many ofthese pieces wouldn’t look out of placein a gallery! They were accompaniedby our wonderful steel pans group.Meanwhile, over in DT, thedisplays consisted of anexhibition of GCSE Electronicsand GCSE ResistantMaterials products, as wellas some Key Stage 3items. The centrepiecewas a fabulousmotorised scooter!(see below).

It is almost predictable at this point thatthe music segment of the eveningwas outstanding, but it need to bereiterated that the standard herewas just extraordinary. Everyyear, the department seems toraise its game, and Miss Phillips

and Mr Rolet did a great job. Highlightsof the music rotation (co-compered bySixth Form students GeorgeBridgewater and Jack Takeda) includedthe choir’s lovely performance of Train’shit ‘Hey, Soul Sister’, with students fromacross the school coming together. Thestrings group played some incidentalmusic from hit television series 'Game ofThrones’ – without any dragons – whilethe concert band raised the spirits with arendition of ‘Jai Ho’ by A.R. Rahman.

Alan Wali (9C) and SammyStanding (9B) combined onthe violin and piano to

perform the classic ‘CossackDance’, while jazz band gotthe toes tapping with their

excellent performance of‘Mas, que Nada!’ by Jorge

Ben. Our junior guitargroup have prospered this

year under the tutelage of Mr Rolet, andthey gave a great performance ofGotye’s ‘Somebody That I Used toKnow’. Sticking with the junior students,the junior brass ensemble enrapturedthe crowd with their lively medley! Therotation ended with Rock School’samazing performance of ‘Adventures ofa Lifetime’ by Coldplay, featuring thedebut of James Cherian (11F) on vocals.

It was then time for both groups to jointogether for the final half-hour musicconcert, which began with jazz band’sup-tempo rendition of ‘Locked Out ofHeaven’ by Bruno Mars. The stringsgroup put an orchestral spin on DavidGuetta’s dance anthem ‘Titanium’,before the ukuleles played soul classic‘Ain’t Nobody’. The choir returned for atriumphant Coldplay medley, with lots ofvocal accompaniment from the

'Emil and the Detectives'.

Outstanding work from DT…

audience! Following in the footsteps ofthe juniors from earlier were our seniorguitar ensemble and their rendition ofThe Eagles’ ‘Hotel California’.

It was then time for somethingcompletely different, as James Cherianperformed a solo that he himself hadarranged. It was an acoustic medley of‘Work’ by Rihanna and Drake’s ‘OneDance’, and the performance expertlymarried two songs that are exceedinglydifferent! There was a lot to live up to forthe Rock School, one of the staples ofthese concerts – but they did notdisappoint with their medley of ‘House of

the Rising Sun’, ‘Johnny B. Goode’ and‘Heroes’. Several of this ensemble areheading off to pastures new inSeptember, but they can be proud oftheir final performance on the Isleworth& Syon stage.

Time for only two more performances,and it is safe to say that the best wassaved for last. The concert band gavean outstanding rendition of JohnWilliams’ ‘Star Wars: The ForceAwakens’ score, a complex piece thatsounded absolutely fantastic! The finalperformance of the evening came fromthe staff band, who had the crowd on

their feet with ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ byQueen. They received a standingovation from the audience!

This event is a testament to the sheerlevel of creative talent on display atIsleworth & Syon – talent that is nurturednot just in the classroom but throughextra-curricular time as well. A huge welldone to all of the students involved, butalso to the staff – Miss Phillips, Mr Rolet,Mr McDonnell, Mrs Davies Jones andMiss Dubell in music and drama; MrCarpenter and Miss Pacwa in art; andMr Scanlon, Mr Elliston, Miss Jheetaand Mr Browell in DT.

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Jake Ince-Moore (7B) gives his debut performance as part of the Strings group. The choir in full voice.

… and art!

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wILL MILLETTEARNS PLACE ATROYAL COLLEGE Of MUSICThe school’s performing arts pedigree continuesto grow, as another student has earned a place ata prominent performing arts school. We weredelighted in May to learn that Will Millett (9D) hasbeen accepted into the Royal College of Music’sjunior department, starting every Saturday inSeptember. This is an extremely prestigiousopportunity, working at one of the top musiccolleges not just in the UK but in the world. Duringhis time there, he will be given the opportunity tostudy composition and musical theory, as well asplaying in the renowned Royal College of Musicensemble and having one-to-one tuition fromspecialist teachers. Well done, Will!

The week before Summer Arts &Technology Evening, our concert bandhad their first-ever live performance infront of an audience. The band wasnewly-formed by Miss Phillips inSeptember, and is made up of our mosttalented musicians. This particularperformance was held at St Paul’sChurch, with the audience made up of

students from St Paul’s CofE PrimarySchool. The entire school was present,but if this got the band’s nerves jangling,it certainly didn’t show!

They performed their repertoire withaplomb, with highlights includingexcerpts from the ‘Pirates of theCaribbean’ soundtrack and ‘Don’t Stop

the Beat’ from Hairspray. In betweeneach performance, Miss Phillipsintroduced the different elements of theensemble to the children, asking them toguess the instrument – which thechildren loved! The group concludedtheir performance with a medley fromthe most recent Star Wars film, ‘TheForce Awakens’. It was an excellentperformance that put them in good steadfor Summer Arts.

CONCERT BAND PERfORM fORST PAUL’S PRIMARY SCHOOL

The Concert Band in full flow!

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GEORGEBRIDGEwATER HEADS TOINSTITUTE OfTHE ARTSBARCELONAFollowing his outstanding performancein his A-Level Drama & Theatrequalification, George Bridgewater(12JST) will be continuing his educationa little further afield than most – Spain, tobe exact. We were delighted to learnthat George has earned a place at theInstitute of the Arts Barcelona (IAB) inSeptember.

George first learned of IAB through asummer course that he completed thereafter his GCSEs. He loved it so muchthat following the conclusion of his A-Levels, he managed to get an audition.He had to perform two Shakespeare

monologues; he did extracts from ‘TheTempest’ and ‘Dunsinane’, the latter ofwhich was his AS-Level Drama piece(see the 2014-15 Annual Review). Heobviously made a great impression, ashe was swiftly offered a place! We hope

he spends his summer brushing up onhis Spanish.

We wish George the best of luck, andlook forward to updates from the beachover the next year!

‘BLUE/ORANGE’For the performing arts BTEC, it is expectedthat students attend the theatre in order tobroaden their knowledge and understandingof live drama. To that end, on Tuesday 21June Mr McDonnell and Miss Dubell took thecohort to the Young Vic for a performance ofJoe Penhall’s gripping play ‘Blue/Orange’.

It was a stunning production, with only threeactors in the company. Students wereparticularly impressed with the ‘in the round’staging technique as well as the intensity ofthe performances from the lead actors. Theplay deals with some complex themesregarding racial identity and mental illness,and the group really engaged with theseideas and were more than willing to discussthem at length afterwards! Everyone agreedthat the play had really helped them tounderstand about live performance.

George (centre) during his A2 drama performance.

We were delighted to take advantage ofthe Debate Mate scheme again for ourGifted & Talented students this year.The organisation runs after-schooldebating clubs across the country,sending in specially-trained universitystudents to teach and tutor the studentsin the art of debating! We have foundthat students taking part in theprogramme see substantial increases intheir speaking and listening skills as wellas their engagement with school. Co-ordinated in school by Miss Cox, Miss

Sawbridge and Miss Shukla, this yearhas seen some great debating results.

After the initial meeting, over 70students expressed an interest in takingpart – a phenomenal response! Over thecourse of the year, there was a verylarge number of regular attendees inYears 7-10. With a lot of the coredebaters from previous years no longerable to take part, there was a lot of newblood this year, but the boys rose to thechallenge with enthusiasm.

We once again competed in the UrbanDebate League, with the school hosting

the first round onWednesday 29January. The boyscompeted againstViliers School,Ealing, winningsix of eightdebates. Theydiscussed issuessuch as educationand advertising,and performed

admirably considering thiswas their first ‘live’ debate.

In the second round, wewent to Viliers on Wednesday2 March, and excelled themselvesto the extent that we placed in the top 40schools in the country! Not only that, butwe are now one of the top 30 schools inthe London area. This is an absolutelyoutstanding achievement, and everyonehere was thoroughly proud of the boysfor putting in the effort to prepare afterschool for weeks ahead of the debates.You could not tell at all that many of thestudents involved had minimal debatingexperience before this year!

On Wednesday 20 April, the boys visitedthe University of Westminster for theDebate Mate Cup. They performed verywell, with each of the three teams winningat least one of their debates. We werethrilled to also be presented with theaward for top attendance in Londonschools. We hope that the boys push onnext year and continue to develop theirdebating prowess.

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JACK PETCHEY SPEAKOUT! CHALLENGEThis year, the school has once again take part in the JackPetchey Speak Out! Challenge. This gives our Year 10 Gifted& Talented students the opportunity to refine and hone theirpublic speaking skills. It began in the Autumn Term with a day-long workshop in the Sixth Form Study Room, where thestudents were taught some exemplar public speakingtechniques and given the opportunity to practice and thenreceive critique. Six students from this workshop were chosento take part in the school final – Farhad Ahmed (10B), DevenClarke (10E), Mateeullah Kakar (10A), Qaiser Khan (10F), TimVolle (10F) and Kareem Zeido (10B).

The school final took place in room 140 to an audience ofstudents in Year 7 and 8. The three judges – Miss Hannon, MrMilligan and Miss Cox – had a very tough decision to make asthe students each gave speeches of 2-3 minutes in length on avariety of engaging topics. It was great to see studentsengaging with some really important issues, and the pointsthey made were very eloquent and measured. The eventualwinner was Mateeullah Kakar for his speech on ‘Dreams’, andhe progressed to the regional stage of the competition.

This stage took place at Chiswick School on Monday 25January, bringing together fifteen students from schoolsacross the borough. The event was compered by our very ownMax Lundlack-Orr (11C), who took part in this very stage lastyear! Mateeullah spoke dynamically about the environment, anextremely pertinent topic. Although he didn’t quite make itthrough to the national stage, he certainly did the school proudwith the quality of his speaking. Well done, Mateeullah!

Mateeullah does us proud in the regional final!

Our school competitors.

DEBATE MATE

Students after their commendable performance in the Debate Mate Cup, alongside Miss Cox.

Gifted & Talented

We were pleased to offer some of ourGifted & Talented students the excitingopportunity to take part in the BrilliantClub scheme once again this year. Theaim of the programme is to widenaccess to top university for high-achieving pupils in Years 7-10, and togive them a small taste of universityeducation. This is achieved by theBrilliant Club sending a PhD student intoschool to deliver six weeks of university-style tutorials. The tutor offers one-to-one assistance to students as they writean extended essay on their subject,which are graded at university levels(First Class, Upper Second Class, andso on) at a Key Stage above wherestudents are working.

These essays are not easy, and aredesigned to remove students from theircomfort zone, with the word count at1500 words (Years 7 and 8) and 2000words (Years 9 & 10). It was great to see

students thriving under this challenge,with a staggering seventeen studentsearning First Class Honours for theirwork – the top grade. Those students arelisted right. For comparison, threestudents earned Firsts in the previousyear.

As part of the scheme, students wereable to visit a number of prestigiousuniversities across the country, includingKing’s College London and SOAS. Theboys took part in campus tours andstudy skills sessions that gave them asmall taste of what university life may belike. Our data shows that following thesevisits, students are much keener to go touniversity, and are also much moreaware of the processes involved. Welldone to every single student who tookpart in the Brilliant Club this year.

YEAR 7 AND 8WALEED ALDILLAMI (8B)NATHANIEL BUENDIA (7E)ELLIOTT CULLING (7D)JUDE MADDOCK-YOUNGS (8A)SAMUEL NIXON (8D)ARMAAN SACHDEVA (7C)RAUL SHAH (7C)MOHAMMED SHEIKHNOOR (8E)JACK SHIELS (8D)THOMAS SKINNER (8F)JOSIAH WILSON KEPPLE (8A)LARS-LEANDER VOLLE (8C)

YEAR 9 AND 10JOHN ALVARAN (9E)ALEC BRUNDLE (9A)ALI NASIRI (9F)RUHUL-AMIN AHMED (9C)DANIEL VAKILI (9F)

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BRILLIANT CLUB

Above: One of the Year 7 and 8 groups receives their feedback tutorial with thePhD student, and right: Year 9 graduates at SOAS.

Ross McQueen A Love Poem to a Monster (based on Shakespeare's Sonnet 130)Her eyes as bright and big as a star;

Hair so thick it looks like it's charred

The monster's teeth come out so far

And her claws are sharp and scarred.

Her eyes are all strange and crossed;

A body as curved as a roundaboutAnd toes all cold like frost;

And a voice that sounds like a shout.

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Curriculum

‘CHELSEA’S CHOICE’On Thursday 15 October, travelling drama company Alter-Ego Productions came intoschool to deliver a powerful play to Year 9 students. The performance – titled ‘Chelsea’sChoice’ – dealt with hard-hitting issues such as cyber-bullying, online safety and sexualexploitation, and was immensely powerful.

It told the story of a 15-year-old girl whose life fell apart due to a few bad choices andtrusting the wrong people. It was revealed at the end that it was a true story, and theYear 9 students were suitably affected by this poignant piece. They were given theopportunity to take part in a question-and-answer session afterwards, and someexcellent questions were asked about the topics raised in the play.

Well done to the students for the maturity that they demonstrated during this piece.Students looked into these themes in more depth during their PSHCE sessions this year.You can read more about the production atwww.alteregocreativesolutions.co.uk/chelseas-choice/

PARMEET SINGHParmeet Singh is a former student who left Isleworth & Syontwo years ago; he is now an entrepreneur who has set up an e-commerce branch of his father’s business – a business whichturned over £6.5 million last year. On Monday 23 November,he came back to school to talk to our Year 10 Business &Enterprise students.

Here is Azaan Khan’s (10D) report.

Parmeet Singh came back to our school to discuss what it islike to run your own business in the real world. Meeting MrSingh was a real inspiration; he told us how he now runs hisfather’s business and told us how hard it is to run yourbusiness.

Mr Singh told us that he and his business was mostly busyduring the Christmas holidays, selling a variety of Christmasconsumer items such as Christmas lights and decorations. Hisbusiness buys products and consumer items from otherfranchises and businesses, and then sells them on to makeprofit out of the stock.

It was interesting to hear that being his own boss is hardbecause there is so much paperwork that he has to do for hisbusiness, and that he barely gets any time to himself. Heworks for hours on end every day for the majority of the week,to make sure that his business is in good shape.

A huge thank you to Parmeet for giving up the time to comeand talk to the students.

Students investigate Isleworth!

GEOGRAPHY STUDENTSEXPLORE LOCALSURROUNDINGSAt the start of December, our Year 8 geography students weregiven the opportunity to venture out of the classroom andcomplete some local fieldwork – pleasingly, all of the studentsjumped at the opportunity for some hands-on learning. Theboys travelled down the hill to explore the shops along theLondon Road, answering a series of questions about the localbusinesses that reside down there.

Students were tasked with going into the shops and askingquestions to the owner, which they did respectfully andpolitely. The boys accumulated some great data, which theythen took back to school and discussed. Well done to the boysfor their conduct.

Curriculum

POETRY BY HEARTAt the end of the Autumn Term, the English department onceagain organised a Poetry by Heart competition in school. Thisis a nationwide initiative aimed at students in Key Stage 4, withstudents having to recite a poem that they have learned, infront of an assembled audience of staff and their peers. Therewas a lot of fantastic competitors this year, but one clearwinner – Zack Taylor (11C), who gave an outstanding recitationof ‘Sing a Song for a Lad that is Gone’ by Robert LouisStevenson. Aadi Mudhar (9B) finished second, while AyubSuggulle (10C) finished in third place. This result meant thatZack progressed to the West London final, which took place inFebruary at the Paul Robeson Theatre. Zack recited‘Ozymandias’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley and ‘The Second

Coming’ by WBYeats. He narrowlymissed out onqualifying for thenational finals, butthe judges wereimmenselyimpressed withZack’s performance.

Following someimpressive poetry

readings in class, the department also hosted a Key Stage 3competition for students in Years 7 and 8. Getting up andspeaking in front of a crowd is no mean feat, and yet thestudents absolutely rose to the challenge! The winners wereAlbert Campling (7F) and Kousthub Kaivar (8D). It was apleasure to watch all of the students give so much passion andcommitment into their readings. Afterwards, Miss Hannon said,“Poetry by Heart is a wonderful initiative which gets youngpeople thinking about the power of poetry and of language; wewould love to see more students getting involved next year!”

Our Year 7 winner - Albert Campling.

Zack Taylor performed fantastically well at theregional final.

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‘A CHRISTMAS CAROL’This year, the English department has organised a number oftrips to the theatre, as a means of expanding students’learning outside of the classroom and increase theirunderstanding of the texts that they are studying. Many ofthese students have never been to see live theatre, so thesevisits have an added cultural bonus!

On Wednesday 16 December, Miss Hannon and Miss Breachtook sixty Year 10 students to see a production of CharlesDickens’ classic ‘A Christmas Carol’ at the Rose Theatre,Kingston. The response was overwhelmingly positive, withstudents commenting afterwards that they already felt thatthey knew the text more intimately having seen it performed!

‘ROMEO + JULIET’On Friday 12 February, Miss Cox took over fifty Year 10students for a performance of ‘Romeo + Juliet’ at the OrangeTree Theatre, Richmond. The students are studying the text aspart of their GCSE course, and so this was a fantastic way toincrease their understanding of Shakespeare’s themes. Theboys were very responsive to the way that the play was stagedand performed, and expressed much enthusiasm during thetrip home!

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HOUNSLOw SPEED READ On Wednesday 3 February, Ms Squires took a group of keenreaders to Hounslow’s Paul Robeson Theatre for the annualSpeed Read competition, hosted by the Hounslow LibraryService. The event brought together several school from theLondon Borough of Hounslow, and was compered by poet andstoryteller Tony Dallas.

For the Speed Read, students were given just one minute totalk about their favourite book in a series of one-to-one chatswith other students, ‘pitching’ their book in an attempt topersuade the other person to read it. During the event, allpresent were very impressed with our boys’ pitches; it wasclear that they understood their texts inside and out, and had agreat passion for the book they were discussing. At the end ofthe two-hour session, everyone was asked which book theywere most interested to read. A huge well done to JohnAlvaran (9E), who was given the award for Best Presentationfor his pitch of Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’.

Afterwards, John said, “Speed Read 2016 is a great experiencewhere I felt very welcomed into a room filled with young mindsthat love to read as much as I do. This experience just goes toshow that reading a book helps you interact with other people ofthe community as you share common interests and passions.”Well done to everyone involved!

BUSINESS STUDENTSVISIT THE SKY ACADEMYOn Monday 22 February, Miss Davies took twenty Year 12 BTECBusiness students to the Sky Academy in Osterley for a day jam-packedwith business-themed activities. The aim was to inspire the students andget them thinking about the different ways that Sky functions as abusiness.

The boys began with a tour of all of the Sky studios contained in theOsterley campus, including Sky Sports News and Sky News. Thestudents absolutely loved seeing these sets first-hand, especially thegallery where the director sits. They were given an in-depth look intohow these rolling news programmes are organised and created, and it’sfair to say that the boys were very impressed!

There were a number of students from other schools present during theday, and all groups had the task of creating a brand new TV show,mapping out different ideas and concepts and then presenting them ingroups. The boys were also asked to design a new Sky product andservice and consider how they would finance and market it. Some of theconcepts were absolutely outstanding!

The cohort was also given the opportunity to try out some of Sky’s morecutting-edge technology. They spent some time at a careers wall, wherestudents were given iPads and had to scan items on the wall to getvaluable careers information. The highlight of the day for many students,though, was the Virtual Reality headset, which everybody loved – even ifthere were a few stumbles along the way as they got used to the newsurroundings! All in all, it was a great day, and Miss Davies was effusivein her praise of the students for their conduct throughout.

Curriculum

John Alvaran presents his book.

LITERACY &NUMERACYEVENINGThe Spring Term Isleworth Association event wasthe Literacy & Numeracy Evening, held in the schoolhall for its second year on Tuesday 8 March. Hostedby Mrs Clayton (Assistant Headteacher – Literacy)and Mr Stoddart (Assistant Headteacher –Numeracy), the evening was designed for Year 7students and parents/carers.

The event was well-attended and was a greatsuccess, giving lots of helpful advice and guidancefor how students can develop their literacy andnumeracy skills, and how those two disciplines areembedded into the curriculum throughout the school.The full pack of resources was posted to the schoolwebsite after the event, for those who were not ableto make it.

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CAROLINE LAwRENCEOur ‘Meet the Author’ events are a fantastic opportunity forstudents from across the school to find out more about theprocess of writing. For World Book Day, a small group of Year7 boys visited the Paul Robeson Theatre for an illuminatingtalk with author Caroline Lawrence.

Caroline specialises in historical fiction for children, and talkedin depth about her love of history. She also talked heavilyabout the process of writing a novel, and how she breaksnovels down into ‘chapter outlines’ to get a clear sense ofstory. After the talk, Caroline spent time with the boysanswering questions on a one-to-one basis, as well as signingtheir books.

Ben Rawsthorne (7A) said afterwards, “I thought that the Meetthe Author trip was very inspirational. I learned many helpfultips on how to write successful stories, which I feel will be verybeneficial.” Read some more feedback from students below.

fEEDBACKWhat was your overall response to the talk?

“I think that this event was entertaining and very beneficialfor my creative writing skills in English. The talk really helpedme think about what I should be writing in the stories that Imight write when I become older.”

Jason Zingapan (7C)

“I think [the event] has given an even bigger interest in booksand made me want to become an author.”

Imran Majid (7A)

“I think that the event was great.” Tinashe Chituku (7C)

In what ways do you feel that the ‘Meet theAuthor’ talks are beneficial to you?

“I feel that they are beneficial to me because they inspire meto read a new genre of books.” Tomasz Papior (7B)

“They give me an idea of how the author thinks and feelstowards their creativity and imagination.”

Mansoor Ismail (7C)

“It gives you a wide variety of book ideas to read.” Jude Collie (7E)

MEET THE AUTHOR:

ANTHONY MCGOwANOur next ‘Meet the Author’ event took place on Tuesday 15March 2016, as we gave a warm welcome to author AnthonyMcGowan. He spoke to the whole of Year 8 during the hour-long session. Anthony is known for the humour in his stories,which often deal with unfunny subject matters (such as theconcept of hell, for instance). This contrast, Anthonyexplained, is what appeals to him when writing – finding thatbalance between subject matter and tone.

During his talk, Anthony did several readings from his books,including ‘Henry Tumour’ (a book told from the point of view ofa tumour) and ‘The Knife that Killed Me’. Anthony discussedhow he often uses past memories and puts them into hisbooks. Following his readings, Anthony took questions fromthe audience; one particular highlight was when he explained(jokingly) that his inspiration for writing was that he wasrubbish at everything else!

There were about twelve questions asked in total, and all ofthem were very insightful indeed. After his talk, Anthonystayed to answer some more questions and sign some books.Response to the event was overwhelmingly positive, andAnthony was a witty and engaging guest. We thank him forgiving his time to come and speak with the students.

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Curriculum

STORYTELLING AT wORPLEAt Isleworth & Syon, we really believe that reading regularlycan greatly enrich a student’s development. This year, wehave also launched a Storytelling scheme for a selection of ourjunior students in Years 7-9, equipping them with thenecessary skills to tell stories in an imaginative and interestingway. On Friday 26 February, a group of keen readers from thescheme visited the local Worple Primary School to read somestories to the Year 1 pupils, as well as talking to some Year 4students about their favourite books.

Our students did a fantastic job of getting the Year 1 pupilsinvolved in the stories, and the boys and girls were absolutelyenraptured throughout. It was clear that the Isleworth & Syonstudents had a great passion for stories, and this came acrossthroughout the morning. They did an excellent job, and shouldbe commended for showing the courage to get up and speakto the group – something that certainly isn’t easy!

Jake Bowden (9E), Stanley Wheeler-Kemp (7F) and Tinashe Chituku (7C) readtheir story to the children.

Students present their favourite book scene.

wORLD BOOK DAYThis year’s World Book Day fell on Wednesday 3 March, andwe commemorated the day in school in a number of ways. InDesign & Technology, Miss Jheeta invited students to build ascene from their favourite book using cardboard and crepepaper – as you can see from the images above, students did afantastic job!

Miss Hannon in the English department asked students towrite book reviews in a number of categories, which then tookpride of place on the classroom wall. Students were asked tothink about books that transported them, thrilled them, madethem laugh, and changed the way they think (amongst othercategories), and it was a pleasure to read about how thesebooks had altered their perceptions!

Meanwhile, the humanities, mathematics and sciencedepartments displayed teachers’ favourite novels andrecommended texts for independent learning, encouragingstudents to embrace reading as a tool for enhancingknowledge. That really gets to the root of what World BookDay is about, and it was fantastic to see so many studentsreading independently during breaktime and lunchtime.

During the Autumn and Spring Terms, a group of Year 10business students – Josh Bavin (10B), Sidhant Shori (10B) andAlfie Small (10D) – entered the Student Investor Challenge.This nationwide competition presents a simulation of the stockmarket, with students given simulated money and asked todecide what shares to buy. The top 500 teams in the UK withthe best portfolio qualified for the semi-final. The boys didreally well and did indeed place in the top 500 – a particularlyimpressive feat considering that many of the competitors werefrom private schools.

For the semi-final, students were given specific companiesand asked to predict the end price on each Friday, gainingmore points the closer they got. Although the boys did notproceed to the final, they gave a fantastic showing and were acredit to the school throughout. Afterwards, they remarked thattaking part in the competition had really encouraged aninterest in markets, and business and economics moregenerally, which should serve them well as they move intoYear 11.

STUDENT INVESTOR CHALLENGE

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Curriculum

ROBOTICS CLUBFollowing its successful launch last year, Mr Elliston onceagain ran a Robotics Club during 2015-16. The club is aimedat students in Year 7 who have an interest in robotics andprogramming, and it was great to see a core group of studentsattending every week. Mr Elliston started by introducing theconcept of robotics, which immediately got the students’attention! From there, students were given a build-your-ownLEGO robot kit, and were tasked with assembling the robot.On top of this, students were given a range of sensors, suchas light, movement, sound, and ultrasonic (distance). Each ofthese sensors, when deployed effectively, can make the robotbehave in different ways, and the students had great funtesting all the permutations.

The overall mission of the club was to get the robots to adaptto the environment that they were in, eventually simulatingclearing rocks from a lunar surface. It was a pleasure towitness the boys throwing themselves into the task, usingcomputer software to send commands to the robots andwitnessing the results. It’s clear that there is a lot of talentwithin this group – perhaps we have unearthed the nextgeneration of engineers! Well done to the students for theirhard work.

YEAR 10 GEOGRAPHYfIELD TRIP A big part of the GCSE Geography class is the opportunity toget out of the classroom and into the field, to studygeographical elements and discuss their results. To that end,Miss Lawler and the geography department took 74 studentsto Studland Bay for a field trip as part of their coursework, fromMonday 16 – Wednesday 18 May.

On the first day, students walked a five-and-a-half mile roundtrip, from Studland Beach to Old Harry’s Rocks. Upon reachingthe top of the rock, the boys looked at landmarks, primarilyfocusing on coastal landforms and arrangements. Tuesdaywas a particularly long day, as students surveyed threebeaches, discussing the conflicts between management andstakeholders. Students were also responsible for surveyinglocal residents for their opinions too – a task that someobviously relished more than others! It was great to seeeveryone getting involved and asking some really insightfulquestions in a polite and mature way.

It was a great trip, with students really throwing themselvesinto the fieldwork. Hopefully this will bear dividends when theircoursework marks are released!

STUDENTS IN THEDOCK DURING MOCKTRIAL COMPETITIONDuring the Autumn Term, Ms Hemings organised ourparticipation in the Bar Mock Trial Competition, invitingstudents in Years 10 and 11 to take part. This was our firstyear taking part in the scheme, and students performed veryadmirably. It began with some practice sessions in school, withstudents taking on different roles such as barrister, court clerk,

or member of the jury. Students had two cases they had tolearn, and even had the privilege of a real professional lawyercoming into school to watch them rehearse.

Towards the end of the term, the boys travelled with MissHannon and Mr Nowicki to Snaresbrook Crown Court, wherethey competed against other London schools. In thecompetition, the boys had to run the trial, with one schooltaking on the role of the prosecution and the other, thedefence. We were really proud of the boys for theirperformance amidst tough competition. The students certainlyseemed to enjoy themselves, with several inspired to furtherinvestigate the prospect of a career in law.

We have once again entered the UKMT Maths Challenge, with143 students taking part across the three challenges – Junior(Year 8), Intermediate (Year 9) and Senior (Year 12). This isan annual competition organised by the UK Maths Trust(UKMT), designed to provoke students’ interest inmathematics through multiple-choice papers. The challengeattracts over 600,000 entries each year, from over 4,000schools and colleges across the UK.

Out of those 143 students, over a third were awarded a medal,be that Gold, Silver and Bronze. The full list of medal-winnersis included below. The Senior Challenge was first, taking placeon Thursday 5 November; Gurpreet Sagoo (12TBI) and

Charlie Gilchrist (13TBI) gained the best scores in Years 12and 13 respectively. In the Intermediate Challenge (Thursday4 February), James Pusey (9E) was Best in Year, while AnassEl Alwani (8C) scooped the Best in Year prize for the JuniorChallenge, which took place on Thursday 28 April.

In total, our Junior participants achieved two Gold, twelveSilver and ten Bronze awards – an outstanding result. OurIntermediate competitors achieved three Silver and eightBronze, while the Seniors earned six Silvers and ten Bronze.Well done to each and every one of the students who took partin the challenge.

UK MATHS CHALLENGE

Curriculum

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Junior

GoldAnass EL ALWANI (8C) [Best in Year]Jack SHIELS (8D)

SilverMohamed ABUGHRIS (8E)Zohaib CHAUDHRI (8F)Lazar DEKIC (8B)Mustafa ELHASSAN (8E)Theodore GOODMAN (8E)Max JENKINS (8C)Laxman JEYARAJASINGAM (8F)Samuel NIXON (8D)Jakub POSKROP (8A)Hussain QURASHI (8D)Charlie RYAN-EDWARDS (8A)Joseph WHITTAKER (8F)

BronzeWaleed ALDILLAMI (8B)Thomas BEAGLEY (8D)Benjamin FRYE (8C)Myles HARRIS (8C)Joshua JULLADO (8D)Ahmed KALAIR (8E)Archie MCGLYNN (8F)Mohamad SHEIKHNOOR (8E)Taran SYAN (8F)Harry WELLS (8E)

Intermediate

SilverLucas MCPHERSON (9B)James PUSEY (9E) [Best in Year]Daniel VAKILI (9F)

BronzeMunir AHMADI (9C)Ruhul-Amin AHMED (9C)Kiran BHURTUN (9C)Bilal BUKHARI (9C)Alfie DENNIS (9E)Faraaz KHAN (9B)Ali NASIRI (9F)Diallo WILLIAMS (9A)

Senior

SilverCharlie GILCHRIST (13TBI) [Best inYear 13]Firdous HUSSAIN (12RON)Tadas KAZIUKONIS (13TBI)Varis KHAN (13RON)Aman PATEL (13RON)Gurpreet SAGOO (12TBI) [Best in Year12]

BronzeAbdifatah ABDI (13RON)Furqan AHMAD (13TBI)Dylan CARRUTHERS (12TBI)Harith HAWAS (12TBI)Adhiyan JEEVATHOL (12TBI)Myan KELLAY (12RON)Jonathan MARTINEZ DA CRUZ (12TBI)Maxwell OMONDI (12TBI)Lahibullah QURAISHI (12TBI)Santhosh VETTICHCHELIYAN (12ANO)

Curriculum

We were delighted on Wednesday 8 June, asIsleworth & Syon won the Hounslow Poetry Slamevent for the second year in succession. Theevent, hosted by the Hounslow Library Service,took place at the Paul Robeson Theatre. A talentedgroup of Year 7 poets were invited to take part,amongst several other borough schools.

The event was hosted by renowned slam poet AdamKammerling. Slam poetry is a specific genre ofpoetry that focuses on the spoken word. It is certainlyan acquired skill, but our boys took it with aplomb,eventually devising their own poem (shown right).After a tense competition, our boys were judged thewinners, and they took home a shiny cup!

The boys were thrilled with their experience. AlbertCampling (7F) said: “Loved it – I always enjoy tryingnew writing styles,” while Jawaid Shamsse (7D)went with a simple “it was awesome!” and MichaelEhinze (7A) described it as “exhilarating and breath-taking”. Congratulations to all of the boys AlbertCampling, Jawaid Shamsse, Jude Collie (7D),Stanley Wheeler-Kemp (7F), Ben Rawsthorne,Jarod Allard, Michael Ehinze and Jason Zingapan!

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POETRY SLAM wINNERS AGAIN!

The victorious students pose with their trophy!

The boys acted out their poems as part of the session.

I am from a city of culture and diversity

I am from a city of financial and economic depth

I am from a huge metropolis.

However, I am also from a city so overcrowded that people struggleto find homes.

I am from a city so popular that its truth and lies are hidden deepbeneath its surface.

I am from London.

I am made of lies hidden from reach

I am made from issues that haunt my city

I am made from the pollution that weakens my hope of an eco-friendly world

I am made of London.

I have lost everything – my home, my money, my belongings

I have lost so many things I practically live on nothing

I have lost the will to live

I have no pride

I have lost everything I might consider suicide

I have lost London.

I have found that deep beneath the negatives of a corrupt city there isalways a positive

I have found that the path to success lies right in front of you.

I have found that happiness is the key to the enjoyment of life

And now that I know that hope is what I need

I can start living anew.

Written and performed by Michael Ehinze (7A), Ben Rawsthorne (7A)and Jason Zingapan (7C)

The winner - Drew Mills - with chef Michael.

Paul Fanning (9A) tries a snail!

Curriculum

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fRENCH STUDENTSGET A TASTE OffRENCH CUISINETowards the end of the Summer Term, Miss Howard and MrsLane in the MFL department have given their Year 9 Frenchstudents the chance to sample some French cuisine. First, theclasses decamped to the food technology kitchens to makecroque monsieur. Some of the students had never cookedbefore, but all of the boys rose to the challenge and producedsome very tasty dishes! These were judged by CucinA headchef Michael, who critiqued the dishes and suggested areasfor improvement. The overall winner was judged to be DrewMills (9B).

A week later, Mrs Lane brought in some French delicacies forstudents to try, including some French cheeses, snacks, andthe pièce de resistance – snails. The look on the boys’ faces asthe snails were brought in was an absolute picture! However, itwas great to see almost everyone get up to try some snail, withmany commenting that it didn’t taste as bad as they expected…some even enjoyed it! This was a great way for students toengage with French culture outside of their study of thelanguage.

Curriculum

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YEAR 7 fLY AwAYwITH ‘ALADDIN’As a reward for their outstanding behaviour during their firsttime at Isleworth & Syon, selected Year 7 & 8 students weretaken to the Paul Robeson Theatre on Thursday 17 Decemberfor a special performance of the pantomime ‘Aladdin’. Theshow was performed by the London Contemporary Theatreand the Hounslow Arts Centre, and we were lucky enough toreceive free tickets from the centre. It was an outstandingperformance; some of the boys’ feedback is included below:

• “The pantomime was good and it was fun to watch. I feltreally lucky to watch that.” – Kaushik Gandi (8C)

• I really enjoyed the pantomime when playing the filmAladdin because it was really engaging.” – MasehAbdulwahid (8F)

• “It was great! I couldn't pick a favourite character or scenebecause I loved the whole play.” – Khryan Hooghan (7B)

• “I enjoyed the pantomime a lot and I thoroughly enjoyed mytrip to go watch it.” – Ben Rawsthorne (7A)

YEAR 9 VISIT YPRESBY MISS SHUKLA, TEACHER OF HUMANITIES

In June, some of our Year 9 boys were very lucky to be able totravel to France and Belgium, in order to visit numerous WorldWar 1 battlefield sites and memorials. This was an excellentopportunity for these boys to practically apply the knowledgefrom their curriculum outside of the classroom.

Although the journey was long and tiresome, the boys wereable to see ‘The Jungle,’ the refugee camp in Calais, andreceive a mini-lesson from Mr Evans about the plight ofrefugees. On day one, we took part in the Last Post at MeninGate, where two of our best dressed and most respectful boysplaced the school memorial wreath, along with many others, tocommemorate the soldiers that battled in the First World Warfrom our school. The boys were honoured to walk through theprocession with many others to pay their respects.

The next day held much in store for the boys. We werefortunate enough to visit the astounding Vimy Ridge andTheipval memorials as the Battle of the Somme centennialwas being commemorated. Not only were the boys able to paytheir respects to fellow Isleworthians that had fought in thewar, but also experience a taste of trench life. The hardships ofthe life of a soldier were brought to light for many of the boys,who realised just how difficult the living conditions were, givingthem an empathetic insight for the men who fought for eitherside of the war.

Our final day of the trip brought a sense of reflection as weheaded to the ‘Coming World Remember Me’ project, ascheme created to put the scale of the war into perspective bycreating 600,000 clay models to represent the lives lost inBelgium. The boys put a lot of effort and enthusiasm intomaking their models and were delighted to contribute to such asymbolic mission.

Although worn out, the boys commented on how much theyenjoyed the trip, and how much they learned. It was a valuablelearning experience where the students could have a hands-onapproach to their education, and feel a deeper understandingfor those who courageously fought in one of the most iconicwars of the 20th century.

Above: Students take in one of the memorials.Below: The boys take some time to reflect.

In the trenches!

Curriculum

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YEAR 9 VISITEDBY HOLOCAUSTSURVIVOROn Thursday 28 April, we were privileged towelcome George Vulkan into school. MrVulkan survived the Holocaust, and came into talk to Year 9 about his experiences at thattime. The Holocaust forms a large part of theYear 9 history curriculum, and so it wasfascinating for Year 9 to hear a first-handaccount of what life was like for Mr Vulkan.

First, Mr Vulkan had lunch with some of ourA-Level History students. He brought along ajournal containing several artefacts from hispast, including schoolbooks which he wasforced to emblazon with the Nazi swastikasymbol. The boys asked some greatquestions during the informal conversation.

Then, Mr Vulkan headed to the hall to addressYear 9. He told his sobering and poignantstory, giving some vivid details about life inAustria during the Nazi reign. He discussedthe segregation, and how he, as a Jewishman, was forbidden from speaking with theChristian children and forced to sit at the backof the class. Eventually, Mr Vulkan wasexpelled from his school and forced to go to aseparate school for Jewish boys.

Year 9 listened intently as Mr Vulkan discussed how he moved to Britain inFebruary 1939. At the end of his talk, they were given the opportunity to askquestions, which they did in a very mature fashion. These events are extremelyimportant in bringing the curriculum to life, engaging the students with real-world stories instead of second-hand resources from a textbook or the internet.All of the boys came away from the talk with an increased understanding of themagnitude of the Holocaust’s horrors, and we would like to thank the HolocaustEducational Trust for organising the event, and Mr Vulkan for giving his time tocome and talk to us.

Robert Vulkan with all of the boys who asked questions.

Students investigate sources.

KEwNATIONALARCHIVESMonday 27 June saw Mr Nowicki take a smallgroup of Year 9 students to the NationalArchives in Kew for a Study Day. The boyswere selected because they had chosen totake GCSE History next year, and so this daywas intended as a springboard for them asthey head towards Key Stage 4.

The Day was designed to commemorate theBattle of the Somme (1 July 1916), and thisworkshop invited our boys to investigateprimary sources from the battle. The boyswere given the opportunity to read some first-hand personal accounts of what happened onthat fateful day, as well as war records thatdetailed the events that transpired.

This was an excellent opportunity to develophistorical skills and think as historians think. Itis completely different from the classroomstyle of teaching, with students responsible

for using their own initiative and skills of research. The boys were even giventhe opportunity to be creative, with some writing poems. The leaders of the daywere extremely impressed with the boys, live-streaming some of their work onTwitter! It was, in all, a fantastic day, with the boys coming out of their comfortzone and learning first-hand about sources and investigation.

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It was a pleasure to welcome a fantasticturnout of parents/carers and otherfamily members to our annual Key Stage3 Awards Evening on Tuesday 12 July.This event celebrates the continuedsuccesses from our students at KS3(Years 7-9) throughout 2015-16. Therewas a truly celebratory mood in theschool hall as we celebrated thesustained hard work, dedication andattainment from the students.

It was a delight to present Academic &Pastoral Awards to each year group inturn. Mr Dargan first introduced Year 7,where 27 students picked up awards –some were subject-based, while otherswere more on the pastoral side. Threestudents picked up three prizes in total:Nathaniel Buendia (7E), Albert Campling(7F) and Akeel Shah (7D) - a great effort.Mr Dargan revealed that Year 7 were thehighest group in the school for predictedattainment, which demonstrates what anexcellent transition into secondary schoolthey have had.

He then moved on to the Year 8 awards,with 31 students receiving recognition.Pick of the bunch was Lar-Leander Volle(8C), who picked up FIVE separateawards – art, English, religiouseducation, Brilliant Club and thePastoral Leader Award. It should also bementioned that two other students

picked up four individual prizes – SamehEsmailzadah and Josiah Wilson Kepple(both 8A). Well done to them – we nowlook to all of our Year 8 students toreally push on as they enter the finalyear of Key Stage 3.

After a brief but excellent musicalinterlude from Alan Wali (9C) andSammy Standing (9B) – reprising theiroutstanding performance from SummerArts - Mr McAlinden promptly took overthe reins for the Year 9 awards, where33 boys were honoured for a variety ofawards. John Drexler Alvaran (9E) wonfour awards (including the PastoralLeader Award), while Diallo Williams(9A) picked up three. In total, 91 boyspicked up Academic and PastoralAwards during the evening – each has adifferent story and has overcome someobstacles along the way. The messagefrom Mr McAlinden and Mr Dargan wasfor students to use this as a springboardfor future success!

There were a series of miscellaneousawards to finish off (full list containedoverleaf). 26 boys were givenCitizenship Colours, rewarding boyswho have shown themselves to beoutstanding, model citizens. A series ofsports and other miscellaneous cupswere also given out – Sammy Standing(9B) won two, the Library Award and the

Music Cup. It was then time for thehighlight of the evening, theHeadteacher’s Cup. First awarded by MrFerguson in 2014, this prize is given tothe Year 9 student who hasdemonstrated continued excellence in avariety of fields during their time atIsleworth & Syon. The tension was thickin the air, as Mr Ferguson was the onlyperson in the room who knew thewinner’s identity! He eventually gave thecup to John Drexler Alvaran. Well doneto everyone who won an award – eventslike this just reiterate and exemplify theoutstanding breadth of talent and hardwork on display at the school.

KEY STAGE 3 AwARDS EVENING

Awards

John Alvaran wins the Headteacher's Cup.

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Awards

Year 7Ahmad Alhasan ComputingNathaniel Buendia Geography, Shackleton House Pastoral Award, The Brilliant Club:

STEMHamid Butt Food Technology Albert Campling Drama, Science,

Turner House Pastoral Award

Joshua Cherian MusicShyamalan Chidambaram ScienceTinashe Chituku Design & Technology,

Pastoral Leader Award Jude Collie DramaElliot Culling Mathematics, The

Brilliant Club: Arts Michael Ehinze Brunel House Pastoral

AwardJoshua Hixon FrenchKhyran Hooghan Design & TechnologyJake Ince-Moore MusicMansoor Ismail ComputingJivanjee Jivanjee Physical Education,

Shackleton House Pastoral Award

Ruben Lopes EnglishMalih Makame Food TechnologyDhruval Patel Turner House Pastoral

AwardBen Rawsthorne English, Pastoral Leader

AwardAidan Rimmer Physical EducationArmaan Sachdeva The Brilliant Club:

STEMAkeel Shah Art, Science, Brunel

House Pastoral AwardJawaid Shamsse HistoryTerrence Stevens HistoryAman Suhaim ArtJimmy Winsor-Franklin FrenchJason Zingapan Mathematics

Year 8Faisal Abdi Food TechnologyMaseh Abdulwahid Turner House Pastoral

Award Humayun Bajwa Spanish Thomas Beagley ScienceZohaib Chaudhri Turner House Pastoral

Award Erikas Debolskij ArtKhyle Erese Shackleton House

Pastoral AwardSameh Esmailzadah RE, Pastoral Leader

Award, The Brilliant Club: Arts

Benjamin Frye GeographyTheodore Goodman Shackleton House

Pastoral AwardHubert Grzelazka GeographyDaniel Hinds ComputingBleron Hoxhaj EnglishAdil Hussain Brunel House Pastoral

AwardLaxman Jeyarajasingam MathematicsJoshua Jullado Design & Technology Jack Lewis HistoryPhilip Lisiewicz Computing, Brunel

House Pastoral AwardJude Maddock-Youngs Geography, ScienceArchie Mcglynn Music, ScienceCadell Osborne History, Physical

EducationWiktor Pelczar Food TechnologyHenry Rathore DramaCharlie Ryan-Edwards SpanishFady Shams Design & TechnologyMohamad Sheikhnoor FrenchJack Shiels FrenchThomas Skinner French, Mathematics,

The Brilliant Club: ArtsLars-Leander Volle Art, English, RE,

Pastoral Leader Award, The Brilliant Club: STEM

Joseph Whittaker Physical EducationJosiah Wilson Kepple Drama, Music, Spanish,

The Brilliant Club: Arts

Year 9Abdullah Abdullah Turner House Pastoral

AwardJamil Aden PSHCEJohn Alvaran English, Geography,

Pastoral Leader Award, Gifted and Talented

Omar Ammoune Physical EducationSilvio Belsito Bright ComputingTaylor Blakeney Physical Education,

Shackleton House Pastoral Award

Jake Bowden Drama, Food Technology

Alec Brundle Brunel House Pastoral Award, Gifted and Talented

Hamza Diriye FrenchChristopher Dobson Physical EducationPatryk Dolecki MathematicsKacper Dzienisik Design & TechnologyArnav Gupta ArtShiva Gupta DramaCamaran Hooghan Pastoral Leader AwardMaxim Kim ScienceAnthony Lewing Computing, ScienceJonah Manning Music, PSHCEWill Millett ArtAntonio Monteiro FrenchAaditya Mudhar EnglishAli Nasiri GeographyChe Nicholas Food TechnologySamuel Norman Design & TechnologyJames Pusey SpanishJude Saunders HistorySamuel Standing Shackleton House

Pastoral AwardMaksymilian Szejko Brunel House Pastoral

AwardDaniel Vakili History, Gifted and

TalentedAlan Wali MusicAlexander Whelan-Mensah History, PSHCE Diallo Williams Geography,

Mathematics, SpanishMontel Williams Turner House Pastoral

Award

ADDITIONAL AWARDS

Munir AhmadiJohn AlvaranMustafa AmiriOmar AmmouneSilvio Belsito BrightTaylor BlakeneyAlec BrundleCamaran HooghanDaniel JdidAsad KapadiShaan MahalMuhammad MiahAaditya MudharSoufian Najeeb

Amritesh PandaJames PuseyAkash RajagobalJude SaundersDaanyaal SheikhSamuel StandingMaksymilian SzejkoJames Van ZylAlan WaliDiallo WilliamsMax WoolfordParsa Yaghouti Hassan Kiadeh

CITIZENSHIP COLOURS (TIES & FLASHES) SPORTS AWARDSJavelle Roberts Basketball CupRyan Peries Cricket CupAlec Brundle Rugby CupOmar Ammoune Football ShieldChristopher Dobson Cross-Country CupDaanyaal Sheikh Badminton CupDiallo Williams Weekly Cup – Athletics

MISCELLANEOUS CUPSSamuel Standing Library AwardBilal Bukhari Junior Debating CupAlec Brundle Paul McLoughlin

Poetry PrizeAli Nasiri Bernard Pitts

Elocution CupAaditya Mudhar Drama CupSamuel Standing Music CupGeorge Evans Smallberry Green Cup

for EndeavourDaniel Vakili Isleworthians (1947)

TrophyJohn Drexler Alvaran Headteacher’s Cup

KEY STAGE 3 ACADEMIC AND PASTORAL AWARDS

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Our Senior Awards Evening is one of the highlights of theschool calendar, as we celebrate students in Years 10-13 whohave made an outstanding commitment to the culture ofsuccess that we aim to foster at Isleworth & Syon. In total, 140students collected awards on Thursday 22 September. Therewere a wide range of categories, but each of them were linkedby a single factor – they showed great commitment, work ethicand dedication during 2015-2016.

This year, we were pleased to welcome John Edwards as ourspecial guest. John is a former student of Isleworth & Syon(1993-1998) who is now an award-winning architect. Hiscurrent project is close to his heart, as he is integral to the newteaching block work currently taking place on the school site.He gave a short address at the end of this ceremony, talkingabout how coming to Isleworth & Syon gave him the skillsnecessary for success. It was very inspirational for the studentslistening intently in the audience!

As usual, Ms Simms compered the evening, assisted by MrLightfoot and Mr Doyle. We began with the Subject & PastoralAwards, as a staggering 106 students collected awards acrossthe four year groups. Many students collected multiple prizes,but a special mention must be given to Qaiser Khan (10F) andGheorghe Rotaru (11E), who each won four prizes. Qaiser alsowon a music scholarship later in the evening.

During the evening, there were several performances frommembers of the performing arts department. Before the eventstarted, the audience were treated to a drama departmentvideo montage compiled by Curriculum Leader Mr McDonnell,which showed some of the highlights of a fantastic last fewyears. During the ceremony there were two interludes from theconcert band, as they performed ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ and‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ with great aplomb. It wasparticularly pleasing to see four Year 7 students taking part inonly their third week at Isleworth & Syon. David Carter (7F),James Ellard (7B), Matthew Nunan (7F) and Zak Osahn (7B)displayed great courage to perform these difficult pieces in frontof a large crowd.

We also gave out a huge swathe of cups and trophies during theevening – the full list is overleaf. A special mention must go to thestudents who collected two cups each: Ellis Bloom (theIsleworthians (1947) Trophy, as well as joint-winner of the DramaCup) and Zack Taylor (Paul McLoughlin Poetry Prize and TranterCup for Endeavour). Both boys demonstrated outstandingprogress and success during their time at the school.

It was then time for the final award, the Headmaster’s Cup,presented to the senior student who has demonstrated aprolonged and consistent contribution to the life of the school.This year’s recipient was Louis Kelly, an affable and reliablestudent always willing to help out in a huge variety of ways.Louis now studies at the University of Exeter, and we wish him well.

Congratulations to each and every one of this year’s awardwinners. They have done the school and their families proud.

See all of our tweets from this event by checking out#IsleworthAwards.

Awards

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SENIOR AwARDS EVENING

Mr Ferguson announces the Headmaster's Cup winner.

Special guest John Edwards with Mr Ferguson.

Awards

YEAR 10Arash Afrazeh Business StudiesArslaan Ahmad Shackleton House AwardJordan Ako MusicTarq Aljammal EconomicsSacha Allen Media StudiesAli Al-Skafi D&T: Electronic ProductsVarun Alvakonda English, HistoryDeven Clarke ICTBen Crittenden Art, ICTOskari Gibson- Media StudiesWadsworthAli Harb PhysicsLee Henesy ArtJoshua Hudnott MathematicsMateeullah Kakar ChemistryTom Keenan Drama, Pastoral Award

Year 10Qaiser Khan D&T: Electronic

Products, French, Music, Turner House Award

Kieran Liu GeographyTheo Mitchell-Smith Biology, Geography,

SpanishAyub Mohamed Media StudiesFaizan Muhammad BiologyMubanga Mulenga DramaHaleem Pall FrenchSamim Rahmani ChemistrySameer Rashid Brunel House Award,

PhysicsTsema Rewane Physical EducationSevak Sohi Physical EducationAyub Suggulle HistoryAlfie Thomas Business StudiesJack Torbett EnglishTim-Frederic Volle Mathematics, Pastoral

Award Year 10

YEAR 11Ahmed Abuelmeaza Art Iffy Ahmed Performing ArtsHarry Case Economics, English,

Physical EducationArun Chadha HistoryWesley Cheung ArtMiles Clark MathematicsHamza Dhala Media Studies, Pastoral

Award Year 11Adam Greaves Music, Shackleton House

AwardYaseen Hammad D&T: Electronic ProductsHasseeb Hussain Biology, ICT, PhysicsCharlie Inman D&T: Food TechnologyMichael Jara Performing ArtsEdrin Kalyango Business Studies,

GeographyMohan Kumar Brunel House Award,

Economics, HistoryManahar Kumar Turner House Award

Laszlo Kunu Physical EducationDilan Lakhani D&T: Food TechnologyMaxim Lundlack-Orr MusicOmar Mahfoudi ChemistryUsman Mahmood Media StudiesAndi Meta Physical EducationCharlie Mills MusicAbdelrahman Moussa MathematicsRyan Nation DramaGheorghe Rotaru Chemistry, Drama, French,

GCSE, Physical Education Muhammad Sabri French Sultan Said English Aman Sihra D&T: Electronic Products Dylan Sihra D&T: Electronic Products Harry Stenholm GeographyRafat Uddin Pastoral Award Year 11,

Physical EducationAman Verma ICT, Media StudiesRamneet Virdee Business StudiesRobbie Whitmore Biology, Physics, Spanish

YEAR 12Alex Bilbiie Business Studies, ICT

BTECDiogo Da Silva ICT, Pastoral Award

Year 12Isaiah Dash Media Studies Cara Doyle Chemistry, MusicThomas Egan Art Finlay Fox Drama, Media Studies,

Performing ArtsOmar Habib Physical EducationHarith Hawas MathematicsShadnan Ishan EnglishAdhiyan Jeevathol History, PhysicsSophie Lucas Art, Drama,

Performing ArtsDanyal Naidu English, HistoryMaxwell Omondi Mathematics, Pastoral

Award Year 12, PhysicsLahibullah Quraishi Biology, ChemistryPrince Radhakrishnan Physical EducationJocelyn Richman ArtGadoffre Gurpreet Sagoo Biology Taranvir Samra Business Studies, ICTJamie Tilt Physical EducationDino Velagic Media Studies Samuel Willingham ICT BTEC

YEAR 13Saleh Ammouna Chemistry, Mathematics,

Physics Ellis Bloom Business StudiesGeorge Bridgewater Drama, HistoryMatthew Carter PhysicsLewis Edmund ICTAli Eta Pastoral Award Year 13Cameron Fall-Everett D&T: Electronic Products

Aamir Hussain EnglishGeorge King ICTThomas Knox Biology, Mathematics Vikrant Mudhar ICT BTECAmelia Offord ArtAman Patel ChemistryAbhay Rawlings Physical EducationRachel Rodipe Physical EducationLouis Rugg Media StudiesUmair Shah BiologyEm Shanahan Media StudiesGeorge Stow GeographyEmelio Titus Geography, History,

Pastoral Award Year 13Kelvin Wong Business Studies, ICT

BTEC

HIGHER SPORTS LEADER AWARDNopagorn Whitington

SPIRIT OF DUKE OF EDINBURGH’SAWARDKareem Zeido

DAWES CUPAkash Choudhury

FARAH CUPJacob Canning

PREM GEORGE BADMINTON CUPSevak Sohi

BASKETBALL CUPOmar Habib

BOB EDMONDS CRICKET CUPJamie Tilt

FOOTBALL SHIELDJosiah Abraham

ROBBIE JONES RUGBY CUPLauri Gibson-Wadsworth

PAUL PAYNE CLUBMAN CUPKamran Anwar

BARRY GOLDSBY CUPPrince Radhakrishnan

SPECIAL AWARD FOR CONTRIBUTIONTO SPORTIffy Ahmed

SUBJECT & PASTORAL AWARDS

SPORTS AWARDS

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Awards

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GCSEHasseeb HussainManahar KumarYacin LakehalOmar MahfoudiConor O'KellyGheorghe RotaruAbijit SinghHarry StenholmRowan ThwaitesAshvin VirdeeRobbie Whitmore

A-LEVELSaleh AmmounaAndy BrownMatthew CarterLewis EdmundJoseph FormbyLauri Gibson-WadsworthJason Irvine-CoatesThomas KnoxMilan MistryBrandon MitchellAbhay RawlingsRachel RodipeUmair ShahHarry WalkerNopagorn WhitingtonCharlie WilliamsKelvin Wong

GOVERNOR’S AWARDSAmelia Offord Art & DesignLewis Edmund BTEC ICTRachel Rodipe BTEC SportEmelio Titus BusinessCameron Fall-Everett D&T:

Systems & Control

Jack Takeda Drama & Theatre Studies

Louis Kelly EnglishOlivia Barnes GeographyNicholas Ryde HistoryKelvin Wong ICTThomas Knox MathematicsLouis Rugg Media

StudiesLouis Rugg MusicSachin Jassal Physical

EducationAman Patel ScienceUmair Shah ScienceBenjamin Vertkin Science

PROGRESS AWARDSKacper Piasecki Year 9Abijit Singh Year 11Ashvin Virdee Year 11Louis Kelly Year 13James McLaughlin Year 13

PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENTAWARDSOskar Gibson- Year 10WadsworthTyler Langan Year 10Iffy Ahmed Year 11Andrew Kakeeto Year 11Zack Taylor Year 11Ramneet Virdee Year 11Ashley Ward Year 11Kieran Alexis Year 13Daniel Zapata Year 13

PTA SHIELD9B

LIBRARY AWARDEmelio Titus

VOCATIONAL EXCELLENCEAWARDRachel Rodipe

DAWES WORK SALVERDiogo Da Silva

CARILLION WORKEXPERIENCE TROPHYTyler Langan

BEATCREATIVEENTERPRISE TROPHYBart Wieloch

PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDNizar Mneimne

DRAMA CUPEllis BloomGeorge BridgewaterLouis KellyEm ShanahanJack Takeda

JOHN TAYLOR MUSIC CUPMaxim Lundlack-Orr

MUSIC SCHOLARSHIPSJordan AkoQaiser Khan

PAUL MCLOUGHLINPOETRY PRIZEZack Taylor

DEBATING CUPAmaan Khan

MR & MRS MORLEY CUPFOR PUBLIC SPEAKINGYuvraj Assi

BOSELEY ESSAY CUPHarry Rumball

OLD ISLEWORTHIANS BOWLJahi Laing

THE ISLEWORTHIANS (1947)TROPHIESJosh Bavin - SeniorAbhay Rawlings – Sixth FormEllis Bloom - Overall

CALDICOTT LAKESCHOLARSHIP Saleh Ammouna

TRANTER CUP FORENDEAVOURZack Taylor

JACK CHAPMAN CUPGeorge Bridgewater

HEAD BOY AWARDThomas Knox

HEADMASTER’S CUPLouis Kelly

SUBJECT & PASTORAL AWARDS

COLOURS TIES 2014-2015

ACADEMICYear 9ALVARAN, JohnAMIR, MohammadDENNIS, AlfieGUPTA, ArnavKAPADI, AsadKIM, MaximLOGAN, DanielMAHAL, ShaanMCPHERSON, LucasMCQUEEN, RossMILLETT, WillMUDHAR, Aadi

NAJEEB, SoufianNASIRI, AliPUSEY, JamesRAZAGHI, DaraSINKEVICIUS, DanieliusSTANDING, SamuelWILLIAMS, DialloWILLIAMS, Montel

Year 10ALJAMMAL, TarqBRYAN, MaxCRITTENDEN, BenDABBUR, HadiHAMADNEH, Eamon

Colours can be awarded in a number of areas of school life.The colours take the form of a flash (to be sewn on blazers) or atie. Ties are awarded for exceptional performance over a periodof time and are awarded on one occasion. The award of ColourTies to first-time recipients, is recorded here.

Awards

JASRA, AditKENT, ThomasKOZIEL, KordianMcHALE, CodyMWANGI, IanPALL, HaleemQURAISHI, MunibullahSAID, AyyubTHOMAS, AlfieWIELOCH, Bartosz

Year 11CLARKE, JordanDHALA, HamzaGULED, MohamedLOUIS, JordanJADOON, FahdMNEIMNE, NizarMOUSSA, AbdelrahmanSAID, SultanSEKHON, AranveerSIHRA, AmanSIHRA, DylanSINGH, AbijitVARA, PavanVERMA, Aman

Sixth FormBARNES, OliviaBROWN, AndyGIBSON-WADSWORTH, LauriHUSSAIN, AamirIRVINE-COATES, JasonMcLAUGHLIN, JamesMITCHELL, BrandonRAWLINGS, AbhayRODIPE, RachelWALKER, HarryWHITINGTON, NopagornWILLIAMS, CharlieWONG, Kelvin

ARTSYear 9BERRYMAN, KendallBUKHARI, Syed BilalBOWDEN, JakeBRUNDLE, AlecGUPTA, ShivaKIAL, AdamMANNING, JonahMARRABLE, CainMILLETT, WillMUDHAR, AadiMURPHY, TomSTANDING, SamuelSTASIK, JakubWALI, Alan

Year 10AKO, GeorgeAKO, JordanBALTACHI NEJAD, AmirBAVIN, Joshua

HENESY, LeeMUSTAFA, SameemTORBETT, JackWIELOCH, Bartosz

Year 11JARA, MichaelNATION, Ryan

CITIZENSHIPYear 9AHMADI, MunirALVARAN, JohnAMIRI, MustafaAMMOUNE, OmarBELSITO BRIGHT, SilvioBERRYMAN, KendallBLAKENEY, TaylorBRUNDLE, AlecHOOGHAN, CamaranJDID, DanielKAPADI, AsadMAHAL, ShaanMIAH, MuhammadMUDHAR, AadiNAJEEB, SoufianNASIRI, AliPANDA, AmriteshPUSEY, JamesRAJAGOBAL, AkashSAUNDERS, JudeSHEIKH, DaanyaalSTANDING, SamuelSZEJKO, MaksymilianVAN ZYL, JamesWALI, AlanWILLIAMS, DialloWOOLFORD, MaxYAGHOUTI HASSAN KIADEH, Parsa

Year 10AFRAZEH, ArashFAHEEM, QasidFARAH, Sakaria

Year 11VIRDEE, Ashvin

PROGRESSYear 9ALI, MohamedALVARAN, JohnDIRIYE, HamzaGUNATILAKA, UvinduGUPTA, ArnavKHAN, FaraazMAHAL, ShaanMUDHAR, AadiNAJEEB, SoufianNOZKA, KacperPIASECKI, KacperRAZAGHI, DaraSAUNDERS, Jude

SINKEVICIUS, DanieliusUDDIN, ArianVAKILI, DanielWALI, AlanWILLIAMS, DialloWILLIAMS, Montel

Year 10AFRAZEH, ArashAHMAD, ArslaanAKO, JordanALJAMMAL, TarqASSI, YuvrajCISOWSKI, KacperHASSAN, SaifJASRA, AditKAYANI, MustafaKEENAN, TomKOZIEL, KordianLIU, KieranMITCHELL, EthanMUHAMMAD, FaizanMWANGI, IanREWANE, TsemaROSENBEIGER, KewinSHORI, SidhantTHOMAS, Alfie

Year 11CLARKE, Jordan ETE, Louis HUSSAIN, Hasseeb JARA, Michael KUNU, Laszlo LOUIS, JordanMETA, Andi MOUSSA, Abdelrahman

Sixth FormBARNES, OliviaBROWN, AndyGIBSON-WADSWORTH, LauriHUSSAIN, AamirMITCHELL, BrandonRAWLINGS, AbhayRODIPE, RachelWONG, Kelvin

SCHOOLYear 9ALVARAN, JohnDIRIYE, HamzaDOLECKI, PatrykHOOGHAN, CamaranLEWING, AnthonyNASIRI, AliPUSEY, JamesRAZAGHI, DaraSAUNDERS, JudeSTANDING, SamuelVAKILI, DanielWALI, AlanWILLIAMS, Montel

Year 10ALVAKONDA, VarunCISOWSKI, KacperCLARKE, DevenGIBSON-WADSWORTH, OskarKAPOOR, SinheKHAN, QaiserLIU, KieranMULENGA, MubangaRASHID, Sameer

Year 11CHEUNG, WesleyTAYLOR, Zack

SPORTYear 9AMMOUNE, OmarBHATTI, IsaBLAKENEY, TaylorBRUNDLE, AlecDOBSON, ChristopherDUNHAM, BenjaminEDU-NVONO, EmmanuelJAMES, GabrielLOGAN, DanielMCQUEEN, RossNOZKA, KacperNYANZI, BenPERIES, RyanRIZWAN, SawaizROBERTS, JavelleSANGOWAWA, BoluwatifeSHEIKH, DaanyaalSYAN, ManrajSZEJKO, MaksymilianWHELAN-MENSAH, AlexanderWILLIAMS, Diallo

Year 10ASSI, YuvrajBAVIN, JoshuaCANNING, JacobCEKAJ, AlbanCHOUDHURY, AkashEGUEGU, SeanGIBSON-WADSWORTH, OskarMcHALE, CodyMEIER, TazREWANE, TsemaSUTTON, CharlieTHOMAS, AlfieWILLIAMS, Kyle

Sixth FormBROWN, AndyIRVINE-COATES, JasonMcLAUGHLIN, JamesMITCHELL, BrandonRAWLINGS, AbhayRODIPE, Rachel

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SAVE THE CHILDRENCAMPAIGN RAISESNEARLY £1500Just in time for Christmas, the school organised a charitycampaign to support Save the Children. This internationalcharity aims to tackle child poverty in order to give families afair chance at life and to try and prevent severe poverty notjust abroad but also at home. This campaign involved buyinggifts (costing upwards of £5.00) for children and communitiesaround the world, to make a significant difference to children’slives. We ran an inter-house fundraising event, where eachform group could decide which gift they would try to buy for achild or family in need.

Each form group was given a thermometer to track the amountof money that was raised. We were delighted that studentsfrom across the school raised an astonishing £1,497.35 forSave the Children, a staggering amount. Shackleton were thechampion fundraisers with an outstanding £673.55. In secondplace was Turner with £385.66, while bringing up the rear wasBrunel with a still-impressive £327.33. The top performing formwas 7E, who raised an unbelievable £164.39. Well done, andthank you, to Miss Hannon and her form for their effort!

With the money that we have raised, we have been able topurchase water filters, midwife training, bicycles, survival kits,winter clothes for a child, footballs, and health care for a child

for a year, amongst others! Three form groups used theirmoney to buy goats, while 10D spent their funds on four treesaplings. Three forms raised enough money to buy fourseparate gifts, which is an absolutely excellent effort. Once wehad made all of our purchases, there was still money left over;this £190 was spent on a donkey!

One of our three pastoral priorities for 2015-16 was to ensurethat our students are thoughtful, active and caring citizens.These charity campaigns are very important to the school, andwe seek to engage all students in local, national and globalfundraising campaigns. There will be more fundraising effortsin 2016-17; keep an eye on the school’s website for moreinformation.

Charity & Community

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SPORT RELIEfOn Friday 18 March, the school raisedmoney for Sport Relief, a fantastic charitywhich saves lives both in the UK and abroad.The main event was the house-organisedRowathon, taking place all day in the schoolhall. Students took ten-minute bursts on therowing machines, with the challenge to seewhich house could row the furthest over thecourse of the day. Although ten minutesdoesn’t sound like too long a time, it wascertainly more difficult than it sounds, andthe boys had to dig deep to keep going. Thefull results are shown below.

These fantastic figures mean that eachhouse rowed the equivalent distance ofDover to Calais and back – a phenomenalachievement. During the day, students inYears 7-9 were also allowed to dress insports kit for the day for a minimum donationof £1. The final total raised by the school forSport Relief was an excellent £381.95 –thank you to everyone who took part, and tothe House Leaders for organising the day.

Well done to 7E and Miss Hannon!

Students supported each other during tough times in the Rowathon!

1st TURNER 68,685m rowed

2nd BRUNEL 67,621m rowed

3rd SHACKLETON 67,225m rowed

Charity & Community

MICHAEL JARA wINSJACK PETCHEYAwARD!A huge well done to Michael Jara (11C), who received a JackPetchey Award on Thursday 24 May at the Waterman’sTheatre in Brentford. The award presented for his coachingwork with the Feltham Warriors basketball team. It is trulyoutstanding to see students making an impact in the widercommunity; well done to Michael!

TORRON-LEE DEwARwINS BRITISHCITIZEN AwARDWe were delighted to receive notice in July that one of ourformer students, Torron-Lee Dewar, has been recognised atthe House of Lords with a British Citizen Award. This award ispresented to people that have made a significant impact ontheir local community. Torron-Lee is the founder of the dancegroup Alliance Dance Unit (ADU), which works with youngpeople from underprivileged backgrounds in the localcommunity. Torron-Lee has been working with the troupe –which he started along with five friends – since 2010.

The aim of the group is to help young people by giving them apositive outlet and using dance to teach them the importanceof discipline and commitment through his dance classes. It isthis pledge to help those in the local community that landedTorron-Lee his award, which he collected from the Palace ofWestminster on Thursday 7 July.

Torron-Lee told the BCA, “This dance company has inspiredpeople to make the right choices and that’s what I enjoy mostabout the group; even when it is hard to find the inspiration, it’sall about being different.” Well done to Torron-Lee for hisaward; it is such a pleasure for us to see our alumni makingsuch a difference. We hope that this inspires our currentstudents to make similar efforts to help those less fortunate!

wE DAYThis year, we have once again organised the ‘WE Act’scheme, with students from across the school invited to meetonce a week to discuss how the school can raise more moneyfor charity. As part of the scheme, the boys were invited to the‘WE Day’ event, which took place on Wednesday 9 March.Here is Asad Kapadi’s (9D) report.

Last year, we went to a unique experience at the SSE Arena,Wembley. The event was called WE Day. This event broughttens of thousands of people together from all over the UK forone specific reason – to change the world! To go to WE Day,you can’t buy a ticket – you have to earn one. This is achievedby participating in one local action and one global action.

Throughout the day, there were many performances, rangingfrom professional songs to inspirational speeches. Thisimpacted on me positively as it motivated me to do more forcharity and to appreciate what I have. As the day went on, ittouched more and more people. The speech that got myattention the most was about a girl from abroad, who came tothe UK to learn but was instead bullied every day. This neverstopped her though, as she stayed after school for hours eachday. After a few months, she became fluent at English. Themoral of this story is to show that anything or anybody whotried to stop you from doing something is nothing more than asmall hurdle. Next year, I would definitely like to take part inthis experience again!

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Charity & Community

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ISLEWORTHCOMMUNITYPLAYNine students took part in the IsleworthCommunity Play this year: AhmedAbuelmeaza (11E), Mo Abuelmeaza(13ALE), Kendall Berryman (9E), JakeBowden (9E), Tom Keenan (10F), AadiMudhar (9B), Mubanga Mulenga (10F),James Pusey (9E) and Rowan Thwaites(11F). Tom’s report is below.

The Isleworth CommunityPlay… what a spectacle.

I participated in the 2016 IsleworthCommunity Play: ‘Isleworth- the Rockand Roll Years’. It was a play aboutIsleworth in the 1950s, featuringcharacters based on people from theera. Mr McDonnell had suggested that Iauditioned for it alongside MubangaMulenga, Aaditya Mudhar and a numberof other students. We all got roles, and

somehow, I managed to score the lead.It was such a fantastic experience as Iwas out in the community working withpeople I had never met before, andexploring styles I never used before.The play relied on physical theatre -

emphasised useof the body withindrama - on such alarge scale andwas configured inthe promenadeformat, meaningthat the cast freelymoved within theaudiencethroughout.

My character was Vince Taylor, a rockstar from the 50s, who grew up inIsleworth; I was challenged to sing anddance in front of (and amongst!) thepromenade audience. We did fourshows, all of which were roaringsuccesses, held in our very own schoolhall. I had a fantastic time and woulddefinitely approach that style of actingagain without hesitation. I feel that Ilearned a lot from it which I can apply tomy acting in the future.

The show was directed by GumleySchool’s Madeleine Casey, and themusic was written and performed byPaul Dalton. The fact that Isleworth &Syon was at the centre of it all trulyshows the importance of the schoolwithin the community.

The poster for the play.

James, Tom and Aadi as part of the band (photograph © Anna Loveland).

Wider Learning Week

Wider Learning Week for Year 7 was a huge success, and itwas delightful to see the students throw themselves into theweek with such gusto! It was clear that the students relishedthe chance to break from routine and try something a littledifferent over the course of the week, which began on Mondaywith a special STEM Engineering Challenge. Students weretasked with making bridges out of only paper and sellotape;the end result had to be able to support a 1kg weight withoutbuckling. Students were put into groups and then had toassign themselves roles within the group – a ‘Project Manager’,a ‘Designer’, a ‘Finance Manager’, and so on. Some studentstook to the leadership roles naturally, and it was great to seesuch positive team work on display, with the end resultsbearing the fruits of this labour.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday were a rotation across threeactivities – with form groups taking one each day. The sciencedepartment organised a series of activities under the banner of‘Exploration’. The highlight for many students was the

opportunity to get into the lab, use the Bunsen burners andmake their own energy drinks from scratch with a variety ofingredients. Students tasted their concoctions once they weredone and there were certainly some tasty beverages that mayput Red Bull out of the market before long! Meanwhile, P.E. andfood technology teamed up for a Health Day – Miss Sheth in thekitchen taught the students some principles of healthy eatingbefore they created their own ‘healthy dish’; Mr Mullins ledstudents through some fitness drills and then invited thestudents to make their own with a variety of apparatus; and MrPotter put students through some paces with some volleyball,and also taught them a series of fitness exercises involving onlya chair! The final activity was a trip to Osterley Park, organisedby MFL. Students went searching for a variety of differentcritters, practicing their language skills at the same time.

On Thursday, students broke from the rotation for a dayorganised by business studies titled ‘Dragon’s Den’. With theformat based on the hit BBC television programme, studentswere tasked with designing a new piece of ‘wearabletechnology’. Again, students were assigned roles within eachproject team and quickly got to work developing their idea,before pitching it to their peers before lunch. There were sometruly imaginative ideas, including interactive glasses andwatches. The six best pitches (one from each form) progressedto the Grand Final, and had to pitch their ideas to the Dragons:Miss Higginbottom, Miss Ludhra and Miss Simms. It wasalmost too tough to call a winner, but eventually the Dragonsdecided that 7A’s pitch was the best due to its potential real-world applications. Well done to all the boys involved!

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WIDER LEARNING WEEKThis year’s Wider Learning Week ran from Monday 4 – Friday 8 July for students in Years 7-9 and 12. The purpose of the week isto provide enriching learning experiences in familiar and new contexts, with activities challenging students and promoting a widerunderstanding and independence. It is also to reward students for their hard work during the school year through a series ofinteresting and fun activities. Find out how each group got on below.

YEAR 7

Above: Working together to build bridges! and below: The winning group: IshaaqBarok, Dan Francis, Gul Khan and Benjamin Rawsthorne.

Creating their own fitness drills.

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Wider Learning Week

YEAR 8Over the course of the week, Year 8 took part in a series ofinteresting curriculum-based activities on rotation. Each ofthese activities offered students something different, andfeedback afterwards was overwhelmingly positive regardingthe variety on display.

Miss Lawler took groups of students to Thorpe Park in Surrey,to investigate the geography and physics of theme parks!Students particularly enjoyed thrill-seeking rollercoasters like‘Colossus’ and ‘Nemesis Inferno’, and lots of discussions werehad in terms of how these rollercoasters work with conceptssuch as gravity and ‘g force’. The business departmentorganised a ‘marble challenge’ (see below), whereby studentswere tasked with making a rollercoaster out of paper and tape– this rollercoaster had to hold a marble for longer than sixseconds. This was a lot more difficult than it sounds, but it wasfun to see students getting to grips with the problem andworking as a team to figure it out.

Miss Qadeer and Miss Shukla organised a ‘PoliticalUnderstanding’ day that was particularly pertinent this year asit came hot on the heels of the EU referendum result. Studentswere taught about democracy in the UK, as well as thedifferent electoral systems in this country and in the UnitedStates. Students learned about the political parties and theirvalues, which stood them in good stead for their main task ofthe day: creating their own political parties. Students wereasked to come up with a series of manifesto pledges – whatthey would change in school if they were elected – and thenhad to pitch them at the end of the day in room 100. Studentsvoted for their favourite by placing a card in a ballot box. It wasgreat to see so many measured arguments on display from thestudents!

On Thursday, students took part in an Engineering Challengeled by the design & technology department. The boys workedas a team to produce remote control cars (see above) with anactual electronic component! Once again, the emphasis wason teamwork, and the boys worked very well together toproduce a stable end result. The week ended with a zoo-themed rotation, with students spending time in differentdepartment across the school completing animal-themedactivities. The highlight was probably science’s ‘Zoo Lab’, withstudents able to see and touch a series of critters including amillipede, a tarantula and a snake. The look on some of theboys’ faces was a picture (as you can see below), but theyclearly enjoying seeing the creatures first-hand! It was a greatend to a special week which firmly took the boys out of theircomfort zones.

Students built a full working remote-control car.

The boys were entranced by the critters.

Will the marble stay in?

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Wider Learning Week

YEAR 9Students in Year 9 were allowed to choose their own activityfrom a series of options. Please see below for a brief summaryof each.

BEING AN ARCHITECT

Students selecting the architecture week had a fantastic timevisiting various London sites. This included the Royal Instituteof Architects (RIBA) on Monday, where they took part in avariety of fascinating talks and sessions. In school, studentslearned more about the architectural process, and were taughthow to use computer software to design their own architecturalproject. Some of the end results produced by the studentswere simply fantastic, a credit to the hard work displayed bythe boys.

COMPUTING

Our computing students took a trip to the Sky Academy SkillsStudio, where they took a tour of Sky News and even filmedtheir own news report complete with Sky News graphics! Inschool, students used specialist software to design a gamefrom scratch; at the end of the week, they used the Xbox toplay their games on the big screen. Ms Stroude reported thatshe was delighted with the boys’ work ethic during the week.

DUKE OF EDINBURGH’S BRONZE AWARD

Students participated in the DofE Bronze award spent theweek preparing for their expedition, which took place on theWednesday and Thursday. For more details, check out theDofE article later in this publication.

FILM-MAKING

Mr McDonnell and Mr Milligan organised a fantastic film-making week, which involved visits to the Sky TelevisionStudios and to the Harry Potter Studio Tour in Watford – bothvisits were an introduction for students to some of the ideasinvolved in making a film. For the rest of week, students weregiven the equipment to produce their own short three-minutefilm on a subject of their choosing. The week ended with ascreening of the films, and the boys did a fantastic (and veryprofessional-looking) job.

FISHING

The fishing week was organised by Mr Fisher and,accompanied by Mr Archer, he took students to fivedifferent lakes across the week. Students receivedexpert tuition and guidance on how to get the bestcatches. The ‘catch of the week’ no doubt belongedto William Blades’ (9F) – everyone was shocked atjust how huge the fish was! Well done to all the boysfor their conduct during this exciting week.

SPORTS WEEK

Mr Devlin led the sports boys on a week of high-octane andthrilling activities, including the opportunity to dive at theOlympic park and cycle in the Olympic velodrome in London.Students also enjoyed beach volleyball and practicing their flipson the trampoline during the week, which was very rewarding!

SURVIVAL SKILLS

Mr McAlinden and Mr Nowicki led the survival week, withstudents taught a variety of tactics to survive in the wild. Thisincluded orienteering, shelter building, fire lighting and a

number of other team-basedactivities. Students appreciatedthe opportunity to get stuck inand learn some vital new skills.

Well done to all of the Year 9sfor their hard work during theweek!

Catch of the day by William Blades (9F).

Sports Week students at the Olympic Park.

Mr McAlinden teaches Spencer Hussein (9E) how to make a perfect fire.

Wider Learning Week

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YEAR 12Year 12 had a great Wider Learning Week, with activitiesfocusing on what comes next for the students. We weredelighted to welcome back former ‘The Apprentice’ contestantBianca Miller to talk to the students about ‘personal branding’.She explained about the importance of presenting yourselfwell during interviews, and knowing ‘your brand’ – what setsyou apart from the crowd. There were a number of visitingspeakers during Tuesday, helping students to understand theprocess of applying to university, from picking your course togetting the most out of open days to going through the studentfinance process.

Students were also given expert advice and guidance when itcomes to writing their CVs and personal statements – whichwill no doubt come in useful in coming years! The week endedwith a visit to the University of West London in Brentford, withstudents taking a campus tour and then being involved with avariety of talks and games to educate them about life atuniversity. All in all, the week gave the students plenty of foodfor thought as they consider their next steps.

We were thrilled to welcome back Bianca Miller.

THE SCHOOLTHE SCHOOL

The PGL Trip was certainly a muddy experience for the boys.

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YEAR 7 PGLAn integral part of our transition process forthe new Year 7s is the PGL trip to Marchant’sHill, near Hindhead. This trip has been runningfor over ten years and is a fantastic way for theYear 7 students to make new friends and getto know not only their peers but also their formtutors and other members of the pastoralsupport team. So, on Monday 5 October, overa hundred students set off for an amazingthree days full to the brim with activities!

Over the course of the three-day excursion,students were regularly taken out of theircomfort zone through a series of thrillingactivities. There was some incredible sharp-shooting in the archery, while studentsreached great heights in the climbing,abseiling and zip wire activities! As always,the boys particularly enjoyed the ChallengeCourse, getting thoroughly filthy as theycrawled through the (very muddy) obstaclecourse.

All of this thrill-seeking meant that mealtimewas eagerly-anticipated, and students enjoyedthree hearty meals a day to give them thatextra push for the day’s activities! The reportsfrom staff were overwhelmingly positive uponthe students’ return, commenting that studentbehaviour was exemplary throughout. Welldone to all of the students, and to all of thestaff who helped to make this trip such amassive success.

The boys were able to zipline over the water.The boys were able to zipline over the water.

The obstacle course was particularly challenging in the torrential rainfall.The obstacle course was particularly challenging in the torrential rainfall.

Josiah Wilson-Kepple takes aim!

The School

Students spent some time on the shooting range!Students spent some time on the shooting range!

Lining up the shot carefully!Lining up the shot carefully!

All the form tutors went along too, allowing the boys to get to know them better.All the form tutors went along too, allowing the boys to get to know them better.

Some budding Robin Hoods in action!Some budding Robin Hoods in action!Some budding Robin Hoods in action! Students bonded with their peers and formed lasting friendship groups.Students bonded with their peers and formed lasting friendship groups.Students bonded with their peers and formed lasting friendship groups.

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The School

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CLASS OF ’52REUNIONOn Friday 9 October, it was our pleasureto welcome several of the Class of ’52 tothe school for a visit. We asked RoyMarshall, one of the ex-students, to writea piece on the experience of comingback to the school nearly sixty yearsafter he had left.

Returning to a place you thought you’dleft forever can be a strange experience.It was 1959 when I was 18 and leftschool! Imagine, someone in the presentSixth Form returning in 2071 – so whatmight he expect to see? A vast glassdome covering the entire site perhaps?Or a 20-storey tower block? In reality,one of the endearing qualities of thiscountry seems to be how little reallychanges over time. So, in our day, 1952-1959, for pupils (students) to enter theschool by the front door was only formorning late-comers in my experienceand after daily assembly in the Hall hadbegun. One would be greeted by MrSoloman Inman, Senior Master in careof ‘lates’, and invited to explain thereason for not being on-time.

“Your Grandmother appears to havedied 3 times since Christmas! So how doyou explain that, Shay?” I heard ‘Solly’Inman ask one morning of a boy in theyear above me. Mr Inman obviously ontop sleuthing form that morning andconsulting his list of excuses archivedagainst individual names. Shay got aSaturday morning detention for that little“porky” as I remember!

Well, whilst I suspect the students stilldo not usually enter by the front door, Iknow that the punishment system atleast will have changed! So it was sort ofa treat to be able to enter the school bythe Staff entrance and it got better. Wewere expected and welcomed onreception and given badges so that wewouldn’t be confused with the pupils!

Two Tour Boys, Sevak Sohi and AyyubSuggulle, were our excellent guides sothat we could visit any part of the schooland not get lost. They were veryinteresting to talk to.

Amazing to think that the last time I sawsome of the guys who turned up to thereunion was over half a century ago –wow! And yet, under the aged exterior(which for all of us has substantiallychanged of course) was the personality.Changed? Yes, but still ‘recognisable’and for many of us we just picked upwhere we had left off.

The Hall is almost as it was although thecanteen has gone from under thebalcony and been replaced by theHonours Board – a good decision,remembering the cabbage and custardthey used to serve (no, not together, butthe food was not good!) Instead, theschool has a separate impressive facilitywith a chef and food in variety availablefrom 8.00am until well after school hasfinished. Nowadays breakfast isavailable if required, and interestingbuns and stuff after school. This isbecause for some the school day isextended both before and after ‘normal’hours. Times do change, of course, andso do our needs – the air-raid sheltershave gone and in their place arecreation area with outdoor table-tennistables – excellent!

The original 1938 building has stood thetest of time and even now influences thecharacter of the entire building sinceadditions have been cleverlyincorporated in a sympathetic style.

The Main corridor outside the Hall hadsome interesting Year Groupphotographs and yes, there was oursphotographed in 1956, which amused usgreatly. Other visuals showed how theschool had developed originally from a1630 foundation of Dame Elizabeth Hill’sCharity School (for girls rather ironically)and that “Alumni” include Owais Shahand Mo Farah.

The wonderful parquet flooring in theold school looks as good as it did overhalf a century ago as does the flooring inthe gym although all the wall-bars, ropesand beams, benches and vaulting boxeshave been removed; so no “pirates” (arather ‘risky’ but enjoyable tag game)now then. And, no Basketball back-boards!! But then we were shown intothe large new Games Hall and there wasthe equipment for Basketball and manyother activities besides – a wonderfulfacility. So things have greatly improvedand that became clear as we progressedthrough the new facilities for music,science, drama and IT – the room newly-equipped for music composition isparticularly impressive but then so wasthe Jazz orchestra who played for us. Aswe looked in to the chemistry labsomething interesting was beingexplored but we didn’t see the outcome(usually smelly so no loss there!)

Something equally interesting seemedto be going-on in the Sixth Form Room –well it was the end of the school day!However, the staff room (where thecloakrooms used to be I think!) wasabsolutely empty! So we presume thatall staff were gainfully employed aboutthe building!

We’d made contact with theHeadteacher Euan Ferguson earlier inour visit but we finally met up with him inthe Library (now several times itsoriginal size!) where he spent a goodhalf-hour with us – although it may havebeen something to do with the tray ofcakes (made on the premises), tea andcoffee with which we were entertained.In truth, the Head was very generouswith his time and we had many of ourquestions answered and the aspirationsexplained for the next stage in thedevelopment of the school. The librarywas “at our disposal” until 6.00pm whenwe were expecting to go to theIsleworthians’ Clubhouse in Wood Lanefor a reunion dinner.

On behalf of the group I should like tothank Euan Ferguson and all concernedfor the opportunity to re-visit the schooland see what an interesting andstimulating experience awaits youngpeople today.

I would also like to point out that I wasnot late!

Roy “Slim” Marshall

5 November 2015

The former students outside the school which theyattended from 1952 - 1957.

The ex-students search for themselves in an oldschool photograph, on display in the main corridor.

The School

REMEMBRANCECOMMEMORATIONSFor this year’s Remembrance Commemorations, the schooltook part in a number of events. On Remembrance Sunday, MrFisher and Ms Squires accompanied twenty students as theyrepresented Isleworth & Syon at the Isleworth 390 event. Eachstudent wore a sash with the name of one of the 390 Isleworthresidents who lost their lives during World War I. The boysdisplayed impeccable conduct throughout, as they went on aparade around Isleworth and its environs.

On Armistice Day itself, Wednesday 11 November, anassembly was held for each year group in the school hall. Anumber of students from across the school gave shortspeeches or read poetry; then, a wreath was placed at the baseof the school memorial, located at the back of the school hall.As the clock hit 11.00am, a minute’s silence was held in school.

Mr Ferguson and Mr Kettle took a small group of selectedstudents to the local Borough Road memorial, which honoursthe students and staff of the old Borough College (which waslocated opposite the school) that died in the War. Studentstook an active part in the short service with a series of reading,while Zack Taylor (11C) gave a note-perfect rendition of ‘TheLast Post’. It was an honour to be involved in this movingceremony along with a number of local schools and residents.

A close-up of the school's wreath, which honours the eighty-one old boys whodied during World War I.

Henry Rathore (8C) and Alec Brundle (9A) place a wreath at the Borough Roadmemorial.

‘A COUPLE OF DOWN AND OUTS’To coincide with the Remembrance Day commemorations onWednesday 11 November, the school hosted a specialscreening of the silent film ‘A Couple of Down and Outs’. Set inwar-time, this silent film was shot in Isleworth in 1924. Thisparticular version contains a contemporary soundtrack,entirely composed, performed and recorded by Year 13student Louis Rugg.

The event was hosted by local historian Ed Harris, author of‘Britain’s Forgotten Film Factory: The Story of IsleworthStudios’. The film itself was an absolute delight, and it isabsolutely necessary to give special praise to Louis, whosesoundtrack was absolutely outstanding, really evoking the timeperiod. It was also great to see a good turnout fromparents/carers and visitors; thank you to everyone who camealong to share in this special event.

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The Year 7 transition process began all the way in March 2015,and culminated with the traditional Induction Assembly onFriday 11 December. Parents/carers were invited to this event,which celebrated the boys’ first term at Isleworth & Syon.

A representative from each form group gave a short speechabout their first three months at the school, and it was great tohear their insight. Many funny stories and anecdotes were told,many of which came from the PGL excursion in October! Theboys commented on the friendships they had built sincestarting at school, and many thanked the staff for their ongoingcontributions. Then, each student was given a bronze, silver orgold medal denoting their current progress. It was truly lovelyto see a lot of students wearing their medals with pride not justfor the assembly but for the rest of the day!

Well done to all of our Year 7 students for making such a greatstart to life as Isleworth & Syon boys.

YEAR 7 INDUCTIONASSEMBLY

Above: A student receives his award from Mr Murrell and bottom: Lots of medals and certificates on offer!

The School

QUIZ & CURRY NIGHTThe Isleworth Association (P.T.A.) gives parents/carers anopportunity to have a voice within the school, with meetingstaking place every half term. The Association also runs severalsocial events over the course of the year, with the main onebeing the Quiz Night. This year, the event took place on Friday20 November.

The evening was a great success, with over a hundredstudents, parents/carers and staff forming teams. At themidway point in the quiz, a delicious CucinA curry was servedto attendees – this was definitely needed, as the quiz, designedby Senior Laboratory Technician Mrs Robertson, wasfiendishly difficult! The winning team was composed entirely ofstaff, and they absolutely romped to victory by over thirtypoints!

In all, it was a fantastic evening. Profits stand at just under£550, funds that will be used to support educational projects atschool. The 2016 event is scheduled for Friday 18 November,with everyone welcome!

2015 SCIENCERESULTS INCOUNTRY’S TOP 10% -FOR THE FOURTHYEAR RUNNING!In December, we received the first draft of data from theDepartment for Education (DfE) that confirmed some trulyoutstanding performances from last summer’s GCSEexaminations. We were particularly delighted to note thatoverall figures demonstrate clearly that our boys continue tosignificantly out perform all students nationally andcomfortably out-perform boys nationally. Indeed, across themajority of categories measured the boys are performing at alevel that is significantly higher than national benchmarks.

One of our great successes was in the sciences, where theoutstanding performances were maintained. Students and staffhave seen their progress measures graded by the DfE asbeing in the top 4% of all results nationally. This is truly aremarkable result – the fourth year running that the resultshave placed in the top 10%.

We were also thrilled to see significant improvements in thehumanities. This year’s results for geography and history havemoved to being in the top 15% of schools nationally. If thismeasure were to be graded against boys only, the score wouldbe even more impressive.

The School

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SUMMER SCHOOLIn the last two weeks before the start of the Autumn Term, weonce again ran a Summer School for targeted students inYears 7 and 8. Mr Fisher once again organised the scheme,which is a great way for students to get to know each otherand form friendship groups before term begins.

The first week was on-site, focusing primarily on sport whilebringing in literacy and numeracy – introducing students toconcepts that are a main focus at Isleworth & Syon. For thesecond week, the students concentrated on drama andscience, heading out-and-about for various activities, includingthe Hounslow Urban Zoo, a mini-beast hunt around OsterleyPark, and various investigations of ecosystems in the localenvironment.

Students received a free pencil case and a free book, as wellas an introduction to the Accelerated Reader programme. Theweek culminated in a barbecue at Thistleworth Tennis Clubwhich was well-attended by students and their families. Thistwo-week activity really did act as a springboard for thestudents, to allow them to hit the ground running in September.Some of the parent/carer feedback is included right. A hugethank you to Mr Fisher for organising the event, to the teachingstaff who gave their time, and to the Sixth Form students whohelped out.

• “My son got a chance to explore the activities which areavailable at school. He really enjoyed seeing the animals atOsterley Park. I feel he has a lot of confidence now andhas come out of his shell.”

• “It was very helpful, my son was happy, he made a lot ofprogress and he made new friends.”

• “It provided my son with the opportunity to familiarisehimself with the new environment and build newfriendships. The structure helped to get him back into agood routine and has built his confidence.”

• “My child came home every day with a smile on his face.”

• “My son built friendships with other children and got toknow his way around the school. He enjoyed all activitiesand was very excited to tell me about it.”

• “A unique opportunity for these children – many thanks!”

Right: Experiments in science.Below: Students had a great time handling several

different animals courtesy of 'The Tropical Zoo'.

The School

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SKI TRIP 2016During the Easter Holidays (Saturday 26 March – Saturday2 April), Miss Lawler once again organised a ski trip.Although the cohort was smaller than the previous year’s,there was a real sense of community amongst the twentyboys that braved the icy winds on the Austrian slopes. Thegroup stayed in Zillertal and took advantage of someabsolutely outstanding facilities during the week.

Several of the cohort had never skied before, and yeteveryone threw themselves into the activities with gusto.The boys did really well in some pretty challengingconditions, with all earning a ski level award at the end ofthe week. All members of staff were very impressed withthe level of commitment on show from the boys, in spite ofthe various bumps and bruises picked up along the way!

Each day was devoted to time on the slopes, with theevenings spent taking part in a number of fun activities.Students took part in a disco at an actual (underage)nightclub, as well as bowling at a modern centre which wascompetition-standard. The bowling alley was decoratedwith fires and furs and had a really nice atmosphere – notthe boys paid much attention to that, as they were too busybeing competitive and trying to win! A particular favouritewas the Tyrolean evening, where students got a slice ofAustrian culture, including log-cutting!

As always, the trip had to come to an end way too soon, butthe boys were left with memories of an amazing adventure.The school is already formalising plans for next year’s trips –stay tuned to the school’s website for more details.

Search #IsleworthSki on Twitter to read some of our tweetsfrom the slopes, which give some further details about justsome of the highlights from the trip.

Above: The entire group after a successful week.Below: Some tired boys after a particularly arduous day!

Log-cutting during theTyrolean evening.

The School

The Isleworth Association (PTA) puts on a number ofeducational events for parents/carers over the course of theschool year. On Tuesday 26 January, the latest of these wasthe Online Safety Evening, open to students andparents/carers in Years 7 and 8. The event was hosted by ourdesignated Safer Schools Police Officers PC Beal and PCWeston, and was well-attended.

Those present were given very important information aboutkeeping children safe online, with plenty of hints and tips withhow to deal with pressing concerns about websites and socialmedia usage. It was an extremely worthwhile evening, and ourthanks to everyone who attended.

YEAR 7 & 8 ONLINE SAFETY EVENING

VALENTINE’S DISCOWe were delighted with such a great turnout for this year’sValentine’s Disco, which took place on Thursday 11 February.This event gives students in Years 7-9 a chance to let theirhair down, as we once again teamed up for the Green Schoolfor this very successful event. Over 200 boys and girlsattended in total, and the energy (and noise!) levels in the hallwere raised to the maximum! As is customary, the eveningbegan with the girls on one side of the hall and the boys at theother, but eventually the shyness gave way to exuberance asthe tunes got going! Everyone present had an absolutelyfantastic time, and the behaviour was exemplary. There wereeven a few telephone numbers exchanged by the end!

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The School

Above: Throwing some shapes on the dancefloor.Below left: Andrew Kakeeto - Prom King.Below right: Harlequins was a fantastic venue!

YEAR 11 PROMAfter a very long and arduous seven weeks of examinations, it was all overfor Year 11 on the week of 20 June. That meant only one thing – it was timeto let their hair down, which they promptly did at the Year 11 Prom on Friday24 June, at Harlequins RFC, Twickenham. This is always a fantastic event,as the Year 11s say a proper goodbye not just to each other but also to themany staff in attendance. The boys were joined also by girls from BrentfordSchool and the Green School, and there was a real party atmospherethroughout the packed room!

There was plenty of (over-)exuberant dancing on display from the excitedstudents, to some disco classics and some modern chart hits as well. Lots ofawards were given out too in a variety of categories including ‘Best Dressed’and ‘Best Dancer’. The top award, though, is the ‘Prom King’, and this year’srecipient was a delighted Andrew Kakeeto (11E) – resplendent in an all-whitesuit and pink tie. A huge thank you to every student that came along tocelebrate their time at Isleworth & Syon in style!

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The School

FAREWELL, YEAR 11!After five years of compulsory education, Friday 27 May wasthe beginning of the end for Year 11, as they had their finalformal assembly with Mr Lightfoot in the hall. Over the courseof their five years, there have certainly been some bumps inthe road, but it was truly great to hear their memories,recounted by representatives from each form. Mr Lightfootalso read out some memories from staff – with many of thestudents wishing that those (embarrassing) accounts hadstayed hidden!

Following the pastoral and academic awards, Mr Lightfootconcluded with a fantastic speech entitled ‘Life from the Pointof View of a Gamer’, which used the prism of video games togive Year 11 some meaningful life advice. We wish all of ourYear 11 the very best in whatever comes next – be that ourown Sixth Form, college, or the world of work.

YEAR 10 UNDERTAKETWO WEEKS’ WORKEXPERIENCEOne of the formative experiences for our Year 10 studentseach year is to opportunity to undertake two weeks of WorkExperience from Monday 4 – Friday 15 July. Students areencouraged during the Autumn Term to find their ownplacements in a sector that interests them. Off the studentswent with considerable nerves in the end! We are pleased tosay that the boys have equipped themselves very well to thisfirst experience of the world of work, and many employershave been effusive with their praise. Some have evencommented that they wished they could keep them once theplacement was over! Our sincere thanks to the students fortheir hard work, and to the businesses themselves for being sowelcoming and accommodating to the students.

STUDENTS VOTE‘REMAIN’ IN SCHOOLEU REFERENDUMThursday 23 June was one of the most important days in theUK political history, as votes were cast across the country inthe referendum to decide whether the United Kingdom shouldleave the European Union. During that week, the HouseLeaders organised a series of activities for students duringform time, giving them the platform to discuss the manycomplex issues involved in making this decision. Our debatersalso took over one of the house assemblies and had aninformed debate about some of the issues at hand.

On the day itself, students were given the opportunity havetheir say and cast their own ballot in our in-school referendum,with the Sixth Form Study Room transformed into our pollingstation for the day. The turnout was truly outstanding, and itwas an absolute pleasure to see so many people engaging inan issue of this magnitude. The results of the ballot were veryinteresting, with a massive 62% of students voting to ‘Remain’in the EU. Thank you to every student who respected theparliamentary process and had their say.

Casting their vote!

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SIXTH FORM STUDENTS VISIT THE WW1 BATTLEFIELDSBY GEORGE BRIDGEWATER (13JST)

The week before October half-term, Miss Qadeer, Emilio Titusand I left London bound for Ypres (Belgium) and theBattlefields of the Somme (in France). What we learnt was theimportance of remembering the individuals that lost their livesin battle for their country and their individual stories.

During the trip, I also found the grave of my Great-GreatGrandfather, Captain Clement Bridgewater. I learned that hevolunteered for service with the cavalry in 1916 andcommanded a battalion of the Inniskilling Fusiliers during thebattle of the Somme and the Battle of Cambria. I found out thathe was buried in Cambria following his death. He died leadingthe charge into the German frontline on horseback; theGermans had left tripwires along no-man’s land crippling thehorses before facing large German artillery attacks. A survivorof the charge spoke of Captain Bridgewater’s body entangledin the wires, where he died along with his horse. I found thispersonally harrowing, finding out about this member of myfamily and his story in the war.

We remember every man and woman who died in the eventsof the First World War through memorials and assemblies butacross Europe they are remembered with events such as thedaily Menin Gate Memorial service and the several hundredmilitary cemeteries dedicated to remembering the peoplebehind the war. I feel it is part of our generation’s duty to alsocontribute to the remembrance of those who lost their lives. Ihad the immense privilege of taking part in the ‘Coming WorldRemember Me’ programme. They have been working on thisremembrance instillation in No-Man’s land around Ypres, since2014 with Artist Koen Vanmechelen (much like the poppies atthe tower of London). Emilio and I were lucky enough to eachcraft a small clay figure each that will represent one of the600,000 soldiers who died in Belgium and will be engravedwith our names and a soldier’s name. This project is whatremembrance is all about - drawing attention to the past andallowing us to remember the people that gave their lives sothat we can live the way we do today.

‘SAFE DRIVE, STAY ALIVE’On Tuesday 6 October, our entire Year12 cohort took a coach to the Questor’sTheatre, Ealing, for the ‘Safe Drive, StayAlive’ event. As the title suggests, thissobering event focuses on road safety,with several schools from the Londonarea invited. The event travels aroundthe country, speaking to young peopleabout the importance of staying safewhile driving, and the terribleconsequences of not doing so. The

event started in a light-hearted manner,with a few games to relax the audience.However, this atmosphere was quicklypunctured when the compere informedthe audience that within the first twoyears of passing their driving test, one infive people crash.

For the rest of the event, studentslistened to a series of very hard-hittingtalks from people that had been directlyinvolved in some horrific road trafficcollisions. These included members ofthe London Ambulance Service, the FireBrigade, and the Metropolitan Police,who all shared their experiences as

responders to thescenes of seriousaccidents. Theimagery thatthey used wasextremelyevocative, andstudents weresuitably stunned at someof the incidents. There was a hush overthe group as they left the theatre, silentlyreflecting on the harrowing tales thatthey had heard. It certainly gave themplenty of food for thought as theyconsider learning to drive.

Sixth Form

A-LEVEL ENGLISH LITERATURE STUDY TRIPSAs part of their A-Level English Literature studies, students arerequired to go beyond the text and consider a number ofdifferent elements, including the context in which it waswritten, the use of language to convey imagery, and thethemes of the novel. To that end, the English departmentorganised a number of trips to help them to do this.

The first took place on Saturday 17 February 2016, as thesmall group (made up of students from Years 12 and 13) wereinvited to London’s Southbank for a study day with authorsKazuo Ishiguro and David Mitchell. Ishiguro’s ‘The Remains ofthe Day’ is one of the set texts for the examination, andstudents learned a lot during the day. Both authors talked a lotabout the process of writing, which the group found

fascinating. Ishiguro also made several comments about ‘TheRemains of the Day’ specifically, which was a huge help tostudents as they prepared for their summer examinations.

Three weeks later, the Year 12 students went to a SovereignEducation A-Level Study Day, which took place at CityTemple, Holborn Viaduct. The subject this time wasTennessee Williams’ ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, another ofthe examination set texts. Students listened to a number oftalks from university lectures, discussing various aspects ofthe novel including masculinity, the tragic genre, and thehistorical and social context. The group were engagedthroughout, and the day clearly served them well consideringthe standard of the summer examination results.

Sixth Form

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SIXTH FORMWINTER BALLAfter a very busy Autumn Term, SixthForm students let their hair down in theirown inimitable style, with theirChristmas Ball on Thursday 10December. Held at the local HarlequinsFC rugby ground, the event broughttogether students from Isleworth &Syon, Brentford School and the GreenSchool for a fantastic evening!

A student DJ was on hand to mix thetunes, with a heavy Caribbean theme tothe music that delighted the assembledcrowd. The Year 12s and Year 13sgrabbed the opportunity to put on theirdancing shoes, with several ‘dance-offs’taking place over the course of theevening. Unfortunately, as with all eventsof this nature, it ended too soon – buteveryone left with a great feeling ofsatisfaction after a great evening ofsocialising and over-exuberant dancing.Our thanks to Miss Tyreman, who co-ordinated the event, and Deputy HeadBoy Ali Eta (13TBI), who wasinstrumental in pulling the event together.

OXBRIDGEPREPARATIONDAYThis year, we have had several studentswho applied either to an Oxbridge (Oxfordor Cambridge) university or medicalschool for September 2016. To that end,we were delighted to be invited to anOxbridge Preparation Day on Tuesday 17November. Miss Tyreman accompaniednine Year 13 students to the event, whichtook place at the JFS School in Harrow.

During the day, students took part in awide range of activities, many of whichfocused on the interview process forthese prestigious and highly-selectiveinstitutions. The most grueling part of theday, according to the students, was the‘mock interviews’ section, where studentswere put through their paces in two 30-minute subject-specific interviews withrecent Oxbridge graduates. Althoughreally quite nerve-wracking, the studentsgave a great account of themselvesduring this highly-rewarding day, whichgave them an insight into the challengesthat they would face during theapplication process.

FORMULA 1LECTUREWe feel that it is important for our SixthForm students to experience the lectureenvironment during their time in Years 12and 13, to give them a small idea of whatuniversity life could be like. To that end, asmall group of Gifted & Talentedmathematics students visited RoyalHolloway, University of London on theevening of Wednesday 4 November.

The talk was titled ‘Chess at 200mph: TheGame of Formula 1 Strategy’, and was ledby Gareth Griffith, a feature film and majorsports software specialist. Gareth’ssoftware has been used in over 500 films,including the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy andSteven Spielberg’s classic ‘Jurassic Park’.

The lecture itself focused on themathematical techniques behind racestrategy at the Mercedes-Benz Formula 1team, and was a very rewardingexperience for the nine boys whoattended. It was designed to bridge thegap between A-Level and universityteaching, and left the Year 12 studentswith plenty to ponder as they consider theirnext steps.

TOM SHERRIFFEARNSAPPRENTICESHIPAT SKY SPORTSIn May, we were absolutely thrilled tohear that Tom Sherriff (Year 13) hasgained a place on a highly-prestigiousSky Sports internship for September2016.

The ‘Fast Forward’ scheme offersparticipants the chance to gainvaluable working experience for ayear in Sky Sports, working across avariety of shows such as Sky SportsNews, Monday Night Football, andother sporting events. It was highlyselective, with only one person pickedfrom thousands of applications, andincluded an intense four-stageapplication progress. The scheme willoffer Tom the chance to experience anumber of different aspects such assound, script-writing, logging andediting. We wish him well.

Towards the end of January, we welcomed a review team fromChallenge Partners for an annual “health check” on the quality ofthe school. This year, the focus was on the Sixth Form. Led by aqualified and active Ofsted inspector, the review team spent twodays in school looking at all aspects of our post-16 provision.

The team looked at three aspects of the Sixth Form:improvement strategies; student outcomes and the quality ofteaching; and learning and assessment. We are especiallypleased that the team validated our own judgement of theprovision, as being a really good Sixth Form. Many positiveareas were highlighted in the report along with somesuggestions for improvement.

The full report is available to read via the school website, whileyou can view a selection of comments to the right.

SIXTH FORM SCORESWELL IN CHALLENGEPARTNERS REVIEW

Sixth Form

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IMPROVEMENT STRATEGIES

“School leaders know the strengths and areas for developmentin the Sixth Form very well. Self-evaluation is accurate and keyareas for development are being addressed.”

“Staff and leaders are very committed to the students, toimproving outcomes and to helping students to move on to theappropriate next stage in their education, employment ortraining. They give freely of their time and skills to offerindividual support and guidance.”

“The ethos of the school promotes inclusion and equality ofopportunity. Students with differing needs feel well supported.”

“Girls are made to feel very welcome in the school.”

“There are a wide range of enrichment opportunities available,and good opportunities to develop leadership.”

OUTCOMES FOR STUDENTS

“53% of students achieved A*B grades, 99% of studentsachieved A*-E. The target for A*B in 2016 is 59%.”

“Subjects with strong value added in 2015 according to ALPSwere: art, biology, chemistry, English literature, ICT, physicaleducation, physics and sociology.

“The school exceeded its target of 75% A*-D at AS level with81% achieving these grades. This shows good improvement.91% achieved A*-E.”

“Science subjects are a particular strength of the school andare very oversubscribed.”

“Students following vocational courses made excellentprogress.”

QUALITY OF TEACHING, LEARNING ANDASSESSMENT

“There are very positive relationships between students andbetween students and staff.”

“The school provides a secure and supportive environmentwhere all can learn and achieve.”

“Teachers plan their lessons carefully with a variety ofactivities. They have strong subject knowledge and anenthusiasm which motivates and engages the students so thatthey enjoy their learning. Assessment data is well used inplanning.”

“Attitudes to learning are excellent. Many students aredeveloping good independent learning skills.”

PiXL CELEBRATIONWe were delighted when two Sixth Form students – AdamLouelhi (12ALE) and Nabil Malki (12RON) were invited to thePiXL Student Celebration Event, which took place in Londonon Wednesday 23 September.

PiXL (Partners in Excellence) is an organization that workswith over a thousand secondary school across the country,with a focus on raising standards of achievement at GCSE.This event was hosted to celebrate students who achievedwell at GCSE, in spite of perhaps not having the best results tobuild on. Adam and Nabil both overcame specific obstacles toearn a number of outstanding GCSE results.

The main guest at the event was Levi Roots, former contestanton Dragon’s Den and creator of the popular ‘Reggae ReggaeSauce’. There were also a number of other presentations andperformances during the afternoon, which culminated in bothboys taking part in the award ceremony. A huge well done toAdam and Nabil – we hope that this event encourages them tokeep pushing on as they progress into Key Stage 5!

Sixth Form

On Thursday 4 February, Miss Cox took Gus Fontaine(12ANO) and Danyal Naidu (12JST) to Auschwitz as a meansof illuminating their A-Level History studies. Here is Danyal’sreport (contains evocative imagery).

As soon as we entered Krakow, the bleakness of itssurroundings set the tone of the visit. We were on our way tothe infamous concentration camps Auschwitz and AuschwitzBirkenau. Hours later, we entered Auschwitz I and theimmediate feeling of distress and uneasiness filtered throughmy body. How else would you feel if you were standing metresoutside a camp where 1.2 million people were innocentlymassacred? ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ (‘Work Sets You Free’) waswritten above our heads and it was at that point that I knewhistory stood before us.

We took a detailed and emotional tour around Auschwitz I, withthe tour ranging from the selection process all the way to themethods used to kill innocent people. It is extremely difficult toexplain the emotions that ran through me but I will try my best.We entered many rooms but a certain number of rooms causedmy eyes to widen. One room was ‘The Selection Process.’ Wewere explained the process in which mothers would never seetheir beloved children ever again or feel the soft touch of theirhusbands as they were to be separated for good. Women, theelderly, children and the sick were ordered to the left whilst the‘fit’ men were forced to the right. When we were told this asurge of guilt, wretchedness and anger rose through me.Couldn’t anyone save them?! It caused me to think about howmuch we take for granted as a generation.

Throughout the corridors, pictures of the deceased filled thewalls. A man called Jozef Jankowski caught my eye. Jozef wasdeported into Auschwitz on 29 May 1941 and was exterminatedon the 16th October 1941. He survived only five months in the

camp before hislife wassnatched awayfrom him…millions of liveswere. We later visited the infamous Gas Chambers and it wasthe part of the trip where I felt both excited and anxious. As Ientered the chamber, I looked immediately at the walls and sawnail scratchings. It was the Jews who were crying out for mercyfor someone to save them. The Chambers were monotonousand depressing and made me feel small and helpless. I couldn’timagine how 2000 Jews at a time felt crammed into a coldchamber complete with nothing but darkness. This was, in fact,my worst experience whilst at the camps.

I had the privilege and the once-in-the lifetime opportunity tovisit Auschwitz I and Birkenau. It was an amazing experience towitness these events first-hand, and has really educated mewhen learning about the Holocaust. We had specialists whoguided us every step of the way and answered all of ourquestions when needed. This trip has really made me open myeyes about events that may have happened over 70 years ago,but will live with us forever. The most important thing I havelearned is that hatred and racism over a certain race orethnicity is futile. We were all born human beings and we will alldie human beings. Unfortunately, the Jewish people werevictims of a repulsive crime committed by one man whoseideologies caused unforgettable moments. In addition, I havealso learned the development of the Holocaust and how itwasn’t only the Nazis who carried out these awful actions butthe other processes involved. It has also developed mylearning on Jewish life before the war and how the Holocaustcaused Jews to act and live differently post-war. Lastly, I wouldlike to thank the people working at the Holocaust EducationTrust for giving me the opportunity to visit Auschwitz.

AUSCHWITZ

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Sixth Form

MEDIC CLUBMs Stead has once again run the Medic Club this year,designed for Year 12 students who have expressed an interestin studying medicine or a related subject at university. Theclub was extremely well-attended this year, with studentsthrowing themselves into a weekly programme of stimulatingactivities.

One particular highlight was the study of opthamology – thescience of the eye – at Specsavers in Hounslow. The store wasparticularly accommodating to the students, inviting them in forsome hands-on medical eye examinations. Students wereshown detailed images of the backs of eyes, and were taughtthe signs of possible tumours and cases of diabetes. The boysthen put dye in each other’s eyes to look for the blind spot. Itwas a great afternoon for the boys.

Later in the year, we were lucky enough to be invited to aMedic Day at the Hunterian Museum, London. This day-longactivity began with a lecture about the life of a doctor, withstudents hearing from several medical professionals aboutwhat a typical day is like for them. Students were then taughtthe art of suturing, learning two different types of stitch and thesituations in which they would be applied. The boys’ favouritepart, however, was when they were given the opportunity towatch three operations on video, accompanied by a doctor’slive commentary. The boys watched a triple heart bypass, abrain tumour extraction and a gastric operation, and it was afascinating insight into the practical part of being a doctor.

In school, Ms Stead ran a number of activities building on whatthey had learned outside the classroom. A particular highlightwas a visit from Jane Marshall, a speaker from ImperialCollege London. Ms Marshall actually sits on the medicineadmissions panel for the university, and so she was able togive students some outstanding advice regarding personalstatements and the interview process.

Of the previous year’s cohort, four students have gone on tostudy medical courses at university in September 2016. Fromthis year’s group, three students have already been inspired toapply. This is a testament to the hard work from Ms Stead andthe science team.

Students also took part in a number of dissections!

SPORT

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Sport

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SPORTS TEAMSIt’s been another fantastic year of sport for the P.E. department,with our sport teams going from strength-to-strength over thecourse of the year. With each member of staff takingresponsibility for a sport, there has been a sense of cohesionacross the extra-curricular programme that has suited the boyswell. When that is added to the outstanding level ofcommitment from the students, you have a recipe for success.

The biggest success has come from cricket, with consistentsuccess pretty much across the board. Mr Potter has put onlots of extra training sessions before school, with boyssometimes coming in at 7.30am. This clearly paid dividends,with our Year 7 group not only finishing as comfortableborough champions but also emerging victorious in theMiddlesex Plate. The Year 8 cohort displayed some verystrong performances throughout the season to be crownedborough champions; they also narrowly finished runners-up inthe indoor borough tournament and third in the Middlesex 8-a-side. Year 10 also competed in an 8-a-side tournament, andalso finished third. We were delighted with the progress ofYear 9 this year; they also won their borough tournament,crowning a Key Stage 3 clean sweep!

Not to be outdone, Mr Mullins has led the athletics students tosome great successes this year. Year 7 finished the Cross-Country borough tournament as runners up, while Year 10 wonthe Super 8s championships by a staggering 98 points! Year 8also won their borough Super 8s competition, as well as theBorough Championships, where the 4x100m relay team beatthe school record by a phenomenal 2.5 seconds. Well done toEddie Imarayiosa (8B), Morgan Lawrence (8E), Cadell Osborne(8E) and Josiah Wilson Kepple (8A). Finally, the Year 8 boyscomfortably won the Middlesex Indoor Championships andwere rewarded with a place in the London Youth Games, wherethey placed as the sixth best team in the whole of London.

There were a number of successes across the other sports,with our Year 8 students placing as runners-up in the boroughKS3 table tennis tournament. Our Year 7 footballers had achallenging year but eventually were rewarded with the title ofBorough Champions, while in rugby, both Year 8 and Year 9won their tournaments at sevens level – the Isleworth Cup andGunnersbury Plate respectively. We hope that these successesspur the boys on next year to bigger and better things!

Above: KS3 students putting in the hard graft before school.Below: Our Year 8 indoor champions.

SCHOOL XV 19-48 OLD ISLEWORTHIANSOn Wednesday 16 December, Wood Lane played host tothe annual rugby fixture between a combined Isleworth &Syon student and staff XV and the Old Boys. This year, theOld Isleworthians RFC emerged as comfortable winners intricky condition.

The game often sees former students taking time awayfrom work or higher education to catch up with their formerteachers and peers. Entertainment is never in short supply,with this year’s match no different. The school XV battledhard but they were no match for the speed and physicalityof the Old Isleworthians. Well done to all who took part,and congratulations to the Old Boys for their victory.

BADMINTON ROUND-UP

Sport

Above: Ayden Davies (Year 12) in action.Below: A collection of our KS3 and KS4 winners.

It has been another very successful team for our Badmintonteam, marshalled as always by Miss George. Both our KeyStage 3 and Key Stage 4 teams narrowly won the boroughround of the National Schools’ Championships – Isleworth &Syon teams have now been the borough champions for tenstraight years, both at Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4.

These victories meant that the boys progressed to the WestLondon Finals, which took place at the Harrow Leisure Centreon Friday 5 February. The boys played very well indeed, withboth teams extremely unlucky to lose out on a place in theLondon final by just a single game. Well done to both teams:

Several of our students have also been involved in the LondonYouth Games. The Hounslow team is coached by MissGeorge, and 70 students from across the borough took part inthe trials. Sevak Sohi and Ravin Jayasekara (12RON)performed well enough to be selected for the four-personteam, which is an outstanding achievement – especially fromSevak, considering the rest of the team was made up of SixthForm students.

It is great to see our outstanding pedigree for Badmintoncontinuing. For those looking to get involved, the club runsfrom 3.00 – 5.00pm after school on Mondays and Tuesdays,with everyone welcome.

KS3Ben Dunham (9D)Asad Kapadi (9D)Daanyaal Sheikh (9D)Harry Williams (8E)

KS4Delaine Bedward (10A)Gaurav Kharaud (10C)Navraj Sohal (11A)Sevak Sohi (10C)

HARRY WILLIAMS: U-13 BADMINTONRUNNER-UP!Badminton continues to go from strength to strength in theschool (see report below) with students thriving under thetutelage of Miss George. One student, Harry Williams (8E) hasshown immense potential this year, and on the weekend of 12March, he competed in the U-13 Badminton England bronzecircuit tournament. The event took place in Birmingham, andwe were delighted to learn that Harry finished as the runner-upoverall. Miss George hopes that Harry can push on from this toeven bigger success in the future.

HARRY CASE LEADSENGLAND OUT ATTHE RUGBY WORLDCUPWe were delighted to witness Harry Case (11A) as he had thehonour of leading the England Rugby Team out in the openingmatch of the Rugby World Cup. Harry, the captain of theschool rugby team, had been selected during the previousyear as a result of his commitment and dedication to rugby inschool.

As a result, Harry was a special guest at the opening match ofthe tournament, as England faced Fiji at Twickenham onFriday 18 September. Harry did the school proud as hetriumphantly carried the flag and sang the national anthemalongside England captain Chris Robshaw. Congratulations toHarry for his achievement!

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Sport

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On Tuesday 24 November, we welcomed Conor Davis to theschool as part of the Teach First visiting teacher scheme.Conor Davis now works for Citi Bank, but he was formerly arugby player, representing Ulster as well as his country atjunior level. Unfortunately, his career was cut short due toinjury, and he moved into banking.

Over the course of the morning, Conor delivered an intenserugby coaching session to some of the school’s senior rugbyplayers. It was great for the students to be put through theirpaces by a former professional! Afterwards, Conor hosted aquestion-and-answer session with the boys, speaking to themabout seizing the opportunities they are given, how to progressinto a banking career, and how sport has helped him in hisprofessional life. It was a great morning, and we sincerelythank Conor for giving up his time!

CONOR DAVIS RUGBY SESSION

LEVEL 2 STREETGAMES AWARDDuring the Spring Term, our Year 12 Level 3 BTEC Sport andLeisure students have taken their Level 2 Street Games awardas part of their course content. The aim of the award was toallow the students to gain skills whereby they are able toengage young people in accessing physical activity,particularly in rural areas where they do not have as muchaccess to sport. We were delighted that the boys involvedabsolutely threw themselves into the task and found itextremely rewarding.

MO FARAH WINS DOUBLEOLYMPIC GOLD IN RIOAll in school were extremely proud as former student Mo Farah won hissecond double Olympic gold in Rio this August. Mo attended Isleworth& Syon from 1999-2001, and even at that young age showed a thirst forlong-distance running. It was clear that he was destined for greatness,and he is now one of the most successful British Olympians of all time.His performances in the 5,000m and 10,000m events in Rio weresimply breathtaking, pushing past his opponents in such a commandingfashion that the result was never in doubt. He won each race by a clearmargin, with many now calling him one of the greatest distance runnersof all time.

At our annual Senior Awards Evening, we award the Farah Cup to onestudent who has demonstrated hard work on their way to success. Moacts as an inspiration and a motivation to our students every singleday, and we are delighted that he has experienced such success on aglobal scale. Congratulations to him for such a phenomenal and richly-deserved achievement!

Sport

STUDENTS VISITLORD’S FORMIDDLESEXENGAGEMENT DAYOn Tuesday 28 June Mr Potter was back at Lord’s, but thistime he had a group of nearly fifty students with him. Theoccasion? The Middlesex Engagement Day, a special eventwhich invited 5000 young people into the home of Englishcricket to watch a first-class County Championship cricketmatch between Lancashire and Middlesex. There was somewell-intentioned banter between the students and Lancashire-born Mr Potter throughout the day!

During the day, students were also given the privilegedopportunity to actually bowl and bat at Lord’s! They took part ina series of cricketing activities, including B20 cricket and sprintcricket, and also were given a personal tour of the ground. Theboys’ behaviour on the day was exemplary. Afterwards, MrPotter said, “the boys have been outstanding in every respecttoday [and their] behaviour, attitude and actions have beenimpeccable.” A special thank you as well to Sixth Formstudents Kamran Anwar (12RON), Prince Radhakrishnan(12MAS) and Jamie Tilt (12MAS) who assisted during the tripand have been a huge help to the department all year.

Playing cricket at Lord's!

STUDENTSREPRESENT BOROUGHAT LONDON YOUTHGAMESWe were thrilled to hear that five of our junior studentsrepresented the borough of Hounslow for cricket at the LondonYouth Games. The matches took place at Lords, the home ofEnglish cricket, and the boys absolutely did the school proudas they and the rest of the borough team ended up as silvermedallists!

The boys involved have been training hard all year, with KeyStage 3 cricket going from strength to strength this year (seeSports Teams at the start of the Sports section). Up to thirtystudents have been taking part in early morning trainingsessions with Mr Potter each and every week, and the resultshave paid dividends. Well done to the boys who representedHounslow: Curran Bains (7A), Zohaib Chaudhri (8F), ZaynHussain (8D), Ahmed Kalair (8E) and Sukhteshwer Khaira (8F).

RFU JUNIORREFEREE’S AWARDOn Monday 1 and Tuesday 2 February, our Year 13 sportsstudents took part in an RFU Junior Referee’s Award,spending two days learning how to be a rugby referee andpicking up a qualification at the end of it. The boys workedreally hard over the course of the programme, with the externaltrainer very impressed with their effort.

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Sport

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HIGHER SPORTSLEADER AWARDAll students in the Sixth Form are given the opportunity to takethe Higher Sports Leader course, a national-recognised Level3 qualification run by Sports Leaders UK. 14 of our currentSixth Form cohort organised a Sport Relief FUNdamentalfestival at Marjory Kinnon School on Wednesday 16 March, aspart of their award. All 96 students at Marjory Kinnon took part,and students and staff alike were overwhelmed with theprofessionalism displayed by the students as they planned,delivered and evaluated a series of sporting activities. It is apleasure to see these Sixth Form students taking a leadershiprole and making a real tangible difference in the localcommunity. Well done to the students involved!

Students designed, prepared and delivered a whole range of activities.

JAMES MCLAUGHLINWINS JACK PETCHEYAWARDWe were delighted to receive notice in December that SixthForm student James McLaughlin (13MAS) had won a JackPetchey Award. This is a prestigious award that is presentedto young people who have made a significant and prolongedcontribution to the local community. In James’ case, this is dueto the outstanding work during Premier League Kicks sessionsorganized by the Brentford Football Club Community SportsTrust.

Premier League Kicks is a scheme that began in 2006 andaims to reduce crime rates in London by engaging students insport. James began as a participant in the sessions, butstarted coaching on a volunteering basis in January 2015. Heimpressed those in charge enough to become a paid Trustcoach after completing his FA Level One award in July 2015!Since then, he has shown an outstanding level of commitment,continuing to volunteer with the scheme on top of his paidhours. James commented that coaching has “helped merecognize that I like sharing my knowledge of sport with youngpeople”.

After receiving his award, James received a write-up in one ofthe Brentford FC official matchday programmes, in which hecredited his Level 3 studies at Isleworth & Syon as theinspiration for his coaching. James won a £200 grant from theJack Petchey Foundation along with his award, and used thatto take his Kicks group to Top Golf in Surrey. A huge well doneto James for his achievement!

Sport

One of the more eagerly-anticipated events of the sportingcalendar is our Year 13 Leavers’ football match against theStaff XI, which took place on Wednesday 20 April. With somenew blood amongst the staff ranks this year, they were asomewhat unknown quantity, and it seemed like the matchwould be as tight an affair as always. However, on thisoccasion, the pre-match predictions were widely off the mark,as the Year 13s romped to an easy victory.

They took the lead after just seven minutes with a goal thatdisplayed the route 1 tactic at its best, as Josiah Abraham(13JST) latched on to a goal kick from Nick Bennett (13MAS)and comfortably finished past Mr Hoy in the staff goal. Tenminutes later, though, and the Staff were level with anexcellent finish from mathematics teacher Mr Dilks. At this

point, the game was fairly tight, with both defences stiflingeach other. However, the game was blown wide up just beforetime with an outstanding free-kick from Josiah Abraham,scoring his second of the game with a free kick right out of thetop-drawer, leaving the ’keeper no chance.

At the beginning of the second half, the staff made a series ofsubstitutions and looked to be getting back into the game.However, two goals in quick succession pretty much finishedthem off, as Harry Walker (13MAS) and Jahi Laing (13JST)made it 4-1. From that point on, the game was pretty muchover. Harry Walker did put more gloss on the scoreline with afine finish to make it 5-1, which was how it ended. The Year 13Leavers have now won two years in a row. Congratulations tothem, and well done to everyone involved!

YEAR 13 LEAVERS 5-1 STAFF XI

P.E. DEPARTMENT WINS‘CHANCE TO SHINE’AWARD!This year has seen a major drive for cricket led by Deputy CurriculumLeader Mr Potter. All of this hard work has clearly paid off as theschool was nominated for Schools Project of the Year at theMiddlesex ‘Chance to Shine’ cricket awards. It was a real honour tobe nominated for the work and effort in delivery of our provision overthe course of the year.

Two other schools were nominated for the award; the awards daytook place at Lord’s Cricket Ground on Sunday 26 June, with MessrsPotter, Devlin and Mullins in attendance. We were all absolutelydelighted when we won the award! The school was honoured for ouroutstanding extra-curricular provision, including the new ‘Bats forBoys’ initiative, which makes cricket bats more readily-accessible toYear 7, allowing them to develop their skills from an early age. MrPotter has also instituted lunch clubs for cricket-related activities,7.00am morning training sessions (not for the faint-hearted, but well-attended!), and teams at every age group across borough and countycompetition (including ‘B’ teams at Key Stage 3).

Throughout this Review, you can see the breadth of cricketingsuccess this year, a testimony to the hard work from the staff and thecommitment from the students. We hope for much more next year!

Above: Josiah Abraham is surrounded by Staff defenders.Right: The winning team!

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Sport

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FORM SCORES7A 101

7C 101

7E 99

7B 96

7F 85

8C 114

8F 108

8E 97

8D 91

8A 83

8B 81

9F 112

9B 106

9A 99

9E 97

9C 93

9D 76

10B 129

10F 124

10E 81

10A 77

10C 68

10D 46

SPORTS DAY 2016One of our favourite events in the schoolcalendar is our annual Sports Day, which wasonce again held across the road at the Osterleytrack, on Friday 1 July. This all-day event is afantastic way for students to get into the housespirit, as Years 7 and 8 in the morning andYears 9 and 10 in the afternoon attempted towin valuable points for their house. All of theathletics track and field events were run duringa jam-packed day that was superbly organisedby Mr Potter and the P.E. department.

The atmosphere during both halves wasabsolutely electric, with students roaring theirclassmates on! The standard of performancewas very high, with many of the eventsextremely close. Students in first, second andthird were given a medal and a place on thepodium as reward for their exertions. Severalschool records were resoundingly broken overthe course of the day, including Josiah WilsonKepple (8A) absolutely destroying his own triplejump record with a truly outstanding leap!

It was very close, but in the end the overallwinners (for the second year in succession)were Turner, who celebrated triumphantly. Inspite of difficult weather conditions and prettymuch constant light rain, the boys didthemselves proud over the course of the day.

Sport

ON YOUR MARKS, GET SET, GO!

Josiah Wilson Kepple (8A) broke the school record for triple jump.

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Sport

DUKE OF EDINBURGH’S AWARD

We have once again organised the Dukeof Edinburgh’s Award scheme within theP.E. department. We offer three levels:Bronze (Year 9), Silver (Year 10 and 11)and Gold (Years 12 and 13). We areproud to be one of only a few localschools to still offer the Gold award.

The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award is splitinto several sections:1. Volunteering (six months for Bronze

and Silver, twelve months for Gold);2. Learning and demonstrating a new

skill3. Physical recreation (such as a sports

or gym activity)4. A week’s residential experience

away from home (Gold only)5. Expedition.

Students complete the expedition inschool and the rest of the sectionsindependently. This year, a recordnumber of students took part in the threeawards.

Mr West led a total of 57 students in theBronze award. Throughout the year, theboys take part in a variety of differenttraining, including basic camp craft andmap reading. This was designed toprepare the boys for their assessedexpedition, which took them to Shere fortwo days and one night during WiderLearning Week. All but one group weresuccessful with their expedition, and theboys performed well. We were pleasedas well that several of their groups

worked in the local community as part ofthe programme, volunteering at theBarnardo’s charity shop. We hope thatthe boys continue their Duke ofEdinburgh’s Award journey in 2016-17.

20 students took part in the Silver award,led by Mr Adams. As with the Bronze,the boys had one practice expedition andone assessed, and they displayexceptional campcraft in oftenchallenging conditions. During thepractice in Chiltern, there was torrentialrain and howling winds, but the boysdisplayed resilience and determination,which they then took into their assessed.Many of the students had progresseddirectly from the Bronze award, and weare very proud of their progress. Aspecial thanks as well to volunteer SteveTurner, who assisted us with the Bronzeand Silver practices, and was invaluable.

As always, the Gold cohort was smaller,with six students from the Sixth Formtaking part and led by Mr Gaskell. Theyundertook one expedition during 2015-16 (to the Lake District) with the secondand final expedition to the BreconBeacons scheduled for September2016. Each of these expeditions lasts forfour days and three nights, and is ahuge challenge for these students.Several of the boys had completed bothof the other levels, and so thisrepresented theculmination oftheir journey. A particularchallenge was the‘Striding Edge’ atHelvellyn, but theboys appliedthemselvesexcellently andwere a credit tothe school.

A number of Isleworth & Syon studentswho took part in the 2014-15 schemevisited the Civic Centre for theirPresentation Evening on Tuesday 10May, picking up their Bronze and Silverawards. We were delighted to also seeJoe Formby (Year 13) pick up his Goldaward at the event, a testament to hishard work. Almost a week later, onMonday 16 May, Mr Ferguson wasinvited to a very special Duke ofEdinburgh’s Award ceremony atBuckingham Palace, whichcommemorated the 60th anniversary ofthe scheme.

Grey skies during the Silver expedition!

The terrifying 'Striding Edge.'

The gold competitors. A collection of our Bronze competitors.

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Sport

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DEFEAT FORTHE I&SCRICKET XIAGAINST THE MCCWe were delighted to once againwelcome the Marylebone Cricket Club(MCC) for their annual match againstour First XI. This year’s game took placeat the Old Isleworthians Sports Ground,Wood Lane, on Wednesday 15 June.

MCC won the toss and elected to bat ona hot and steamy wicket. Jamie Tilt(12MAS) and Talha Azam Malik (11E)opened the bowling for Isleworth & Syonand were dangerous from the very firstover. After a strong bowling and fieldingperformance, we bowled the MCC outfor 224-7, leaving them with a 225 targetto win the match. Amongst the wicketswere the aforementioned Jamie andTalha, as well as Prince Radhakrishnan(12MAS) and Iffy Ahmed (11F).

It was a particularly challenging matchfor us as the first XI was extremelydepleted due to the ongoing summerexaminations. Particularly mention mustgo to Talha and Iffy, both of whom came

back to the match once theirexamination had been completed!

We made a really good batting start inspite of sharp and consistent bowlingfrom the MCC openers. Although theboys gave everything they had, MCCwere just too good on the day, bowlingus out well short of the target. However,this was a solid performance from theboys in difficult circumstances, andHead of Cricket Mr Potter was rightlyproud of the group.

A special thanks to Michael and theCucinA staff for the fantastic spread thatgreeted the players after the match, tothe Old Isleworthians for hosting, and tothe old boys and staff who supported. Itwas another great day, and next year’sshould be even better – the Middlesex

Cricket Board (MCB) have just donateda cricket pitch cover to the school, whichshould hugely improve conditions goingforward.

RACHELRODIPENOMINATEDFOR BTECSPORTSTUDENT OFTHE YEARWe were delighted to receive notice inthe Summer Term that Year 13 studentRachel Rodipe had been shortlisted forthe BTEC Sport Student of the Year inthe National BTEC Awards. Rachel wasput forward by the school, and was oneof eight finalists out of thousands ofstudents entered. The judging paneldeemed that Rachel should be “highlycommended” as one of the outstanding

BTEC Sport students in the country – aphenomenal achievement as only fivestudents in the UK received this honour.

The award is richly deserved for Rachel,who has been an outstanding influencewithin the BTEC cohort this year. Sheearned a triple Distinction* in her BTECExtended Diploma in Sport, which isequivalent to three A-Level A*s. Herwork ethic and commitment to thecourse within the classroom has beennothing less than exemplary, along withfantastic attitude, behaviour andcommitment. Her work is not merelyconfined to school, however – she doeslots of work in her local community as afounding member of the Creative Caféin the Beavers Estate. This Saturdaymorning club targets small children (5-11) and promotes healthy lifestylesthrough sport. She has regularlyassisted in primary schools and otherinitiatives. Mr Adams, CurriculumLeader for P.E., said, “Rachel is not onlyan outstanding student – she is polite,

affable, reliable, and is willing to giveback to her school and community.”Rachel now goes on to study at St.Mary’s University, Twickenham, and wewish her well.

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Developments & The Future

FACILITIESThe work to install floodlights and fencing around our 3G astroturf pitch waseventually completed during 2015-16, after a great deal of work by manypeople to persuade local planners of the benefits of the scheme. We now havea fantastic facility whichcan be used in allweathers by thestudents and which willbe a valuablecommunity resource. Inaddition, we haveplanted some mixedshrubs along theChurch Road aspect ofthe field which will, intime, form a new hedgefitting for theconservation area.

We were delighted to see the eventual installation of a pelican crossing on theGreat West Road at the junction with Ridgeway Road. This new crossing willmake the road much safer for our students and for members of the community,and comes after many years of lobbying from the Headteacher and membersof the Isleworth Association.

There are always developments taking place at school and one of theimprovements this year has been the refurbishment of the Performing Artscorridor. The “before” and “after” photographs tell their own story!

FUTURE DEVELOPMENTSThe £7 million project to build a new teaching block is underway. This will see20 new teaching rooms being built, essentially to house core subjects. Ourarchitects from ‘Useful Studio’, Catherine Ramsden and former student JohnEdwards, have produced a wonderful scheme that will greatly enhance theschool estate and produce teaching rooms fit for many years to come.

Part of the scheme will see some internal re-modelling of existing rooms,including the installation of four new science laboratories. The intention is tohave all building works completed by early next Autumn Term.

We are in discussion with the Local Authority and South West Trains to give upa small stretch of land on our Busch Corner playing fields to allow for betteraccess, including disability access, to the Syon Lane station. As part of thework, trees will be re-planted along the railway line and new fencing installedalong Spur Road.

NEW WEBSITELAUNCHEDOn 1 September 2016, the school launchedour brand new website atwww.isleworthsyon.org. The new website hasbeen in the works for over nine months, andhas been redesigned and redeveloped fromthe ground up in order to focus on deliveringvisitors the best possible user experience.

We’ve made a number of significantimprovements behind-the-scenes whichensure that the new website is smoother,slicker and faster, making it easier than everfor you to access the content you need.Furthermore, the website has a responsivedesign, meaning that it will adapt to whateverscreen size it is being viewed on. The new sitelooks absolutely fantastic on mobile phones,tablets and laptops. The design elements ofthe site have been retouched to make theexperience a lot more immersive, with full-width images or slideshow galleries on eachpage to create a vivid visual experience.

The organisational structure has also beenimproved, with everything slotted into sevendistinct sections: ‘Our School’, ‘Admissions’,‘Sixth Form’, ‘Curriculum & Learning’,‘Pastoral Care’, ‘Parents’ and ‘Students’. Nomatter what you are interested in, it will beeasy to find it. Navigating the site is easierthan ever, with improved search capabilitiesand a sidebar on each page telling you whatelse is contained within that section.

Being outstanding in every respect is at thecornerstone of everything we do at Isleworth &Syon, and this extends to our communications.With our Twitter(www.twitter.com/IsleworthSyon) andFacebook (www.facebook.com/IsleworthSyon)social media accounts going from strength tostrength, we continue to keep parents/carersup-to-date with everything that goes on in theschool on a day-to-day basis.

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Welcome to our Annual Review of 2015-16 and a chance to look backat some of the highlights of the last school year.

The school has a long and proud tradition for the high quality educationof local boys, and a more recent and growing reputation for similarlylooking after the best interests of an increasing number of Sixth Formgirls.

With an ever-growing local population and new schools on the horizon,we will continue to focus on our own priorities of ensuring a high qualityacademic education, offering an exemplary range of additionalopportunities, and retaining some of our long and fine traditions. Wehave always found this to be the best way to ensure the continuedsuccess of both our students and the school.

An analysis of the summer’s examination results confirms that weremain the most consistently top-performing non-selective school forlocal boys. It is important to measure our results against boys in mixedsettings both locally and nationally, and it is always pleasing to us thatour boys do perform better when measured against boys in local mixedschools and against boys nationally.

At A-Level, our student outcomes were excellent. The pass rate wasover 99%, with over 50% of all A-Level grades at A*-B. Across thewhole year, over 80% of grades were at C or above, cementing ourposition as being in the top 10% of schools nationally for added-value.

At GCSE, new progress measures show that our boys continue tocomfortably out-perform their peers nationally on every measure. Asimportantly, we remain extremely proud of the manner in which ourstudents develop over their time with us into mature, considerate andambitious young men.

At our Senior Awards Evening for 2015-16 we were delighted towelcome former student and award-winning architect and designer,John Edwards, back to school. A graduate of the University ofCambridge and of the Royal College of Art, John is currently workingfor Useful Studio and one of his currentprojects is our new teaching block. Itwas a delight to hear him reflect on himtime at school and on his career to date.

The school does provide an outstandingeducation for our students and we lookforward to another excellent school year.

E Ferguson

I am grateful to Michael Kettle, former student and the school’sCommunications Officer, for compiling this Annual Review. I wouldalso like to extend my thanks to Beat Creative for the design andproduction of this publication.

Cover artwork by Robbie Whitmore (11C)

A MessAge FroMthe heAdteAcher

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ANNUAL reVIeWacademic year 2015-2016

Isleworth & Syon School for BoysRidgeway Road, Isleworth

Middlesex TW7 5LJT: 020 8568 5791 • F: 020 8568 1939

school@isleworthsyon.orgwww.isleworthsyon.org

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