Author: Paul Radmore

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A massive congratulations to Year 12’s Lily, who is now set to attend an awards ceremony at Oxford University come September! 

Having entered the John Locke Institute Essay Competition in June, Lily’s response to the question “Why Would God be so Coy?” had her shortlisted from over 500 international entries. 

The response given was cogent, captivating and insightful. 

Well-done Lily!

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A group of dedicated students from Year 12 recently formed the Curious Chemists’ Club, with the aim of sharing their enthusiasm for the subject and extending their chemical knowledge.  The team have now been extremely successful in the Cambridge Chemistry Challenge.  This competition is designed to stretch the best Chemistry students in the country and is so difficult that certificates are only awarded to the top two thirds of entrants.  Despite the odds, all of our students were successful.  Copper awards were achieved by Owen, Hannah and Jake.  The top quarter of candidates nationally received a silver certificate and this included Lottie, Sophie, James and Heather.  Special congratulations go to Hannah and Riley who were rewarded with gold certificates for being in the top 8% of students in the UK.  

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The questions were particularly tricky this year, requiring our students to understand the structure of some really complex molecules.  These included the deadly poison digitalis (from foxgloves) and a human-like molecule called “Dame Bond 008”.  Many congratulations to all our students for their fantastic performance.  

Dr Hall

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A Sixth Form student at Churston Ferrers Grammar School has been rewarded with a scholarship for her outstanding effort and achievement during her A Levels.

Ambra received the award, granted by The Reading List Foundation, which provides a grant to cover the costs of books for her university studies. 

She was chosen for the award based not only on her outstanding results, but on the challenges that she overcame to achieve those results 

Ambra is awaiting her A Levels results in Geography, French, Sociology and Italian, and has an offer of a place to read Modern Languages at the University of Exeter.

Head of Sixth Form, Adam Killeya, said “We are very proud of what all of our students have achieved this year, but Ambra particularly stood out for this award for her outstanding attitude and achievement. She is an extremely worthy winner, and we are very appreciative to the Reading List Foundation for offering this award”

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A massive congratulations to Charlotte and Abi, both of whom completed their whole Gold DofE Award by finishing with their expedition in Wales last week. This means that they’ve done a total of two years worth of Volunteering, Skills and Physical, as well as a Residential. Abi went on a tall ship training voyage in January, and has since been recruited as a young leader for future trips. Charlotte did a respite holiday week with the organisation Go Beyond, and is also planning to return and work with them again later in the year.

Completing their Gold by the end of Sixth Form, having both done Bronze and Silver as well (and had much of their Silver interrupted by the pandemic) is an incredible achievement. They’re both such dedicated and motivated young people, and we are very proud of them! They’ll be off to the Palace sometime in 2023 to be presented with their Gold awards.

Mrs Lewis – DofE Leader

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Photos of an utterly fabulous Gold DofE week in Snowdonia, with an awesome bunch of humans. 30 Golds in 5 teams, 1 heatwave, 3 days of re-re-routing below the mountains for water drops and shade availability, 1 day of cooler scenery and mountains for many, lots of smiles, hugs and tears, and bucket loads of effort and achievement. Everyone completed their expeditions in fine style yesterday, and enjoyed a lot of pizza at YHA Kings, tucked away under the mountains. Just soul-liftingly ace.

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This could not happen without an incredible team of adults – thankyou is never ever enough for the 18hr days, endless checkpoint lingering (in 35c 🥵), bracken bashing, tricky route reccying, cattle management and all the other things, with good humour (bad humour at times!), always saying yes to whatever is needed, and whatever time of day or night it needs to happen. Staff team, you are all just ace, now please go home and have a massive sleep!

Mrs Lewis – DofE Leader