A date for your diar­ies - Our next ‘Friends and Famil­ies Day’ will be on Saturday 19^th May 2012.

‘FRIENDS AND FAMILIES DAY’ 14^th MAY 2011 – Our Speech Day

‘Friends and Famil­ies’ Day Book­let. Click on the image on the left to down­load our ‘Friends and Famil­ies’ Day Book­let show­ing what has been happen­ing at Friends’ School during the past year.

Click here or scroll down to see the Annual Report for the Junior School

Head’s Report to Parents and Friends at ‘Friends and Famil­ies Day’ Saturday 14 May, 2011 by the Head, Graham Wigley.

Good morn­ing, Friends.  I am delighted to be able to present my fifth annual report.

The King was not satis­fied with his parrot.  All it did was hop from one foot to the other and offer the occa­sional squark, so he called his advisors and instruc­ted them that some­thing must be done to educate the bird.

A gold­smith was called in and a magni­fi­cent gilt cage built and the parrot installed.  Soon an army of attend­ants busily polished and burn­ished the cage constantly.  Schol­ars wrote learned manu­scripts and these them­selves were copied continu­ously until they were piled high.  Pages were torn out and instruc­tion given to the parrot as they were forced down its throat.  The King and all who visited said, ‘This is educa­tion, indeed!’

The parrot did not fly.  But this was deemed unne­ces­sary.  Occa­sion­ally it fluttered its wings, so these were clipped.  The parrot contin­ued to hop so a chain was fitted to its leg to remove this inconvenience.

And all the while, the schol­ars wrote and devised lessons and the attend­ants and advisors polished the gilded cage.  People came from far and wide to admire this great educa­tional achievement.

Nobody looked at the parrot which, it tran­spired, had died some time before.

Be it in their social, moral, spir­itual, phys­ical or tech­no­lo­gical educa­tion, Friends’ School pupils most certainly have not had their wings clipped or been force-fed a dry educa­tional diet over the past year.  As a consequence our pupils continue to fly.  While some are at the stage of their first tent­at­ive flights from the secur­ity of the nest, others soar, achiev­ing heights that, I suspect, surprise even them.  All enjoy a rich diet both inside the classroom and within the more formal struc­tures and routines of school life as well as increas­ingly rich and diverse oppor­tun­it­ies at school and further afield.

Before he took up office as Educa­tion Minis­ter Michael Gove wrote that young people should be ‘authors of their own life stor­ies’.  What those stor­ies will be, of course, depends on many other factors than solely a young person’s educa­tional exper­i­ence, yet his or her educa­tion is funda­mental to how that story devel­ops.  Ines­cap­ably, exam­in­a­tion grades are the pass­port to the next stage of pupils’ lives, keep­ing doors open either for A level or degree courses.  Year on year – and look­ing back on last year’s A levels more so than ever – I am able to report on excel­lent public exam­in­a­tion results; on Open Morn­ing and when speak­ing with other groups of prospect­ive parents or to the Heads of feeder schools, I can refer with confid­ence to strong, irre­fut­able evid­ence that Friends’ school pupils do well.

Parents here today are to be congrat­u­lated for being enlightened enough to have chosen Friends’ school for your chil­dren, appre­ci­at­ing that good exam results, though neces­sary, are not suffi­cient in them­selves to ensure that young people are well educated and develop in a roun­ded way which equips them for play­ing a full role in the world in the future.

In his remark that pupils should be ‘authors of their own life stor­ies’ Michael Gove was, of course, iter­at­ing in his own way the same message that Nobel liter­at­ure winner Rabindranath Tagore was in his story about the parrot – that our young people should be encour­aged to guide their own destinies rather than being pass­ive recip­i­ents, where educa­tion is reduced to ‘train­ing’ and ‘skills’.

Parents share the school’s aspir­a­tional values that we constantly seek to soar higher and to exper­i­ence the more rari­fied atmo­sphere of wider educa­tional oppor­tun­it­ies.  Such aspir­a­tions are under­pinned by the Quaker values that form the bedrock of the school’s ethos, perhaps encap­su­lated in the quota­tion from Quaker Faith and Prac­tice that, ‘We seek to affirm in each child at school the person that he or she may grow to be’. Much of this is summar­ised in the Friends’ and Famil­ies Day book­let that you have received today which records the more obvi­ous high­lights and achieve­ments over the past year, epitom­ising as they do the essence of a Friends’ school education.

There is stretch and chal­lenge on geography field trips, in maths Olympi­ads and at the Cavendish Labor­at­or­ies at the Univer­sity of Cambridge; there is compas­sion and community when baking cakes for ‘Jimmy’s Night Shel­ter’ for the home­less and through the sixth form’s programme of community service; and creativ­ity in our music, our art and photo­graphy and our drama and dance.

As I have remarked so far, we aspire to develop our pupils, your chil­dren, beyond narrow defin­i­tions of educa­tion, striv­ing as we do to ensure that academic rigour is not sacri­ficed at the expense of breadth.  The word ‘devel­op­ment’ itself is one that is a perman­ent feature in our day to day work­ing lives; pupil devel­op­ment, curriculum devel­op­ment, continu­ing profes­sional devel­op­ment of staff and, of course, the phys­ical devel­op­ment of our site.  Refer­ences to plan­ning applic­a­tions have featured in every speech, I think, since I have been Head in some shape or form.  Last year I repor­ted that achiev­ing plan­ning permis­sion was tantal­iz­ingly close and it is with a sense of great excite­ment and even greater relief that I am able to report that all is now in place for the devel­op­ment of the site and the provi­sion of purpose built accom­mod­a­tion for Early Years, Year 1 and Year 2, together with a new Junior School library, art room and ICT room.  Best of all, the Junior School will have a much needed Assembly Hall.  These facil­it­ies, long over­due, should be approach­ing comple­tion in just over twelve months’ time, ready for us to begin the new year in Septem­ber 2012 in our new surroundings.

That we are finally in this posi­tion owes a tremend­ous amount to the part­ner­ship we have formed with Hill Group, to the considered advice of Brian Irving of Davis Lang­don, our Treas­urer Ray Wells and others.  Most espe­cially, it is down to the unflag­ging determ­in­a­tion, tenacity and abil­ity of Tony Watson our former Clerk of Governors, who has lived with this project since site devel­op­ment was first proposed some­time around 2003.  Tony, governors have expressed their grat­it­ude and to that Andrew Holmes and I would like to add the thanks of the staff and pupils – indeed, the thanks of those who do not yet know that they will become Friends’ pupils and bene­fit from the count­less hours you put in to steer­ing this project.

Like the courtiers in the story, I hope you will allow us a little gilded cage polish­ing, but unlike the King, we know that our new surround­ings are only import­ant in so far as they bene­fit our pupils.  Those with pupils towards the top of the Junior School will have witnessed the impact that newly refur­bished classrooms have, with the Leicester block already show­ing what we can expect.

Of course, it is right and proper that we are subject to regu­la­tion and inspec­tion; such regu­la­tion keeps our pupils and our chil­dren safe and reas­sures parents of the high qual­ity of the educa­tion we offer.  We are due a tele­phone call from the Inde­pend­ent Schools Inspect­or­ate to notify us that they are on their way and I am reminded of the passage in the New Test­a­ment when we are advised to be prepared and to keep oil in our lamps ‘for we know not the hour when the Bride­groom cometh’.  At times it has felt as if we have spent a dispro­por­tion­ate amount of time stay­ing awake in the light trim­ming our lamps with the wise virgins (rather than being in the dark with the fool­ish ones), making sure that we are prepared and meet the 400 or so regu­lat­ory require­ments.  I do welcome, however, the move of the present govern­ment to stream­line regu­la­tion and to reduce the burden on schools.  We must be able to concen­trate on educat­ing the parrot so that it flies, rather than on polish­ing the cage.

Again this year I have been blessed by a wonder­ful senior manage­ment team who have all worked unstint­ingly and with great humour to deal with the admin­is­trat­ive chores – the equi­val­ent, perhaps, of clean­ing out the parrot’s cage – so that we can concen­trate on the import­ant work of continu­ing to move the school forward, lead­ing our colleagues, all of whom have worked so hard to provide the best oppor­tun­it­ies for our pupils.  Thank you all.

I should like to recog­nize, too, those in support roles not directly asso­ci­ated with teach­ing and learn­ing who ensure that the school runs smoothly.  There is a real sense of community at Friends’ school and I am convinced that this is due in no small meas­ure to the work done by so many in so many differ­ent ways.  Whether it is prepar­ing equip­ment for science prac­tical lessons, resolv­ing ICT issues, book­ing flights and making other trans­port arrange­ments, ensur­ing that the school is clean, that we are well fed or that exam rooms are set up with a minimum of fuss and in many, many more ways, teach­ing staff and pupils owe them our gratitude.

This mani­fests itself in even small ways.  For instance, I receive my letters and corres­pond­ence daily with a minimum of fuss; whichever secret­ary passes the school’s recep­tion desk, picks up the envel­opes and deliv­ers them to me, regard­less of who it is.  Yes, as with the recent refer­en­dum, we too, have retained a ‘first past the post’ system.

There are, inev­it­ably those to whom we must say good­bye at the end of the year.  Heather Carter has led the Learn­ing Support team from the Study Centre with great distinc­tion for 10 years.  Unerr­ingly profes­sional, she has the unqual­i­fied admir­a­tion and respect of her colleagues, this being matched by that of those parents whose chil­dren have benefited from Heather’s considered, calm approach and good sense.  The Study Centre quite liter­ally will not be the same without her, as Heather Douglas and Caryn Pepper step up to take on the lead­er­ship of Learn­ing Support staff under the over­sight of Sarah West­er­huis, who combines her new respons­ib­il­ity with her pastoral role, while relin­quish­ing her market­ing role.  Heather, your colleagues and the pupils with whom you work will miss you and we all wish you a happy retirement.

Lynn Robin­son has worked as part of the school’s admin­is­trat­ive staff for 22 years and leaves us at the end of the year.  During her time at Friends’, Lynn has under­taken many roles; she has worked as Staff Secret­ary and more recently as the person to whom we can turn if we need some vital part of the school’s data manage­ment system updat­ing and check­ing.  Less popularly with pupils, Lynn is also respons­ible for ensur­ing that reports are safely posted home.  Lynn, we hope that you have a busy and fulfilling retirement.

John Searle-Barnes joined the staff as Head of History in 1984.  During his 27 years in the school he has held many respons­ib­il­it­ies and this year steps down as Exam­in­a­tions Officer, Head of History and Head of Sixth Form, a post that he took up in 1989.  We are fortu­nate that John is continu­ing to teach part-time next year, so we are not really saying ‘good­bye’ today, yet it is the appro­pri­ate time to say ‘thank you’, John, for your energy and dedic­a­tion over the past years.  At a personal level, I have valued very much your thoughts and your advice as a member of the Senior Manage­ment Team, as well as your sense of humour which is so dry it ought to come with its own hose-pipe ban.  In recent years John has taught predom­in­antly in the sixth form, though pupils through­out the senior school have enjoyed some wonder­fully enter­tain­ing and always thought-provoking assem­blies.  His continu­ing with these is a condi­tion of John going part-time.  John, your influ­ence on Friends’ and partic­u­larly on gener­a­tions of sixth formers has been profound, and on behalf, espe­cially, of those people (some of whom might even be here today as parents) I thank you.

I am pleased to announce that John is replaced as Head of History by Char­lotte O’Neill.  Eleanor Mack­en­zie Lambert takes over the reins as Head of Sixth Form.

We also say good­bye to Paul Allen, who moves on after follow­ing his Newly Qual­i­fied Teacher course this year and we wish him well in his future career.  Victoria Carse-Jones joins the math­em­at­ics depart­ment from September.

‘Friends and Famil­ies Day’ is the most obvi­ous occa­sion on which our sense of community is most evid­ent, however, the support that the school receives from parents is a year-round real­ity.  Andrew has already thanked the PTA on the Junior School’s behalf and I would like to add my own thanks to Kath­ryn Winfield and her team for their work this year both fundrais­ing and support­ing at events.  Thanks, too to the Persian Ball Commit­tee and to Nick Guest and the other parents who raised money through the soccer match against the school, or even by running a mara­thon.  All add a distinct­ive facet, contrib­ut­ing import­antly to making Friends’ school the special place that it is.

I am delighted to see so many recent leav­ers who have been able to join us today; young people who are spread­ing their wings and find­ing out just how high they can fly.  They are the younger members of the Old Schol­ars’ Asso­ci­ation.  As you move around the school today you will see many posters and pictures of a selec­tion of our Old Schol­ars who have gone on to make signi­fic­ant contri­bu­tions in their chosen fields and these people will provide the inspir­a­tion and the example to our current pupils.  My thanks to Old Scholar Pres­id­ent Julie Foster, whose initi­at­ive this is.  I am look­ing forward to the Old Schol­ars’ Dinner this even­ing, which will be atten­ded by Old Schol­ars aged 19 to 90, testi­mony indeed to the affec­tion in which the school is held by so many.

The OSA is work­ing more closely with the school than ever and I am tremend­ously appre­ci­at­ive of the work under­taken this year by the OSA Commit­tee as we look to find ways of widen­ing access to the school even further through the provi­sion of bursaries.

On the verge of becom­ing Old Schol­ars Asso­ci­ation members are the retir­ing Quar­tet, four young people who have served the school with distinc­tion over the past year.  I would like, there­fore, to invite Leanne Kenner­son, Emma Stan­bury, Will Fawcett and Owen Harlow to speak to us now.

Leanne Kenner­son –  member of the Quartet

I believe, the greatest things come in the smal­lest pack­ages. Take the smal­lest Quartet in living history for instance…

Friends, is also small but what it has to offer is so much more than would be expec­ted of a school. Friends doesn’t make you, it expects you. And that’s some­thing …quite annoy­ing, but honestly I wouldn’t be here now if I didn’t rise to their chal­lenges set up for me. My achieve­ments range through­out the school.. look­ing back and having the chance to stand here and tell you.. I am extremely proud of myself.

The Quar­tet.… it seems strange to be stand­ing here shar­ing this moment with you. I do believe we have worked so well as a team of indi­vidu­als although it was some­what hectic at times, we kept our nerve. We smiled when we had too.… we cried with laughter when we didn’t.… and we defi­antly smashed our last walk into assembly.

Good luck to the new Quar­tet, it’s all about the organ­isa­tion and tradi­tion. Rock, paper, scis­sors should defi­antly live on!

All the students here would say one of the greatest things about Friends’, is the teacher/pupil rela­tion­ships. All the teach­ers here are unique and friendly; it prob­ably comes with the job title. Gavin.. one of the funni­est men I know. I think the choir this year has been utterly box office.. with my help! Jenny, I wouldn’t be half as fit as I am now if it wasn’t for you. JSB I think I am finally grasp­ing my essay writ­ing skills thanks to your coach­ing. Thank you for your count­less meet­ings outside school due to my inab­il­ity to remem­ber things.… Those stress pigs came in handy! You are so dedic­ated at what you do, and you are someone who knows the school so well! Anna chow chow, being part of your team at the UN confer­ence 2010 was amaz­ing. I have never been so scared in my entire life…Politics… I think we have estab­lished isn’t my thing. You are a remark­able woman and I will miss our quar­tet meet­ings. Martin Wilson, a very music­ally talen­ted man! I think being put in front of every orches­tral instru­ment at such a young age has had a posit­ive impact on my musical carrier.. or possibly scarred me for life.

Music and art are the only subjects that didn’t seem to cause too much pain for me at school. Singing from an early age on stage and in church has had such a big impact on my confid­ence. I prob­ably cannot count how many vari­ous things I have helped with, in the depart­ment. It has been a priv­ilege using Martin and Gavin’s office as a place to chat every now and then, but you have to earn that teacher/pupil respect. Turkey street band give it a few more years.

Academia is import­ant; as for grades, you need them in life but I don’t honestly feel like I have just been taught an academic life here at Friends’. The lessons are on indi­vidu­al­ism, goals, and the making of a person. The people in partic­u­lar who have rein­forced these on me are the ‘mother and father of art’ …quite liter­ally at friends.. Serena and Phil. I dread to think how many stor­ies Phil has told us about the school. He is a truly inspir­a­tional man, we should expect an auto­bi­o­graphy coming out soon Polly and I think! Serena, I cannot thank you enough for the skills you have taught me, and the inspir­a­tion you have given me.

They are both true to their subject, pupils, and work ethos, and they are only two people who contrib­ute to the whole team making up the art depart­ment which I also have to thank. The art room that we have decor­ated, loved, cher­ished and used as a shrine will be missed by us A2 girls in particular.

Friends; I have made so many here. I will miss so many people. I suppose I feel the most sad to end my time here with the few indi­vidu­als I have grown up with all the way through the school. I will miss the tight unit of friends in the 6^th form! I will miss walk­ing around and know­ing everyone’s face, honestly… you feel like a celebrity at Friends’! ..then you real­ise there are only 17 people in your year. I will miss the funny moments, which vary from sitting on the field in summer to sitting on a plane to Holland on the hockey tour.

Every­one says they are ready to leave, but really… they could do it all over again. I know I could, but I also know that it wouldn’t be as origin­ally funny, eye open­ing and excit­ing. I look around at my friends and my teach­ers and I real­ise what I have truly earned for 11 years here. Every time I look in the mirror I will be reminded of how much the school had a direct impact on me… a broken nose whilst play­ing hockey for the school is some­thing I won’t forget.

So what happens next?… I have a place at Chelsea Art College London, start­ing in Septem­ber. This is excit­ing for me, London being the best city in the world to study art; I can’t wait to be a part of it!

I leave thank­ing my extremely support­ive family… my second home here at Friends’… and the people I have met. I have found MY inspir­a­tions, and I hope my steady found­a­tions bring a bright future ahead of me.

To every­one here, I have been honoured to grow with you through the school.

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Bold­ness has genius, power, and magic in it.”

Thank you

Leanne Kenner­son

14 May 2011

Emma Stan­bury –  member of the Quartet

When stand­ing in front of Graham Wigley a little over a year ago, and being offered a role in the new Quar­tet, I conveni­ently forgot that it wouldn’t be too long before I would be making a speech summing up my time here at Friends’ School in front of the whole school.

More than a little over­whelm­ing I have to say, but the bene­fits of being a student at Friends’ School have made it worth risk­ing stage fright and those steps in these shoes!

Coming to Friends’ two weeks into Year 9, I imme­di­ately fell in love with the atmo­sphere of the school and the peace­ful Quaker ethos.  There was noth­ing unusual about a sixth former talk­ing to a year 7 in the lunch queue, or call­ing teach­ers by their first names instead of “miss” or “sir”.  It didn’t take me long to settle in although it was quite a while before I stopped walk­ing into doors as I wasn’t used to open­ing the right hand door!

Being in the Sixth form is prob­ably the high­light of my time as a Friends’ school student.  It’s nice being at the top of the school while still being smal­ler than some year 7s. I wouldn’t know the sixth form half as well if I didn’t board because you find out EVERYTHING, and I am very grate­ful to my second home.

Friends’ School has offered me so many oppor­tun­it­ies such as being in plays and sports teams (even if the matches weren’t always success­ful!), and the many wonder­ful trips.

The greatest chal­lenge yet most reward­ing part is defin­itely being in the Quar­tet.  Among other things, it has given me perman­ent good posture from those wooden chairs,

good organ­isa­tion skills during School Coun­cil and Char­it­ies Commit­tee (even if many of our costume choices for non-uniform day were vetoed by the higher powers!), also the abil­ity to make import­ant decisions such as using the time honoured, well respec­ted method of ‘rock, paper, scis­sors’ to decide who did “the walk” into assembly every morn­ing.  And finally the abil­ity to cope with dilem­mas during Auster­ity lunch includ­ing multiple burns from the ovens, trying to sell an excess of popcorn (there is still some left by the way) and losing 60 drum­stick sweets – and we have NO idea where they went!.…

Ulti­mately Friends’ has given me the ambi­tion to succeed in the big wide world and the tools I’ll need to help me there.  I may have made many mistakes but I’ve learned from them – an import­ant lesson which this school has helped to teach me.  Friends’ has also given me a sense of belong­ing and many happy memor­ies (most of which seem to feature lazy summers spent lying on the daisy covered field).

The thing I love most about this school is that it respects indi­vidu­als for who they are, and teaches them to reach their poten­tial for what they can be.

I remem­ber that during my inter­view before I came here, I said that I was going to be a poly­got – a speaker of many languages.  I planned to be fluent in French, Span­ish, Italian, Polish, Russian and for some reason Hebrew.  I can’t remem­ber when the dead­line for this was but the ambi­tion is still there.  I may still not know what I am going to be or do, but my love for learn­ing found a home in a very differ­ent depart­ment.  Next year (hope­fully) I’ll be read­ing biology at Bris­tol University.

Thank you to my family for push­ing me to accept Bris­tol (three days before the dead­line!), and for their constant love and support.

Thank you to all the staff here at Friends’ for help­ing to make my time here enjoy­able and reward­ing both in and out of lessons.

Thank you to Richard Smith, my teacher, inspir­a­tional director, mentor and friend who helped to boost my confid­ence no end.

Thank you to my Junior School drama group for being a pleas­ure to teach.

Thank you to my Grandpa for inspir­ing my love of science and to my Granny for brav­ing the motor­way to come and hear me speak today.

Thank you to my friends here at Friends’ – I will cher­ish our friend­ships and I hope that we will still be meet­ing up when we’re little old ladies and gents with hear­ing aids and arth­ritic joints.

And thank you espe­cially to my fellow Quar­te­tians or Quart-tet-ians – the smal­lest Quar­tet in the history of Friends’…

To Owen, our lovely peace­maker, you have always been there for me to depend on and never complained about me always asking “do I look alright?”

To Will, your sharp wit and ready smile have brightened many a day, and…despite whatever you say – you are one of the most sincere people I know.

To Lea, being in Quar­tet together has let me know you so much better. And everything I know, I love.  I am going to miss you so much when we are on oppos­ite sides of the coun­try next year, thank you for being such an amaz­ing friend through everything.

We have made such a great team, the only time we have ever argued was yester­day when decid­ing who would do their speech first.  It’s in ascend­ing height order.

We had a great run, thanks for making this year so worthwhile.

And finally thank you to the new Quar­tet – cheers for lift­ing the respons­ib­il­ity from our shoulders and good luck for the coming year.

As Winston Churchill wisely said, “This is not the end. This is not even the begin­ning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”.

Emma Stan­bury

14 May 2011

Will Fawcett –  member of the Quartet

Good Morn­ing Friends. Are you sitting comfort­ably? Then I’ll begin.

A number of years ago a certain boy on the cusp of his teen­age years stood at the entrance of this school thor­oughly look­ing forward to what he knew would be a fant­astic educa­tional exper­i­ence. Well, I have no idea who that kid was but it certainly wasn’t me. I still couldn’t get my 11 year old head around why the school was called Friends’ instead of just the Saffron Walden College, or St Mildred’s or some­thing. However, over my time here I have truly come to under­stand the mean­ing of friend­ship and for that, I thank you Friends’.

I’d like to extend my thanks to the whole school and every­one in it so I will para­phrase a very wise old man, ‘My Dear Gibbs’s and Taylors, Irwin’s and Cand­lers. Ladwas, Fawcetts and Labd­abses. Alas, 7 years is far too short a time to live among such excel­lent and admir­able fellows. I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.’

I want to wish the new quar­tet; Asha, James, Alice and Theo the very best of luck and impart to them some words of wisdom. Never come between a hungry student and their auster­ity lunch pizza. I’ve seen it happen before, AND IT ‘AINT PRETTY!!!

It is now that time where I start to thank people who I have never spoken to in my life. First of all, Jo Matthews and Gill Kinnear, who have guided me through years of war and centur­ies of love…not liter­ally, I meant through books. You have both managed to do what I initially believed to be impossible; to intro­duce me to poetry and romantic novels that I actu­ally liked, bravo to you both. I have enjoyed my forays into the world of English with you immensely.

And now for my long suffer­ing General Stud­ies and Crit­ical Think­ing teacher, Biddy. There are too many things I wish to thank you for so I will stick with what is most import­ant to me. Thanks for the tea.

Sarah Bartley. I couldn’t possibly do this speech of thanks without putting you in it some­where. Cheers for paint­ing our cara­van love, it looked well good. But thanks also for all the other little things that have made my hours in the drama studio even more enjoyable.

This next someone prob­ably has the most enthu­si­asm for Fascist Dictat­ors and Irish Revolu­tion­ar­ies than anyone can have without deserving to be imprisoned. Char­lotte O’Neill, thank you not only for teach­ing me History, but for also teach­ing me writ­ing skills that I know will prove invalu­able in later life.

And now (I hope he’ll excuse me call­ing him this) for Friends’ School’s very own Grand Old Man, John Searle Barnes. His inex­haust­ible reserves of energy and dedic­a­tion to the school are an inspir­a­tion to us all. Not only has he led me through A level courses in History and Film Stud­ies, he has also given me guid­ance through­out my time in the upper school, giving me advice for Quar­tet related issues, Univer­sity decisions and at one point what David Lynch films to impress that intriguing dark haired girl stand­ing alone in the corner at a party with. Yes, I remem­ber that lesson. For being more than a teacher, I thank you JSB.

And now for the only man to ever dress me up in Bright yellow cross gartered stock­ings, An Elvis wig with a feather boa, a beret and a tea towel, a trop­ical suit with donkey accessor­ies and on more than one occa­sion, the infam­ous chicken suit. Richard B. Smith, Director, Teacher, Scriptwriter, Mentor, friend and at one point oppon­ent on Play­sta­tion foot­ball (don’t ask me who won). My thanks to you could not be more sincere. Without this man I would not be in the posi­tion to pursue a dramatic career that I am now and so I wish him the very best of luck with the newest addi­tion to his family and hope that the memory of me trip­ping over on the end of my cloak whilst play­ing an imagin­ary trum­pet and fall­ing flat on my face will keep him laugh­ing for years to come.

Thanks should also go to the Ozyman­dian Owen, a rock in stormy seas, the Lovely Lilli­pu­tian Lianne and the Enigma that is Emma for being the best Quar­tet I ever had. I may be able to stand up and talk once in a while but it is really these three that walk the walk, and I could not imagine taking on this posi­tion without them. They may all be ever so slightly vertic­ally chal­lenged but during our short time together I found myself look­ing up to them more and more. It has been both an honour and a priv­ilege. Thank you three so very much

So now, in the words of the most famous rabbit ever; “That’s all for now folks”.

Will Fawcett

14 May 2011

Owen Harlow –  member of the Quartet

Good Morn­ing, Hello, Greet­ings, What’s up!

If someone had told me in year 7 that in six years time I would be deliv­er­ing a speech to the entire school on Friends and Famil­ies Day I would’ve prob­ably run a coun­try mile, and in all honesty about three weeks ago I was consid­er­ing doing just that as I tore my hair out trying to produce some­thing relat­ively articulate.

When I first looked around Friends School, my over­all opin­ion was, ‘Lovely’ It seemed a fairly logical and straight­for­ward choice; it was close to home, and my brother Joey already atten­ded. Admit­tedly, it prob­ably wasn’t too sens­ible choos­ing to go to a school based only its prox­im­ity to home or feed­back received from my brother, whom I should point out is a very reli­able source.

For some reason however, I was strangely unbothered by the fact I was enter­ing a community of which I had limited know­ledge. At the time I couldn’t explain why I was so at ease, but over the past 6 years, the reason has become more appar­ent and it was simply because Friends’ School is a place where people are happy, and a very notice­able qual­ity of the school is round every corner; a smiley, friendly face is there to greet you. There­fore in retro­spect I wouldn’t have changed my decision for the world.

My time at the Friends has been incred­ible; filled with happi­ness, laughter and not to mention the forging of some incred­ible friend­ships.  The memor­ies this school has left me with really are indelible and the support and encour­age­ment I have received through­out, has been amazing.

I would there­fore like to take this moment to thank all the people whose friend­ship, support hard work and enthu­si­asm has sustained me. Firstly I would like to thank my family; dog and chick­ens included. I genu­inely don’t know how I would’ve managed to reach to where I am today without you, and despite your eccent­ric tend­en­cies I will admit that it has prob­ably been good for me.

Thank you to all my class­mates; I can’t tell you how much I have valued your company and friend­ships over the recent years. I will miss each and every one of you come Septem­ber and I wish you all every success with whatever future you choose to pursue.

Lastly, I would also like to thank all my dedic­ated and hard work­ing teach­ers, Richard Smith and Sarah, Eleanor Mack­en­zie Lambert, Biddy, Matt Miller and Phil Richard­son. Your know­ledge, expert­ise and dili­gence have been an inspir­a­tion to me, and I hope I can do you all proud in the summer.

I would also like to take this oppor­tun­ity to wish Alice, Theo, Asha and James the very best of luck with their term in the Quar­tet and I have no doubt they will do a super job.

I will miss Friends’; it has become such an integ­ral part of my life and has played such a signi­fic­ant role in the devel­op­ment of my char­ac­ter, but I can’t deny it is time to move on to new things. What is comfort­ing however is that when I leave; a piece of the Friends’ will always remain part of me. I am truly grate­ful for the happy memor­ies, the unfor­get­table exper­i­ences and the inspir­a­tional people I have met, all of which Friends’ is respons­ible for.

To be brutally honest, I was debat­ing for several hours as to how I should round off this speech and I thought it appro­pri­ate to use my favour­ite quota­tion, ‘A day in which we have not laughed or smiled is a day wasted.’ and as I reflect on my time here, I can’t think of a single day in which neither one of those has not happened.

Thank you.

Owen Harlow

14 May 2011

(Continu­ation of Graham Wigley’s speech)

Tremend­ous.  As ever; we now look ahead and wish Asha Ladwa, Alice Irwin, James Fawcett and Theo Annabil a success­ful and enjoy­able year as the 2011-12 Quartet.

I mentioned the Old Scholar display earlier.  Can I also mention the exhib­i­tion of paint­ings which has been moun­ted in the school’s recep­tion room?  This is work painted by our Governor, Tim Hold­ing and which he is selling, the proceeds from which will come to the school.

I began with a story and would like to end with one, this coming from the news­pa­per last week.  An 82 year old lady passed away.  During her life she enjoyed travel and, as a memento of her trips she would always buy a garden gnome.  Her family wondered what to do with her collec­tion of 32 assor­ted gnomes but then remembered that mum had always admired the flowers on the round­about on the A40 near to where they lived.  What better than to arrange her gnomes decor­at­ively between the flowers, thus cheer­ing every­one up as they drove by?  Unfor­tu­nately, the High­ways Depart­ment and local Coun­cil did not see it in the same way, saying that the gnomes caused too great a distrac­tion and that they could lead to traffic acci­dents at this busy interchange.

The Coun­cil justi­fied the reason for the removal of the 32 gnomes, of course, on the grounds of ‘Elf and Safety’.

Graham Wigley

14 May 2011

Report on the Junior School delivered by the Head of the Junior School, Andrew Holmes, at Friends and Famil­ies Day 14^th May 2011

Good morn­ing Ladies and Gentle­men, Old Schol­ars, students, pupils, parents, visit­ors, guests and Friends.  On behalf of the Junior School, welcome to Friends and Famil­ies Day.

It has been said that speeches at events such as this were inven­ted largely in the belief that pupils should never be released into the world until they have been prop­erly sedated – so here goes.

This year I would like think a little about the indi­vidual focus of our school, the need for a little joy and excite­ment in the educa­tional process and how we might see “that of God in every­one”. Pirates also feature.

At Friends Junior School we see each child as a valued and valu­able member of our community.  We are about much more than a constrained, rigid and best-fit curriculum.  We are a genu­inely support­ive and caring community where every­one counts and has some­thing to contribute.

A poten­tial parent once asked me if there was an archetypal FJS child and my response was that parents should always remem­ber that they should be look­ing for a school to suit your child and not your child to suit the school.  We do not shoe horn chil­dren into a mould.   We welcome a range of char­ac­ters, strengths, traits, abil­it­ies, intel­lects and skills and they thrive with us.  After all - our purpose - and the purpose of a good educa­tion is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

Many improve­ments have been put in place over the year to enhance the educa­tion for our chil­dren, to allow them to have exper­i­ences which will develop these differ­ent char­ac­ters, intel­lects and traits.

Over the summer holi­days, the Leicester block was trans­formed, initially by David Wood and his team, and latterly by the teach­ers of Years 3,4,5 and 6.  This area of the school has 5 classrooms and assor­ted special­ist and stor­age rooms.  The whole feel of the place is bright, airy, spacious and clean: a fore­taste of the new devel­op­ment coming in 2012.

During August, a new server was installed in the Junior school ICT suite and more inter­act­ive white­boards arrived in the new classrooms.

The PTA have been very support­ive this year, as they are every year he added hast­ily, and have purchased banners for the Middle school band for their music stands which you can see in use today, four docu­ment cameras to link to our IWB’s , a new set of metal goal posts and intriguingly - twenty Ukulele gig bags.

But these are things: objects, bricks, mortar and paint are valu­able in their own way,  but it is our chil­dren and staff who are at the heart of the school and we have had one or two changes this year.  Clare Gill left in Octo­ber to have her second child: Amelie, and Claire Milner is expect­ing her first in August.  Amelie is thriv­ing and we wish Claire well in the next few months.

But life is about begin­nings and ends and, on a much more somber note, it was with great sadness that we heard of the death of Sue West­garth in Octo­ber of last year.  It was only a year ago that I spoke of her fight with Motor Neur­one Disease and many of us took part in the Great West­garth Run and atten­ded the cello recital to raise funds for the MND char­ity – the support for which was extraordinary.

It is hard to put into words the wonder­ful contri­bu­tion Sue made to the Junior School over the eight or so years she was with us.  She was a truly excel­lent teacher, valued by staff, parents and chil­dren alike.  She taught with good humour, integ­rity, bring­ing a great deal of joy to her pupils, led all the resid­en­tial trips to Norfolk and inspired gener­a­tions of runners.

Her Memorial Service was held in Novem­ber at St. Mary’s Church, Comber­ton.  The church was packed with friends, family, parents and past students all paying their last respects to someone who was held in very high regard.  It was a moving and fitting celeb­ra­tion of her life.

Sue was just one of the excel­lent staff team in the Junior School, who main­tain high academic stand­ards without losing sight of the fact that each child is an indi­vidual and that primary educa­tion should be an enjoy­able exper­i­ence.  As a result of the hard work of teach­ers, teach­ing assist­ants and pupils, our National Curriculum Results in 2010 were again impressive:

Almost all of our chil­dren achieved level four and above in Math­em­at­ics, English and Science and a very large propor­tion achieved level five, which means they are work­ing at the aver­age level of a 12 or 13 year old.

As a set of results, they are excel­lent - but the indi­vidual stor­ies behind the stat­ist­ics are even more impress­ive – real chil­dren work­ing to the best of their ability.

And talk­ing of real chil­dren - all of our pupils who applied have been offered places at the Senior School as a result of the entrance exam­in­a­tion earlier this year.  Alex Beeston and Barn­aby Deller won academic schol­ar­ships -Issy Chap­man was awar­ded the PE schol­ar­ship, Brigitte Parnham the Art and Clem­entine Addison Atkin­son the Drama.

These academic results and awards are evid­ence enough of the qual­ity of educa­tion which our pupils enjoy but they are only part of the picture.

We continue to offer a wide range of clubs, activ­it­ies, visits, visit­ors and resid­en­tial trips and they have once again been at the core of school life. Year 6 spent a very success­ful week in North Wales.  Year 5  a week in North Norfolk and Year 4 have just returned from a wonder­ful few days at Flat­ford Field Stud­ies Centre in Constable coun­try.  Year 3 will be spend­ing the night at St Marks College Audley End next week and Year 2 will be having a slee­p­over in their classroom later this term.

We are extend­ing this outdoor focus still further as we develop our very own Forest school.

The devel­op­ment of Forest Schools in Britain began in the mid-1990s and is based on the premise idea that children’s contact with nature is extremely import­ant.  The Early Years have already had their first session only last week and we will be rolling this exper­i­ence through Key Stage One during the course of the next academic year - the only school in this area to set up on their own Forest school on their own Forest school site.

The Junior School is proud of its emphasis on chal­len­ging indi­vidu­als through these sorts of activ­it­ies and the bene­fits cannot be over­stated.  Chil­dren learn to cope by them­selves, to work in teams, to support each other, to solve real prob­lems, to appre­ci­ate the outdoors, to use differ­ent personal skills and develop a sense of place.  They learn to be more self aware, able to self regu­late and have a posit­ive mental atti­tude which leads to greater self-esteem and confid­ence.  They grow as indi­vidu­als and human beings – and they enjoy themselves.

If you have any doubts about these claims just ask the chil­dren when they return from one of our many excur­sions beyond the classroom.  The stor­ies and smiles tell you everything you need to know.

The school also contin­ues to be proud of its repu­ta­tion in music and drama.  The Harvest/Autumn Celeb­ra­tion took place just before half term and was a wonder­ful mix of music and thought­ful­ness based around the char­ity Water Aid.  At end of the Autumn term, our chil­dren were involved in vari­ety of Christ­mas perform­ances by the Infants, Nurs­ery, Junior school choir and in our own Words and Music Celeb­ra­tion.  Years 3 and 4 finished the Spring term with a wonder­ful produc­tion of “Snow White”.  The Middle School Band will be leav­ing this very Monday morn­ing to play at Sibford School and Banbury band­stand.  They will also be play­ing on Saffron Walden Band­stand later this term.

The Year 6 produc­tion is taking place later this term and is a musical based on “Treas­ure Island”.  Pirates.

We are also look­ing forward to all our musi­cians perform­ing in the final musical concert at the end of term and, in another new innov­a­tion and follow­ing on from the success of the intro­duc­tion of a class set of viol­ins to Year 2, we have intro­duced the ukulele to year 5.  If it was good enough for Clapton and Harrison it is certainly good enough for year 5.

Later on today, every­one in the Junior school will be involved in “The Big Song and Dance” with two maypoles, an eclectic band and a ukulele surprise.

The sport­ing side of the Junior school contin­ues to flour­ish.  The Junior school Cricket team finished off another splen­did season by coming runners up in the Saffron Walden Primary schools compet­i­tion.  We also hosted our own 6 a side tour­na­ment involving 10 schools from the local area.

Our under 9 and under 11 foot­ball teams have competed well with a large fixture list as have our hockey teams.

Our netball teams have had partic­u­larly good season with both age groups winning the vast major­ity of their games.  Our netball coaches should be very proud of the progress that their teams have made this season

and the Under 9 team is one to look out for in the very near future.

Our cross-country runners have again done us proud.  Alice Bromell won the Newport cross coun­try, the Friends Junior school compet­i­tion, the Langley/Thorpe House run and she came second in the East Anglian Prep schools run at Fram­ling­ham.  The Under 9 girls, under 9 boys and under 11 girls all won their team events at Langley and the Junior school team reclaimed the FJS cross coun­try trophy with Indigo Colli­cott and Florence Deller coming 1^st and 2^nd in their race.

Fry won the Inter House Swim­ming this year, Penn won the foot­ball and Fry the netball.

Our  thanks go Matthew Wright and Simon for prepar­ing count­less pitches and courses for us over the year and for Dionne and her team in the kitchen for feed­ing us all after our fixtures

The Quaker ethos imbues everything we do.  We held a special meet­ing for worship on Septem­ber 21^st to celeb­rate Peace One Day explain­ing the origins of the day and read a poem by one of our Year 6 pupils on the theme of peace.  Debbie Ballin­gall, as a direct result of her visit to George Fox coun­try on the Quaker pilgrim­age, has instig­ated a special meet­ing for worship, which takes place on Friday lunch­time and is open to all chil­dren (and adults) to attend.

The Junior School joins with the Senior School to take part in Auster­ity Lunches, which raises aware­ness of the needs of others, as well as money for char­it­able causes.  At our Harvest Celeb­ra­tion we raised  £365 for George Mills and his char­ity: Brit­ish Aid for Deprived Chil­dren. The whole school sang songs on a watery them and compared the lives of chil­dren in Britain and Ethiopia and the proceeds from the sale of our very own apple juice went to Water Aid.

And in the Spring term, we enthu­si­ast­ic­ally suppor­ted the Royal National Life­boat Insti­tu­tion SOS day and raised £283.  The theme for the day was the sea and costumes ranged from a motley assort­ment of Pirates - you can never have enough pirates - to oilrig work­ers, fish­er­men and a collec­tion of crus­ta­ceans! The day finished with the whole school singing sea-shanties and the band played the theme from ‘Pirates of the Carib­bean’ to a repres­ent­at­ive of the RNLI.  (whose name was Alan Fish!).

Red Nose Day raised over £1200 for Comic Relief.  It was another fant­astic day with the chil­dren appear­ing in an array of colours (mainly red) and extraordin­ary hair­styles  - In the midst of this the staff came dressed as film char­ac­ters – Sally Manser’s Fiona (Shrek) was notable.  I, in an improve­ment on the banana of two years ago, came dressed as Buzz Light Year and Martin Wilson was a remark­able Woody.

Early in the day - and feel­ing slightly conspicu­ous - I was walk­ing towards the Drama work­shop to set up for our assembly when I passed a Year 6 boy on the Avenue walk­ing in the oppos­ite (and possibly wrong) direc­tion.  Instinct took over and I asked him where he was going to - with as much grav­itas as I could muster, given my costume.  There was a pause as he looked me up and down and replied “To infin­ity and beyond Mr Holmes”

Many thanks to all our parents who have contrib­uted so gener­ously. Total £3323.46

After the achieve­ment of Green Flag Status last year, this has been a relat­ively quiet year for the Green team.  The chick­ens are still a big part of school life, the compost bins are being primed for action and the Year 5 veget­able plot is already being cultiv­ated.  We will also be carry­ing out another Green trans­port day and plan­ning the gardens at the back of Leicester.

So to finish: –

I hope you have learnt some­thing about the our imper­at­ive to nurture and treat each child as an indi­vidual, the support­ive and caring nature of the school, look­ing for the good in every­one and a need for chil­dren to enjoy a joyous and life enhan­cing education.

But there is a warn­ing: this emphasis on the indi­vidual does not come at the expense of the community and think­ing about and caring for others.

We do not aim to produce indi­vidu­als whom Bern­ard Bailey was think­ing about when he wrote: “When scient­ists do finally discover the centre of the universe - a lot of people will be very disap­poin­ted to discover they - are not it.”

Thank you for your toler­ance and patience, thank you for listen­ing.  Enjoy the rest of your day.

Andrew Holmes

14 May 2011

See below for a slideshow of the Maypole Dancing