hills review spring edition (march 09)
DESCRIPTION
The spring installment of Hills Road's termly official newsletterTRANSCRIPT
Medal haul at Physics Olympiad>> Luca Fraser
Congratulations to five Hills
Road students for their recent
efforts in the national Physics
Olympiad. James Breen-Norris
(silver medal winner), Fiona
Llewellyn-Beard (silver),
Matthew Lowdon (silver),
Lorna Redford (bronze),
Nathan Whitaker (bronze)
were the proud recipients of
medals in one of the country’s
most prestigious science
competitions.
The British Physics Olympiad
aims to encourage the study of
physical sciences in the United
Kingdom. The competition is
designed to test a student’s
basic understanding of the
principles of physics taught
at the A2 and GCSE levels
and enable them to compare
their attainment with those
of students from all over the
United Kingdom.
Matt Lowdon, speaking of
his experience, said “I’d
recommend the Physics
Olympiad to anyone
considering taking physics at
degree-level, as the different
types of questions provide
valuable experience. Given the
benefits of taking part, I’m sure
the Olympiad was worthwhile.
I was glad to represent the
College”.
>> Ilana Fernandes-Lassman
Whilst most students will be looking forward rather than back this term, in anticipation of summer exams, the collaborative efforts of Sculpture and Dance students back in October 2008 are well worth a mention.
Over the autumn term, students of both Art and Dance came together to produce innovative art installations, combining students’ best efforts in the two
subjects. Staging a production in which Dance students responded to work of Hills Road sculptors, choreographers and artists worked together during their artistic processes and drew inspiration from each other’s work.
Such collaborative links have not been the only cause for celebration in the Dance Department at Hills Road. Bryony Garner, an A2 Hills Road student, has passed the
first round of a choreography competition run by Youth Dance England. Bryony and her four dancers (including three other Hills Road Dance students) will be dancing in the second round of this “Young Creatives” competition on 15th March. It will be held in a studio at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. If successful, they will be part of a public performance to be shown at the Royal Opera House in July.
Links across the Arts
>> Graham Vale
Students returning to College this February after half term were bombarded with election
poster after election poster, signalling the beginning of election week for new Student Council representatives.
In what has become an annual event at Hills Road, election-week fervour arrived with particular enthusiasm this year. Unprecedented interest meant a record number of lower sixth students applying for the Council positions, including Student Chair, Charities officer and Social Events officer. Campaign slogans appeared everywhere, with varying degrees of seriousness
and success, but must have hit home, as record voting over the two-day period, with over one thousand students taking part, was decisive. As pictured, the public hustings in the quad caused quite a stir.
Taking over the role of Chair is Katy Dean, with Rachel Young as Secretary, Ellie Davies as Treasurer, and Kat Cheng as Charities Officer. Neaty Soopaul, Tom Wilshere and Rachel Mills Powell were also popular with the electorate.
Student elections take College by storm
HAZEL FRANCOMBYU
MIN
G M
EI
Still from the collaborative performance that took place last year
S P R I N G N E W S L E T T E R
M a r c h 0 9 Hills Reviewi s s u e 0 2
Hills Road students promote Fair Trade
>> Sian Batra
Hills Road students have
been continuing to show
their commitment to the
global community taking
part in global celebrations as
part of Fairtrade Fortnight.
During late February, early
March, Hills Road has
hosted an array of events
and initiatives with a fair
trade theme. With Young
Enterprise groups running
stalls, students have been
able to purchase anything
from chocolate to Kenyan
beads. The money raised
from the stalls will go
directly to the Fairtrade
Foundation.
With the College’s Africa
Link in mind, students and
staff were also able to
take part in a quiz night on
Tuesday 10th March, which
raised money to support a
craft training programme
for disabled young people at
the Ihkwezi Lokusa Centre
near our sister school in
Mthatha, South Africa.
The great news is, even
though Fairtrade Fortnight
is over, it’s easy to help out
all year round, with our very
own Café Direct being an
outlet of Fairtrade food.
This also helps to emphasise
the College’s continuing
commitment to Fairtrade in
the long run.
>> Jeremy Smith
Hills Road students could soon be gracing the airwaves, starting up their very own radio station and record label at the College. The culmination of nearly two years of planning and hard work, the launch of Hills Road Records and Hills Radio station is set to take the College by storm over the next few weeks when the project goes live.
Facilitated by staff in the Music Department, the radio station will allow students and the public to listen to online ‘webcasts’ of pre-recorded radio shows via the web. Armed with a complete artistic license, students will be able to feature their own music and commentary on the shows to produce fully-fledged professional broadcasts.
Listeners will also be able to access broadcasts ‘on demand’,
with choice from previously recorded shows. These will include highlights from the College’s external concerts from the past few years including all music enrichment activities.
The starting line-up is set to include a techno, electro and drum & bass show by Harry Wriggly and Graham Norman, as well as Adam Shilton’s rock show.
Alongside the radio station, the College is also set to benefit from its own record label, Hills Road Records. Having been in the pipeline for two years, the project has now come to fruition.
Speaking about the record label, member of staff Alex Hough had the following to say, “The project will allow us to reach a wider audience, with more people being able to experience the rich
and diverse events that are put on by the Music Department. We believe that producing a live CD of some of the highlights will mean all the hard work put in by the students and staff lives longer in the memory”.
The first CD from Hills Road Records will be available to purchase for £8 from Friday March 13th, and will feature musical highlights from the 2008 winter term.
Hills Road students to establish radio station
>> Matt Barnes
There will be high hopes for success on the courts later this month as Hills Road’s Men’s Tennis team compete at the National Finals, for the 3rd year running.
The team will be representing the East of England at the Bolton Arena on March 20-21st, having been crowned regional champions in February.
In doing this, they first topped their local league, and then progressed through two knockout rounds. Their final
match (against Copleston High School, Ipswich) proved to be a very tight encounter, eventually decided 10-8 on a tie-break by captain Greg Clowes and doubles partner Ramil Shah, after it had finished 3-3. Resham Sagoo, Martin Hulme and Sam Pickup complete the squad heading to Bolton.
Sagoo, who played last year too, said: “We’re probably not
as strong as last year, but we know the format and that should help, so I think we have a good chance of winning. I’m pretty confident.”
Hills Road are currently the holders of the national title, having been victorious at the same venue last year.
Sporting success as students make Tennis finals
The finalists: Resham Sagoo, Sam Pickup, Greg Clowes, Romil Shah, Martin Hulme
COURTESY OF HILLS ROAD RECORDS
CLA
IRE
DAV
IS
Valentines at Hills Road
>> Serena Saini
Whilst Valentines is traditionally
celebrated on the 14th of
February, celebrations came early
for Hills Road students this year.
Across the College, Friday 13th,
a date synonymous with bad
luck, not romance, marked the
commencement of the annual
celebrations with students
getting into the romantic spirit.
Facilitated by the Student
Council, many students took
the opportunity to express
their feelings for their fellow
classmates by sending
‘Valentines secret messages’.
Ranging from the amorous to
the just plain bizarre, messages
were posted on the Student
Council’s website for all to view.
Valentines also represented a
great opportunity for Eclipse, one
of the College’s resident Young
Enterprise groups, which sought
to cash-in on events. Offering
admirers the opportunity to
purchase roses which could
then be delivered to a chosen
recipient, it proved an excellent
way of raising funds whilst
getting into the Valentines spirit.
The Young Enterprise competition
takes place annually, and involves
a number of students competing
on a local/regional level. One
of Hills Road’s other Young
Enterprise groups, Viaticus,
have been offering students
the opportunity to purchase
customised Hills Road hoodies.
>> Zosia Krasodomska-Jones
It’s been a busy term for many Hills Road language students, with exchanges to Montpellier and Hamburg, and a trip to Venice.
Thirty-eight students left for Montpellier, where they stayed with host families and students from the Lycée Jean Monnet. The ten days were packed full of lessons and lectures, trips
to nearby towns of Nimes and Aigues-Mortes, a guided tour of the centre of Montpellier and even a trip to a ‘Seaquarium’.
The German exchange to Hamburg was particularly challenging as not only did students stay with host families, but they also undertook work experience at a variety of places, including schools, solicitors and research laboratories. There are now just a few short weeks until
the return visits, which should hopefully prove to be just as successful! The first ever trip to Venice fell during the weeks of the Carnival, probably the best time to visit this wonderful city. Students, staying with host families, were able to experience the festivities, as well as enjoy the usual sights. The exchange partners all got on so well that an unofficial return visit is in the pipeline!
From bottle tops to bicycles: fundraising at Hills Road
Bon voyage to foreign language studentsREBECCA WILKINSON
French students pictured on the Montpellier exchange
>> Sophie Dawson
Ask someone to think about fundraising and they’re likely to list events such as Comic Relief and Children in Need - the last thing you’d expect to hear about is collecting bottle tops for charity.
However, such has been the case at Hills Road over the past two terms. Keith Whalley, a member of staff at the College has been organising an ongoing appeal to collect plastic bottle tops for a disabled child living in St Neots.
After a company based in the town agreed to provide a wheelchair free of charge if the amount of bottle tops equivalent to the weight of the child could be collected, the challenge was set. Two months later, enough bottle tops had been collected to meet the target.
Building on the sucess of this campaign students and staff are now collecting for a new Air Ambulance. This time the challenge is a little
harder, with only plastic milk bottle tops being collected. Thanks go out to those who made Keith’s aims a reality! Keep collecting!
News of a former student’s plans to raise funds for Teenage Cancer Trust’s £1m appeal was also welcomed earlier this term, with many current students pledging sponsorship for the intrepid Hills Roadian.
Cancer survivor Sean McCann will pedal 2,000 miles to Rome in mid-March, in a bid to raise vital funds for the cancer charity.
Diagnosed at 18, he spent nearly three months on an adult ward rather than with his peers. Now he wants to raise funds to ensure others benefit from a dedicated TCT unit at Addenbrooke’s Hospital.
Hills Road wishes him all the best for what is sure to be a marathon of a cycle ride!
Music Department celebrates success>> Alex Challans
This term has been a busy and
successful one for students of
Music at the College.
An unprecedented number of
students have recently received
some exciting news, including
ten offers to study instruments
at Music Colleges and to read
Music at Oxford & Cambridge
Universities.
Amongst them, Xiaotian Shi has
been offered a scholarship to
study Composition at the Royal
Academy of Music. Helen Lilley
has been offered a choral award
at Clare College Cambridge, and
fellow students Sam Johnstone
and Jake Howarth have been
offered places to read Music at
Worcester College Oxford and
Robinson College Cambridge
respectively. Both Sam and Jake
have also had success in the
Cambridge Young Composer of
the Year competition. Jake won
the competition and Sam was
highly commended.
In addition to such outstanding
individual musicianship, music
of all types and styles continues
to thrive at the College. The
College is already well known
for its more traditional music
making, and is now developing
a series of innovative projects
including concert recordings
both in CD and online formats,
podcasts and DJ workshops.
>> Georgina Chivers
A play in a day? Impossible!
Well, this was the task set for 10 Theatre Studies and Performing Arts students on March 1st this year.
Organised as a fundraiser to enable the intrepid group of students to attend the Edinburgh Fringe this year, Play-in-a-day represented one of the more ambitious and challenging events of the term.
Arriving at eight in the morning, an early start given this was a Sunday morning, the ten students were joined by Rich Rusk, a former Performing Arts Assistant at the College, and two former Hills Road students, Tom Penn and Javan Hughes, forming the perfect team to create a production.
Christian Clarkson, one of the students involved said, “The
whole thing was so much fun - Rich, Tom and Javan are geniuses at coming up with brilliant ideas! We’re so grateful to them, Richard Fredman, and everyone who came for giving us such a hilarious experience and helping us on our way to the Fringe”.
Equally as impressive was the Drama Enrichment group’s staging of The Trial earlier this term. The play, written by Stephen Berkoff, adapted from the novel by Franz Kafka tells the tale of a character named Josef
K, who awakens one morning and, for reasons never revealed, is arrested and prosecuted for an unspecified crime.
Directed by Lucy Edevane, The Trial was a thrilling and thought-provoking production with notable performances from Daisy Thurston-Gent in the lead role as Joseph K and the rest of the all-female cast. Special mention goes out to Ben de Vries and Jason Uttridge, for their respective contributions for the play’s music and lighting.
Innovative invention from Hills Road student
Performing under pressure
>> Jeremy Smith
The spring term has got off to a great start in Art and Design. One of this year’s most notable sets of work has been produced by Alex Worsfold who has made a series of ‘drawing machines’.
These are mainly hand powered devices which enable the user to generate drawings automatically. They tend to work rather like a more physical, very rough and unpredictable version of a Spirograph®, and they can be loaded with different types of drawing material and paper. The most complex machine requires the artist to pedal in order to produce the drawing.
PRODUCTION NOTES
All material featured in Hills Review has been written and produced by Hills Road students, unless stated otherwise. Publication produced by The Phoenix Newspaper, Hills Road’s independent student newspaper. Edited by Jeremy Smith.
CAMERON CARR
The cast pictured on stage during The Trial
Alex pictured with his drawing machine ALE
X W
ORS
FOLD