The Tempest: an interview with the director

This week sees the long-awaited College performance of the Tempest. To whet your appetites, we caught up with Joe Swarbrick – drama teacher and the play's director for a short interview.

In the video below, Joe describes the play's aesthetic – inspired by gigantic heaps of discarded machinery – and how a 400 year-old text can tell us something today about the interplay between knowledge and power.

The video features original music written and recorded by Joe.

(Details on how to book after the video.)



If you'd like to come and see the play, hurry and book your tickets now, as we still have some seats on both nights:

Thursday 1 & Friday 2 July, 7pm
Leckford Place Hall
Tickets £10 (adult), £6 (student/concession)

Please e-mail Emily Brooke if you would like a ticket.

Maths Challenge success for Year 7 & 8 students

Congratulations to Javier Gadea in Year 8 (photographed above) who won Best In School in this year's Junior UKMT Maths Challenge – along with a Silver Certificate.

Joseph Anderson, Andrew Small and Eve Martin also won Silver Certificates, while Jackson Poindexter, Cassie Pearce, Chloe Townsend, Ethan Clay and Gabriel O'Toole gained Bronze.

The Maths Challenge is about more than winning certificates, though – it is a wonderful opportunity to spend quality time puzzling over intriguing problems. So well done to all those in Year 7 and Year 8 who took part.

Next year we plan to start a UKMT Maths Challenge mentoring scheme, continuing to look out for opportunities to enjoy challenging maths.

Zambian school under construction - with our help

Today, a quick update from Zambia. Last summer, a group of d'Overbroeck's College students (from both Leckford Place and the Sixth Form) travelled to the country and – as well as scaling mountains and swimming under waterfalls – they engaged in charitable work, teaching at a village school and visiting victims of AIDS, malaria and TB.

We recently received an update from one of the Zambian charities to which we donated at the end of the trip, letting us know that some of the funds had gone towards the construction of a new school for children affected by (or themselves suffering from) AIDS.

The building is still unfinished – but they sent the photograph above to show us the progress so far.