Author visits d'Overbroeck's

Year 7 English pupils enjoyed a visit yesterday from Griselda Heppel, the author of fantasy novel Ante's Inferno, which tells the story of 12-year-old Ante and her journey into the Underworld.

The students had the chance to hear about Griselda's creative process, and the myths, legends and art work which inspired her story. The book has been nominated in the 9 – 12 years category of The People’s Book Prize. 

Thank you to Griselda for coming to visit d'Overbroeck's. Ante's Inferno is available in bookshops and on Amazon: http://amzn.to/WxJxAT

ifs Student Investor Challenge

We send our huge congratulations to Marie, Maya, William and Helen who have won a place in the regional finals of the ifs Student Investor Challenge 2013! Their team, 'Will's Business Factory', performed very well in the first phase of the competition - there were over 9000 entrants and only a handful of schools have made it through to the regional final, which will take place in Bristol on Tuesday 12th March.

This national competition is designed for teams of four students and takes place in two phases. The first sees each team given a virtual £100,000 to 'invest' in stocks. The 20 teams from each region with the best-performing portfolios are then invited to attend the regional finals. Teams are given a series of questions and the top two teams from each region will be invited to the national final in late April. The grand prize is a trip to New York!

Thanks to Jane Cockerill and Jonathan Young who have been supporting the team as part of Personal Development.

You can find about more about the ifs Student Investor Challenge at www.studentinvestor.org/rules-portfolio.php

 

Year 9 visit to La Tasca

A group of intrepid Year 9 students, accompanied by their Spanish teacher, Carlos Caruncho, visited La Tasca Spanish restaurant in Oxford for lunch last week. Here to tell you about the visit in their own words (in English y en español!) are some of our students:


On Tuesday we went to La Tasca at the Oxford castle. We were having a Spanish style lunch of different courses with the opportunity to practice speaking in Spanish while we were there. When we arrived, we were immediately given bread to dip in olive oil and balsamic vinegar, this was delicious. This starter was the followed by small fillets of battered fish, these were lovely too and quite filling. This was only the second course and we still had two more to come. The next of which was a chicken dish. There were chunks of chicken with a creamy white sauce, which was then covered in a breadcrumb coating. This dish was my favourite part of the meal. To finish off, we had vegetable paella, which I think was the most colouful part of the meal. The meal was accompanied by a fizzy fruit juice which was excellent. Overall I think that the food at La Tasca was amazing and I hope to go there again!
Benjamin

Bien. Para iniciar las camareras eran muy amables. La bebida era muy agradable. Toda la comida estaba bien, pero era un poco picante. Me gusto especialmente la paella. Lo único malo fue que no pudimos tener dulces.
Cameron

 It was all delicious! It was good to eat some different things and it was very fun. I would definitely want to go to the restaurant sometime.
Katy

The waiters were nice and I think everyone had a good time. My favorite part was all of the good food. I was disappointed that there weren’t churros. Carlos owes us churros!
Laurel

Cuando fuimos a la tasca, un restaurante español, comimos chorizo. Fue condimentado! Compartimos una paella de pollo. Comí una tortilla Española. Bebimos jugo y gaseosas! Fue genial!
Benji

d’Overbroeck’s College Leckford Place Swimming Gala 2013

It was with great anticipation that the Year 7 and 8 swimmers entered the pool for the first race of the Swimming Gala 2013. Students from all House teams stood expectantly waiting for the starter to release the competitors. The first race, Years 7 & 8 25m Front Crawl was won by Jack Chipper (Windrush House) in a time of 16.6 seconds. This was followed by A & B races for all year groups in Front Crawl, Breast Stroke and Back Stroke.

By the time of the relays, Isis House had secured a lead in the standings with Windrush House in a close second. Outstanding individual performances by Jack Turner, Pedro Naranjo, Clemmie Jackson, Harry Balkwill, Callum Jones and Tim Herring ensured we saw some highly competitive races. The frantic pace of the relays proved an entertaining end to the gala, with all competitors producing wonderfully spirited performances with honours split between Thame, Windrush and Isis Houses.

This left the last, and probably the most entertaining, race of the 35 race programme. The ‘Cannon’ is a unique event where one male and one female competitor from each year group compete consecutively in an 8 x 25m relay. This race was won by Isis and proved to be a fitting display for the team who secured the overall Gala trophy. Tim Herring (pictured) received the award from the Head, Mark Olejnik, on behalf of a jubilant Isis team.

My congratulations must go to Isis in retaining the Swimming Gala Trophy, and thank you to all competitors, spectators and staff, without whom the event would not have the same success.

Martin Procter

Head of PE

Success in Rotary Youth Speaks competition

Two teams from d'Overbroeck's College Leckford Place took part in the Rotary Youth Speaks Public Speaking Competition recently. Both teams were a real credit to the College.

Henry Frend entertained the Rotarians with his speech on “Lo-Riding” and amongst other things showed the technique of walking whilst wearing low-slung trousers. He was very well supported by Ellie Arden and Isla Stone. The Year nine team won the competition and go on to the zone final later this week.

Sophia Saban chaired the proceedings, and was picked out as being the best chair of the evening, whilst Laurel Benjamin gave a most entertaining, humorous vote of thanks. Jamie Jackson-Jessel delivered a beautifully ironic speech on the abuse of the word “like”. Well done to all the participants!

You can find out more about the Rotary Youth Speaks competion here: www.ribi.org/youth/competitions/ribi-youth-speaks

The Winter Concert

This year's Winter Concert was a tremendous event with some wonderful performances by students. What was striking was the variety of talents from dance to cello to drama.