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6 STEM / MODERN FOREIGN LANGUAGES
Modern Languages
Showcase Soirée
Jemima Strong, U4W
Félicitations to everyone involved in the successful
Modern Languages Showcase Soirée held in the
Great Hall on the 15 June! Lydia Doye, Alice Bolitho
and Caroline Hubbard hosted a fabulous evening
celebrating language learning in the senior school.
The event opened
with a taste of
Germany as the
Thirds performed
their
Alphabet Rap
.
Other highlights
from Deutschland
included Ritika
Chakrobarty
performing
Raus
Hier
and the Upper
Fourths performing
Chöre
by Mark Foster, with help from
backing singers from the Thirds. After a mini interlude of cheesy
puns, whilst we tucked into European delicacies, we then heard
Upper Fourth Spanish students singing
Friends
by Anne-Marie
and later
Me Enamoré
. There was also a hilarious Russian sketch
of
Little Red Riding Hood
and we had some talented musicians
such as Sahana and Matthew performing pieces from Russian,
German and French composers on the piano and bassoon. From
France we had the
Perfect Tense Rap
by the talented Zain Ali
who then accompanied me as I performed
Déjeuner du Matin
by
Jacques Prévert. Tom Martin gave a great rendition of
La Cigale
et La Fourni
and the Remove girls sang
La Chanson des Femmes
de Service
. The audience joined in with the chorus.
There were many opportunities for audience participation and
the evening culminated in everyone singing a Beatles’ song in
German,
Komm Gib Mir Deine Hand
. It was such a fun evening
and gave prominence to just how much our school values
Modern Languages. So
danke
to the MFL department and
bien
hecho todo el mundo
!
Innovations in Liver Transplants
Ankita Redla, L6W
On Friday 21 September we had
the opportunity to attend a talk
by OB Dr David Nasralla on his
ground-breaking work on liver
transplantation. David left the
school in 1999 to study medicine at
Oxford University.
His team’s study was recently published
in prestigious journal
Nature
and covered
by the BBC. David’s research involves a
new technique of liver preservation, this
being normothermic liver perfusion. This
involves connecting a perfusion machine to
a liver, which pumps the organ with blood,
nutrients and medicines. A control trial was
set up to compare liver transplants where
the organs were preserved in an icebox
versus those kept ‘alive’ outside the body
using a normothermic perfusion machine.
They were able to successfully transplant
more of the warm livers than the cold ones,
showing the exciting prospects that lay
ahead. As well as learning about David’s
game changing research, we got to learn
about other advancements in the treatment
of liver cancer. The talk was fascinating to
all and allowed many of us to be introduced
to new concepts that we had never come
across before.
German
Translation Bee
Sejal Odedra, L4N and Nimran Dhaliwal, L4S
At the beginning of the year, all Removes pupils who
learn German were given the opportunity to take part
in a German Translation Bee. The aimwas to be able
to translate as many sentences from English to German
as accurately as possible in a minute. After many weeks
of preparation, Miss Williams held a School Final to
determine which two students would progress to the
Regionals. It was very close but eventually we got through
and were excited to participate in the Regional Round.
The Regionals were
held at the University of
Westminster where many
talented students from
our region fought it out
for a place in the top five
to advance to the National
Final. Following both a tie
break and a nerve-racking
Sudden Death Round
between the two of us, we
came 1st (Sejal) and 2nd
(Nimran), securing a place
in the National Final.
Not long after the Regionals,
the final took place
on Monday 25 June at
Cambridge University. The
standard of the competition
had increased hugely, leaving
us anxious but motivated.
We were sent into rooms
to have our one minute
preparation time and it was
here that the judges selected
the final four in the country. We were both
pleasantly surprised to find that we had both come in the top four.
After another intense minute in the Lecture Theatre, we emerged
victorious with Nimran coming 1st and Sejal 2nd in the National
Final of the German Translation Bee.
We can both say that it was a wonderful experience that will help us
to make progress in German, but we could not have done anything
without the continuous help and support of Miss Williams;
danke,
Fraulein Williams
!