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AC A D E M I C
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•We’ve seen our first harvest in the school garden of organic
lettuce which has been used in some school lunches.
• After a successful first crop last year, the potato trenches are
now ready for the 2020 crop.
• On the school menu, we’ve made an effort to incorporate
plant-based meals with increased options and clearer signage.
The Prep School pupils held a vote and they now enjoy
“Meat-Free Mondays.”
• To understand fully the environment around Bancroft’s, we
surveyed the site’s air quality. This made us more conscious
about the levels of on-site pollution we breathe. At the Prep
School, pupils encouraged parents waiting to collect children
at the end of the day to turn car engines off while stationary.
Parents were met with children holding signs stating the facts
about air quality around the school while, aptly, the song the “Air
That I Breathe” was played.
•We are excited that our on-site bees have quickly become a
budding hobby of some pupils; we can even expect to receive
some honey soon!
•We have two new pieces of equipment installed around the
school. The first is a Bluetooth weather station.This will allow us
to record day-to-day, real-time weather data as well as allowing
us to analyse the climate long term to see what impact climate
change has on the local area. Data from Storm Ciara in February
recorded from the top of the tower showed the peak wind gust
was 53mph. In addition, Bancroft’s now has a real-time camera
trap which allows us to see local wildlife visiting the school site.
• Sustainability issues have made their way onto areas of the
curriculum. For example, in art lessons the Thirds have designed
and made their own plant pots. Once planted up, the pots are
distributed around the school with the aim of having a plant in
every room.
Senior Maths Challenges
and Olympiad
Last term we saw 102 awards from 142 participants in the
Senior Maths Challenge. Twenty five pupils were awarded
Gold certificates, with twenty of them qualifying for the
follow-on Senior Kangaroo and five qualifying for the British
Maths Olympiad Round 1. The latter is a three hour written
paper for which the top 1000 school aged mathematicians
in the UK qualify. The five were:AlexYan,Mustafa Lodhi,
AdamAgbamu, (all U6); ShivanAggarwal (Joint best inYear)
andAvneet Sapal, (Joint best inYear) both U4. Mustafa was
awarded a Merit andAlex (Best in School) a Distinction,
which places him in the top 100 students nationally.
In the Senior Kangaroo six pupils - Max Stear (Joint Best
inYear), Jathusan Vijayakumar, Kyrill Borzenko, Swasthi
Surendran, Kail Francis and Felix Harman - were awarded
Merits. Swasthi Surendran was awarded a Distinction in
the Maths Olympiad for Girls, placing her in the top 200
female school-aged mathematicians in the UK.
The following received Senior Maths Gold Certificates and
qualified for the Senior Kangaroo: Zaki Lodhi, NathanTan
and Krishan Parmar (all U4); Aarian Judge (Best inYear),
AnanyaVijay, Akhila Natarajan and Pari Jethwa (all 5ths); Jai
Robinson, Matt Dean, Ben Hughes, James Ormsby, Ahaan
Kumar, Emilia Nygaard-Parsons (L6); RichardTuite (U6).
In November, four pupils were accompanied by MrTse to
St Joseph’s Mathematical School in Rochester to partake in
the Regional SeniorTeam Mathematics Challenge (STMC).
The team consisted of Max Stear, JathusanVijayakumar (both
L6th),AlexanderYan and Swasthi Surendran (both U6th).
The competition begun with a group round, which posed no
problems. In the following crossnumber round (a numerical
take on the crossword), however, the team lost two careless
marks.This was soon rectified by a clean sweep in the
shuttle round (something STMC veteran Alex had never
seen before).This placed the Bancroft’s team comfortably
in first position to qualify for the National Finals in February.
At the National Finals held at the Linley Hall, they faced the
87 other regional winners (from an initial entry of 1200
schools nationwide) and finished in 9th place. In the poster
competition, for which they had to design an A3 poster, the
Bancroft’s team secured first place. Their winning poster will
be used as marketing material for next year’s competition.