What a creative group of boys we have! It was such a pleasure to see the response to last week’s “Express yourself” theme for Mental Health Week and the boys (and their teachers) have clearly had a lot of fun in the process. There is more creative ingenuity in our school community than you could shake a stick at! Very well done to Tom and Ed for their brilliant inventions, which have rightly received a lot of attention recently, and thank you to the staff in the DT department who have supported them. Enrichment projects like these are ex-actly the sort of thing that enhance applications to top universities, and well done to Robin on his Cambridge offer. It is also great for the boys to see the success of the OMs in this edition (though I won’t dwell on the rugby result, for obvious reasons!). Hallam and Joe Norris are both former Head Boys and I highly recommend that you have a listen to some of the Norris brothers’ music via the links below. The Kent-Dodsworth competition also promises to be a treat. I wish all the boys a very restful half term holiday next week. We will not be setting them any prep for the half term break and I hope that all will take time away from their screens to rest and recharge their batteries. We hope to receive news about how A level and GCSE grades are to be awarded in the week after half term and we will be in touch with this soon afterwards.

Lent term: Week 612th February 2021News

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CREATIVITY AND MINDFULNESS TO THE FORE AS STUDENTS EXPRESS THEMSELVESA fantastic range of activities were undertaken by the students as part of Children's Mental Health Awareness Week last week.

Here are examples of just a few of the relaxing and creative activities which many took part in.

(Above and left) - boys take part in some French Yoga.

(Right and below) Bird watch-ing in French. The boys not only spotted a wide range of fantastic birds whilst get-ting some fresh air, but also produced these slideshows, annotated in French, as proof of their discoveries.

(Below) Mrs Matthews challenged her Year 7 English class to express their creativity by making book-inspired healthy drinks and snacks this week.

Harry Potter’s favourite, Butter Beer was magicked up by Olly J and Evan’s James Bond fruit infused cocktails were definitely shaken and not stirred! The Grinch also made an appearance, alongside Captain Hook and some Harry Potter broomsticks and X-Men inspired treats. Well done to all the boys who took part!

The boys in Chapel House did an exercise where they named all of the things which they were grateful for. Pets came very high on the list for the majority of the boys so they did a lovely draw/paint your pet activity (both actual and remotely, so everyone could join in). Below are the brilliant results from the boys who drew the Chapel House pets, Herbie and Mango.

Tom in Year 9 took a recent Design Technology lesson as inspiration to design and make a foot activated doorbell alert.

The focus on ‘reducing contact’ during our day to day lives resulted in considering a solution for his local post person and the increas-ing number of delivery drivers arriving with our online orders, that we can all relate to.

He has repurposed various materials around the home to enable the user to activate the doorbell through a system of hinges, cork press and springs – enabling the process of ‘knocking a door’ or ‘pressing the bell’ now ‘hands free’.

Well done, Tom, what a fantastic idea with great potential.

TOM REINVENTS READY FOR THE 'NEW NORMAL'

Four talented pupils from Haberdashers’ Monmouth Schools have been offered the life-changing opportunity to study at Oxford and Cambridge universities.

Robin (below left), from Monmouth School for Boys, has been offered a place to read Computer Science at Gon-ville & Caius College, Cambridge. Ellie, who was awarded two A*s and two As in her A levels last summer, has accepted an offer to read German and Hebrew at St Hugh’s College, University of Oxford. Anna, the Head Girl at Monmouth School for Girls, has an offer to read German and Linguistics at The Queen’s College, Oxford and fifteen-year-old, Xiaoli, also a student at Monmouth School for Girls, has an offer to read Engineering at Queens’ College, University of Cambridge.

LIFE-CHANGING OXBRIDGE OFFERS FOR FOUR TALENTED STUDENTS

Robin, 17, has already achieved A* at A level in both Maths and Further Maths. A keen mu-sician, who holds Grade 8 in clarinet with distinction and a trampolinist at the Monmouth club, Robin is studying A levels in Physics, Chemistry and Computing and would like a career in cyber security. Robin, who lives near Ross-on-Wye, started computer program-ming at a young age and first used structured programming when he was nine years old.His father, Andrew, is the Head of Maths at Monmouth School for Girls and his mother, Christina, also teaches in the department. His grandfather was Head of Computing, and also taught Physics at Stamford High School and Robin has learned a lot from him, too.“The father of Computer Science, Alan Turing, studied at Cambridge and this is a fantastic opportunity,” said Robin. “It’s a world-renowned institution, has a brilliant reputation for software development, and opens many doors.”

Congratulations to all of these students, as well as to all of the other Monmouth Schools Sixth Form students who are receiving their own offers from universities at the minute.

Ellie (right) with her friend, Jena Curtis, who is currently at Oxford and reading a degree in German and Czech.XiaoliAnna

CELL STRUCTURES RECREATED BY YEAR 7 SCIENTISTS... AND SOME OF THEM LOOK DELICIOUS!

Year 7 spent one lesson learning all about the structure of cells recently and for their next lesson they were asked to be creative and try and reproduce an animal or plant cell using whatever they could find around their own homes. The results were brilliant, and ranged from plas-ticine and lego all the way through to some rather impressive baking.

Well done everyone!

It’s Chinese New Year today (Friday, 12th February) and the Year 9 Chinese EAL pupils shared some of their home traditions, and have sent in these pictures to show how they are celebrating New Year in Hong Kong with their families.

Ian sent in a picture of these beautiful flowers, traditionally bought for New Year as well as this image of the special box of Chinese sweets and snacks.

Percy also sent us in this description of some New Year treats:'This first photo is a rice cake (right). Rice cakes are made in all sorts of different ways and they are all scrumptious! The New Year rice cakes are dark yellow and light brown and are given to people at New Year as a sign of respect. In Chinese, they are called “nian goo”.

The second photo shows turnip cakes (left) – these are shared at New Year. I prefer these cakes to rice cakes! They come from Southern China and are called “Lo Bak Go” in Chinese.'

Finally Max sent in this picture of the East-Azure Dragon (right), representing Spring.

Happy Chinese New Year to everyone!

STUDENTS GET READY FOR CHINESE NEW YEAR

Meanwhile, in Chapel House, Woody, who is from Hong Kong, has enjoyed decorating the house with red lanterns, paper cut outs and painting symbols for the year of the Ox.

He has also been teaching the boys, and staff, how to write New Year's messages in Chinese and the im-portance and symbolism of the Ox and the colour red in Chinese culture.

As well as this he's made everyone Chinese tea and helped Ms Mone, as the elder of Chapel House, to prepare red envelopes with chocolates and hand-made hearts as a blessing.

The boys also had a banquet of Chinese food from the takeaway at the weekend and they all loved the fortune cookies best!

OM BROTHERS RELEASE NEW SINGLE

Well done to the Year 8 computing students, who've been using Mine-craft as a gateway to programming. The group are currently working on their use of functions and iterations.

Alex and Lorenz have partuclarly impressesd Mr Despontin as they have collaborated on a personal project of building a virtual race track - a very impressive effort!

Well done boys!

There was a strong Monmouth presence during Wales' opening Six Nations clash last weekend. Old Monmothian, Hallam Amos, (left) made a winning 23rd Test appearance for Wales and fellow Old Monmothian, referee Wayne Barnes (below, left), was involved in the major talking point of the match at the Principality Stadium.

Hallam had a strong game but was unfortunately injured towards the end of the bruising encounter with Ireland whilst Wayne correctly red-carded Ireland flanker Peter O’Mahony, after the incident was spotted by the television match official, for dangerous play after just 14 minutes.

It was great to hear from the Norris brothers, Sam and Joe, who left Monmouth School 5 and 2 years ago, respectively. Their band, Marsupial Soup, are releasing a new single this month called In Flames and you can check it out on Spotify and Apple music, by following the links, below. For more information about the band visit their Facebook or Instagram pages. Well done boys, here's wishing you all the best of luck for the future. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/7fpTlXgCxRx71rLoKmbqdm?si=hjTyT14nTYO8bWBnjL52Aw Apple music: In Flames - by Marsupial Soup on Apple Music Facebook: Marsupial Soup | Facebook

Instagram: Marsupial Soup (@marsupial__soup)

MINECRAFT PROGRAMMING GETS A BIT RACEY!

OMS HAVE ALL POSITIONS COVERED IN WELSH VICTORY

Meanwhile another Old Monmothian, Eddie Butler (right), a former Wales captain, was also in the thick of the action as he commentated on the match for BBC television.

ED'S DESIGNS NOW BEING USED IN COVID CLINICSFurther congratulations are due to Ed, whose design for a vaccine inverter, we reported on earlier in the term.

Ed, under the guidance of Mr Goodson, has finished the final vial inverter prototype, as well as completing production of a brand new, spin-off, product.

The new product is a tray to hold all of the vaccination equipment and these are now being used in three clinics, and Ed has found himself in the South Wales Argus too!

Well done, Ed, amazing work!

THIS WEEK'S 'MUSIC MOMENTS': THE KENT DODSWORTH BRASS COMPETITION

VISIT OUR WEBSITE TO SEE ALL OF THE LATEST NEWS

Please click on any of the pictures in order to watch the performances from this year's Kent Dodsworth Brass Competition.

MONMOUTH'S GOT TALENT GOES ONLINE

This year’s event will be online and is raising money for The Trussell Trust, a network of food banks across the UK.

The prefects organising the event would like students (Y7-Y13) to send in their audition videos to the head or deputy head girl/boy of their respective school (MG/MB) via Teams, by the 1st March.

Last year, an impressive music-and-dance act from Haberdashers’ Monmouth Schools triumphed at The Blake Theatre. The Shadow (pictured above), which comprised of singers, dancers, a pianist and a cellist, wowed the judges and audience to win MGT 2020.

Organised each year by the senior prefects at the three secondary schools, the winning act in MGT will re-ceive £50 and the two runners-up, £25 each.

Good luck to everyone who's entered... and if you haven't entered yet, give it a go!

Monmouth's Got Talent will be returning next month – virtually.

Monmouth’s Got Talent (MGT) is a special celebra-tion of music, dance and theatre and will be streamed via YouTube on Friday 26th March. Loosely based upon the format of a more well-known talent show, MGT features children at Monmouth School for Boys, Monmouth Comprehensive School and Monmouth School for Girls.

The competition this year broke new ground; with a pandemic raging, the boys were playing at home, their accompanist was in school and the adjudicator was in Dorset! An interesting challenge but one we overcame.

Seven boys took part and the standard was as high as ever. Nathan opened proceedings with a spirited performance of Allan Street’s Rondino and was followed by Sam playing a transcription of the Agnus Dei from Fauré’s Messe Basse. James gave us Mozart’s famous Romanze (Concerto No 2) and was followed by Jack with the equally famous Thunder-birds Are Go! Thomas gave us the demanding Poco adagio and Allegro moderato from Beethoven’s Sonata Op 17 and Harry brought a big contrast with A Time for Peace. Isaac closed with Funk by Allen Vizzutti, the only unaccompanied piece of the event.

Ian Lowes, himself a distinguished former professional Horn player, gave an incisive adjudication, placing James in second place, and Nathan in first.