RGS Guildford courtyard with students

News

Royal Academy Young Artists Online Show

Congratulations to Lower Sixth student, Joe Thorneycroft, whose painting has just been selected for the Royal Academy Young Artists Online Show. This year there were 21,500 submissions, so this is a phenomenal achievement! The acrylic, on canvas, A1 sized painting entitled ‘Dad’ was painted to last year’s GCSE theme of ‘Isolation’. Joe stated: ‘I wanted…

Surrey Hills Young Composer 2024

Upper Sixth student, Oscar Trott, was awarded a Third Prize at the prestigious Surrey Hills Young Composer Competition 2024. Julia Pearson, Chairman of the Festival and of its international jury, saw a very promising talent in Oscar’s piece, titled ‘Festival Rhythms’. This piece, written for piano duet, explores rhythm with intricate and contrasting interplay between…

Physics Olympiad

The organisers of the Physics Olympiad hosted a Year 7 and 8 challenge for the first year. 55 schools and 3581 students entered. RGS students made up the fifth largest entry at 201 candidates completing in both sections. Nationally, the mean score was 56% with a deviation of 16%. Our mean score was over 70%…

Reflection: Teamwork

The theme for this week is teamwork: something we rely on so often but frequently fail to recognise and appreciate.  It’s important that we reflect on team work and really get to grips with what it means as it surrounds us in all realms of life, be it in the classroom, on the sports pitch…

Lower Sixth Biology Fieldtrip

31 Lower Sixth biologists ventured to the Pembrokeshire coastline for their A Level ecology practical. From Friday to Sunday, the weather was perfect for outdoor learning and exploring rockpools to classify marine organisms. The first task involved using dichotomous keys to identify various species collected, including toothed-topshells, dogwhelks, limpets, barnacles, anemones, and periwinkles. Despite efforts,…

Reflection: Mentoring

“Do or do not.  There is no try.”  A quote from Yoda, a character in the 1980’s Star Wars film, Empire Strikes Back.  Where Yoda shows great wisdom to teach Luke to focus on the present and demonstrates, as a great mentor does, how to give support and how to offer challenges that permit one to…

Senior Prefects

The Headmaster is delighted to announce the Senior Prefect appointments for 2024/25.  School Captain is Charlie Everitt and he is supported by the two Deputy School Captains, Thomas Bull (who is also House Captain of Beckingham) and George Christiansen.   Senior Prefect Co-ordinator is Harry Simmons. The other House Captain appointments are as follows: Austen House is Zac Tinkler; Hamonde House is Ollie James;…

A Chaucerian Pilgrimage to Oxford and London

On Sunday 17 March, the Sixth Form A-Level English Literature students undertook their very own Chaucerian pilgrimage to experience a day of activities centred on the “Father of English Poetry”. Last year, Professor Marion Turner, the J.R.R. Tolkien Professor of English Literature and Language at the University of Oxford, published a widely celebrated “biography” of Geoffrey Chaucer’s…

German Trip to British Film Institute

On Thursday 14 March, we took the Fourth Form Germanists to a GCSE German Film Study Day at the BFI where, alongside approximately 400 other German students, we watched a series of film clips ranging from a stop-motion animation to a dystopian sci-fi thriller. In addition to describing and predicting the various plotlines, they learnt…

Reflection: Innovation

When we think of innovation, we often think of grand milestones, such as the first mass production of a car, or the people behind those milestones, like Henry Ford; however, there is much more to innovation than just the gleaming achievements.  Innovation takes hard work, passion, and belief, which often go unnoticed.  If Ford did…

The Lonely Londoners at Jermyn Street Theatre

The Upper Sixth A-Level English Literature students were fortunate enough to attend the world premiere of the first-ever stage adaptation of Sam Selvon’s iconic novella about the Windrush Generation, The Lonely Londoners. The production was performed at Jermyn Street Theatre, an intimate space close to Piccadilly Circus in the heart of London’s West End, and it…

Entertainment at Abbots Hospital

On Wednesday 15 May, 11 students made the short trip down the High Street to Abbots Hospital to provide some light entertainment for the residents. Every Year Group not taking public examinations was represented, and the RGS was able to offer a delightful programme of music, poetry, and even some magic. The poetry was performed…

Reflection: Volunteering

Volunteering is a word whose meaning is well understood by modern-day culture; however, I believe that the attitude with which it is expected to be done is far less grounded.  Many say that by volunteering for a cause, be it a House charity event such as the pancake race, or at a local food bank,…