30th July 2020 — Bishop’s Stortford College Upper Fifth pupil, Justin M, has been interviewed by radio presenter Helen Scott and had several of his musical compositions played live on air on BBC Radio Essex over the last few months.

Following the success of his debut composition, ‘Let’s Fly’, which made it to the semi-finals of the 2019 International Songwriting Competition, placing it in the top 11% of over 18,000 entries, Justin was contacted by BBC Radio Essex in May to take part in a live interview on the ‘Evenings with Helen Scott’ show and radio premiere of his composition.

Justin has since made a further two live appearances with Helen Scott and Victoria Polley; once on Friday 22nd May for the broadcast of his electronic composition, ‘Solar Bounce’ and most recently, on Thursday 16th July with his latest piece ‘Feels’, which made it to the semi-finals of the Teens category in the International Songwriting Competition – Unsigned Only 2020.

The annual International Songwriting Competition aims to give aspiring musicians and songwriters an opportunity to have their songs heard in a professional, international arena. Designed to nurture the talent of song writers, previous winners include Gotye, Bastille and Passenger.

Submitting his electronic music composition ‘Feels’ into the Teens section of the Unsigned Only competition, Justin, one of 64 teen semi-finalists (of 990 overall semi-finalists), was the only teens category semi-finalist representing England in the entire Unsigned Only 2020 competition of over 7,000 entries.

Senior School Music Teacher, Iago Nunez commented, “Justin’s track is very well produced and already has some trademarks of his own ‘sound’. It is very impressive that he is already generating a well-defined composition style. We wish him the best of luck in all future competitions.”

Justin’s compositions are available to hear on Spotify and Apple Music:

https://open.spotify.com/track/357NYmpU0h30Z6o57ScizQ?si=435wnq9lS4OtNzvYgC9ASA

https://music.apple.com/gb/album/fly-feels-single/1508196922

The College would like to extend enormous congratulations to Justin for his musical successes to date and wishes him the best of luck for the future.

10th July 2020 — The Bishop’s Stortford College Prep School fundraising has exceeded all expectations for the academic year 2019-2020.

In September 2019, the Bishop’s Stortford College Prep School launched their fundraising initiatives for the academic year. Over the 10 months that followed, pupils spearheaded various events and activities including collecting foreign notes and coins to convert into sterling, organising a ‘Guess The Baby’ Competition, performing in festive Carol Concerts and their Spring Term Charity Challenge, ‘Grow a £2 Coin’, to name just a few.

Determined not to let the Covid-19 pandemic interrupt their fundraising activities, and to raise awareness for local charities, the Prep School community came together virtually for one final burst of fundraising in their Community Charity Week. From Wednesday 24th June to Wednesday 1st July, Prep School pupils took part in a variety of themed creative, sporty, baking and dressing up events.

After an uplifting Prefects Community Charity Assembly with guest speaker, Stephen Turner, from Samaritans, Community Charity Week started with a bang as pupils were challenged to ‘Make A Minute’s Noise For Local Charities’. Similar to the national ‘Clap for Keyworkers’ pupils honoured the hard work of charity workers across Bishop’s Stortford. The ‘Steps for Samaritans’ challenge followed shortly after, where pupils climbed as many stairs or steps as possible within 30 minutes. Collectively, pupils from all 6 year groups climbed a total of 535,606 steps; the equivalent of 9 Mount Everest’s. Other challenges included baking a 'monster' cookie, taking part in House quizzes, dressing-up as a rainbow or a ‘Community Superhero’ for the day, preparing rainbow-coloured dishes of food, bringing a pet to a Zoom lesson, creating a lockdown time-capsule and submitting a recipe for a Charity Cookbook. Other creative arts challenges focussed on photography, poetry and art.

Jane Towns, Prep School Prefects & Charities Coordinator, commented, “We wanted to provide opportunities for the children to enjoy spending time together, albeit virtually, whilst raising the profile of many local charities in the Bishop’s Stortford area. It was wonderful to see the pupils having fun, making memories and being together as a community one last time before the end of term.”

The proceeds from all fundraising activities across the school year, of which a quarter was raised during lockdown, will be distributed amongst seven local charities; Guide Dogs, Ware Samaritans, Bishop’s Stortford Salvation Army, Bishop’s Stortford Winter Night Shelter, Bishop’s Stortford Food Bank, Grove Cottage and Just One Tree.

9th July 2020 — As many people up and down the country, the Bishop’s Stortford College community has been busy developing new skills and revisiting old ones to pass the time whilst staying at home.

To celebrate the creativity of pupils, parents and staff during lockdown, Senior School Head of Design and Technology, John Trant, reached out to the College community and as a result has produced the ‘Made in Lockdown’ exhibition which showcases the incredible items made since the end of March.

From elderflower cordial to painting by numbers artwork, from origami to a spider’s guesthouse and from face shields to fixing up a 1968 Series IIa Airportable Lightweight Land Rover, the exhibition illustrates the variety and diversity of projects undertaken. Over 80 ‘pieces’ were submitted for the exhibition.

Mr Trant commented, “I confess that I underestimated hugely the extraordinary volume and variety of work that I would receive when I made the appeal for submissions to ‘Made in Lockdown’ in June. The artefacts, food, art works and projects that have been submitted are all incredible… It has simply been a pleasure to empathise with the feelings of achievement and satisfaction that each and every contributor will surely have felt as they completed and submitted their ‘makes’.”

To view the exhibition on the College website, follow this link https://www.bishopsstortfordcollege.org/206/latest-news/post/1150/made-in-lockdown.

4th June 2020 — Three Bishop’s Stortford College Senior School teachers have raised over £1,100 for the Transforming Lives for Good (TLG) charity by taking on their own version of an Ironman triathlon relay.

Chosen as the Bishop’s Stortford College charity of the year for 2019-20, Transforming Lives for Good works to support the most vulnerable children in society. Recently, the charity has been working round the clock to ensure children who would usually receive free school meals, in school, are still being fed during the pandemic. The trio felt it was particularly important to support this charity as the usual fundraising that would have taken place on campus had been shelved due to lockdown.

With a fundraising target of £1,000 the three Senior School staff, Miss Michell Mr Murley and Mr Crolla, who respectively teach Geography, English and Mathematics, decided to tackle an amended version of an Ironman Triathlon relay during the half term break.

An Ironman triathlon is a series of long-distance races usually consisting of a 2.4 mile swim, followed by a 112 mile cycle and then a 26.22 mile run. It is considered one of the most difficult one-day sporting events in the world.

Adhering to social distancing throughout their training and during the ‘event’, the trio took on the challenge individually, safely and through a combination of indoor and outdoor exercise. Whilst Mr Murley and Mr Crolla tackled their challenges on Monday 25th May; Mr Crolla enduring an 80km cycle followed by a 10km run and Mr Murley tackling a 50km cycle and a 20km run. Miss Michell followed on Saturday 30th May with a 64km cycle and an 18km run. To make up for not being able to participate in the swimming section of the triathlon, the team, who called themselves BSCIronClan, had added a little extra to their running stages of the challenge.

Mr Crolla completed his events in 5 hours, 20 minutes; Mr Murley in 3 hours 45 minutes and Miss Michell in just over 3 hours and 10 minutes, with a team total of 169 miles in 11.3 hours.

BSCIronClan are immensely proud of their achievements, both physically and in terms of the fundraising achieved and would like to thank all the parents, colleagues and pupils who contributed to their fundraising.

2nd June 2020 — Two former pupils of Bishop’s Stortford College or ‘Old Stortfordians’ have been named in the 2020 Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack for the second year running.

The Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, known as the ‘cricketers’ bible’, is the most famous sports book in the world and has been published every year since 1864. The Almanack contains coverage of every first-class game worldwide, reports on all Test matches, One Day Internationals (ODI), T20 internationals and the top 100 schoolboy cricketers.

Based on their outstanding batting averages for the 2019 cricket season, Old Stortfordians Joseph Hawkins and Adam Bassingthwaighte have made it into the top 30 schoolboy cricketers in the country. Joseph placed 28th with a batting average of 60.25 in 482 runs whilst Adam placed 11th with a batting average of 74.20 in 742 runs. This is a huge achievement for both young men, but especially for Adam who has improved significantly in the rankings after placing 25th last year with a batting average of 64.60 after scoring 322 runs.

Whilst at the College, Joseph and Adam, as Sports Scholars both benefitted from the Elite Sports Programme which gave them personalised strength and conditioning sessions in addition to year-round specialist coaching. Both cricketers continue to play for Bishop’s Stortford Cricket Club first XI and have represented Hertfordshire and Essex.

Dave Hughes, Head of Cricket, commented, “This is an outstanding achievement from Adam and Joe, they were both superb schoolboy cricketers and a pleasure to coach. We wish them every success for the future and they should be very proud of their impressive season and what they accomplished for the College. Many congratulations to them both.”

This news follows a thorough inspection of the College cricket facilities from legendary groundsman, Michael Hunt who visited the College at the end of April. Mr Hunt, who was Head Groundsman at Lords from 1985-2018 and oversaw the preparation of playing pitches for County Championship, international T20, ODI and Test matches, declared the College cricket square to be in excellent condition and of a high enough standard to host county matches.

The College looks forward to cricket being played on the Witherden Field at the Doggart again soon.

29th May 2020 — In response to the cancellation of GCSEs during the lockdown period, Upper Fifth pupils at Bishop’s Stortford College have been undertaking a ‘Preparing for Sixth Form’ course. Before embarking upon their pre-A Level lessons, the pupils were tasked to research and produce their own three-minute ‘TED-style’ talks based on topics linked to their A Level curriculum.

Covering a wide range of subjects, projects varied from ‘Ageing: What it is and how to reverse it’ and ‘Earthquakes don't kill people; buildings do’ to ‘The Myers-Briggs Personality Test’ and whether ‘Being morally good will always lead to happiness’.

Following the submission of their completed projects and videos, pupils were assessed on the quality of their research, evidenced by their knowledge and understanding of their chosen topic, their communication skills and ability to effectively trim down their research into a three-minute talk aimed at an audience of non-specialist peers.

Head of Sixth Form, Mrs Katie Banks, commented, “The quality of the research that went into these presentations was superb and will stand them in excellent stead for the Independent Research Programme in the Lower Sixth. What stood out amongst all the presentations was the quality of oral presentation our Upper Fifth possess: they had well-structured scripts which were delivered flawlessly. This is an excellent development of their 21st Century skills; a feature of the Pathways Programme in the Sixth Form at Bishop’s Stortford College.”

The College would like to extend congratulations to the following Upper Fifth pupils who were awarded prizes for the outstanding quality of their research and presentations:

Ellie B – ‘An Investigation into the Threats Facing Bees’

William C-S – ‘The Influenza Pandemic of 1918’

Madeleine F – ‘How Are Women Represented in Greek and Roman Mythology?’

Aveline Mae G – ‘La Rome Francaise: presented entirely in French’

Sophie I – ‘The Causes of Schizophrenia’

Philip L – ‘Strychnine Poisoning’ AND ‘Ernst Thalmann Pioneers TED Talk’

Vibha M – ‘Strychnine Poisoning’

Catherine M – ‘Women in Greek Mythology’

Tara M – ‘Bending the Truth: The Science Behind Why We Lie’

Arnav P – ‘Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity’

The ‘TED talks’ will be available to view on the College website, https://www.bishopsstortfordcollege.org/16829/pre-a-level-course-ted-talks.