Friday 23rd June 2023

Welcome to the final newsletter of the year - unbelievaby!  I'm not going to try and sum up the year, you will all have your memories but I thnk it's been another triumphant year with, at the heart of everything, these fantastic students who have once again impressed and delighted us.

Escape Rooms
The Year 8 Advanced Mathematicians have been using their logic and problem solving skills to design their own escape rooms! Some of the rooms were created online, using gaming software and some were 'real life' escape rooms in classrooms. They involved codes, padlocks, chess boards, hard maths puzzles and much more. Some fantastic rooms were created and luckily, no students were harmed in the process!
Pics below!

Trip to Vienna
Mr Trovo took some of his German students to Vienna last weekend. He says" It was a really nice trip, and we saw many historical buildings (Schönbrunn) and experienced the local cuisine as well. We even went to an amusement park (Prater)."  Pics Below!

Volley Ball News

DVAC Vienna MS Tournament

B-Team: Our B-team went into this tournament after comfortably winning the Budapest Cup so we were the favourites to win. This pressure did not show at all as our girls showed an unbeatable attitude throughout all games. 
First game, ICSV. We made this game look easy winning 2 sets to 0. The only points won by the opposition were silly mistakes we made. Like expected, we did not make many of these so only conceded 14 points over the 2 sets.
Second game, DIS. This game was another repeat of the one before. The first set we won 25-4 and the second set 25-10.
Due to our results in the group stage, we were in the final to play against our local (we have a good relationship though) rival team BBIS. This game went to the wire! We won the first set 25-16 but lost the second 25-16 which meant the game went to a tournament tie-break. This meant the next point won the gold medal. After a tense rally and heart in mouth moments, Scarlett stepped up with a super spike to win the point and the gold.
Player Ratings:
Alessandra - 8 - great leadership and consistency, especially with her serving.
Jia - 9 - our captain and energy all teams dream of. Would run through a brick wall for her team.
Sanjhana - 8 - consistency all-round all tournament. Probably only made 2 mistakes all day.
Reka - 8 - A brilliant show of confidence and composure especially in the final.
Ada - 8 - perfect setting throughout. Excellent service.
Scarlett - 8 - A definite future captain of Britannica’s sport teams. Excellent attitude and willingness to learn. Great performances in all games and an excellent moment when she executed the spike to win the final gold medal point.

A-Team: Our A-team had a really tough group with the best 2 teams of the past 2 years in our group. First game, we beat AISB 25-11 in the first set and lost 25-23 in the second. Our second game, ICSV. This was a game which looked like it was going to be tough. Our girls showed an awesome attitude, absolutely blowing the opponents away winning 25-14 and 25-16. This meant we were guaranteed to be in the bronze medal match.
Our 3rd group game was against the best team in the tournament, BISBr who have an amazing volleyball program and are a team who all play outside of school for a team. Our energy was excellent and our attitudes were perfect playing every point like it was a match winning point. Unfortunately, experience won this game with us losing both sets 18-25 and 20-25.
We went into the bronze medal match against ICSB who beat us earlier in the season. First set, we were not at the races and lost 21-25. This meant we had to win the second set by more than 4 points to win the bronze medal. We played our best volleyball ever this season in this set winning this set 25-9. It was a pleasure to watch and made us feel hugely proud of the girls. 
Player Ratings:
Nela - 9 - a little bit of a wobble in the AISB game but was awesome every moment after a few words with the coach. She made us all laugh at some point which was a highlight.
Man Ni - 9 - Consistent as always and a threat when serving. Won approximately 17 points from her serve this tournament.
Thembeka - 8 - Excellent and consistent performances in all games. The coach on the court.
Disha - 8 - Sometimes let emotions get the better of her but in the end began to grow into an excellent digging game saving us many times from losing points.
Helen - 8 - Awesome attitude, awesome technique and positive energy. 
Mihaela - 8 - Some excellent saves and is always willing to put herself on the line for the team. Good tournament from Mihaela.
Meitha - 9 - The best I have seen her play. Consistent, showed belief and a perfect attitude. 
Anna - 10 - Easily our player of the tournament. For her, it is a choice if she is successful or not. She has all of the ability in the world and she was paramount in our success this tournament. Excellent performance.

Mr Turnbull

Well done everyone of you - Britannica is proud of each and everyone of you!

Year 8 History

As part of their Civil Rights Movement unit, Y8 students researched the 1967 Detroit Riots and had a go at creating their own radio news broadcasts. They were tasked with explaining the causes, events and consequences of the riots as accurately as possible in a professional manner. They did a great job!  Here's a sample

Duke of Edinburgh International Award

Congratulations to some of our students who have recently achieved their Awards! This is a huge achievement as it takes commitment and dedication, not all who start manage to complete the Award! 
Bronze Award - Robin, Huba, Barni, Bibi
Silver Award - Emily, David 
Gold Award - Fanni

Silver Award Trip 
Last week, we went out into the Matra and enjoyed walking the hills of Hungary! All the students were motivated and hardworking. Everyone enjoyed the trip, despite the blisters! See the Sway for a more detailed trip report. Hopefully, they will all continue to work on the other sections of the Award so we will have more congratulations next academic year. Thank you to all the staff who helped to supervise the trip!

Next year
Y9 were given the chance to learn more about DofE this week as we hope that many of them will choose to try and complete it next year. It is a great opportunity to learn new skills, have new experiences and do something non-academic but very worthwhile. You can see the presentation they received here.

Goodbyes and Hellos!

It's that time where we say goodbye and thank you to our colleagues who are leaving us for pastures new!  This year we we are losing:

Ms Baranyi
Ms Biegl
Mrs Burns
Ms. Hunter
Mr Jones
Mr Kelly
Thank you all for the contribution you have made to Britannica and to the differences you've made to our students. The school is the sum of a number of parts and at the heart of that is dedicated and commited teachers and all of these teachers have played an important role and we thank you for it. We wish you God speed and good fortune in your future travels.
Seneca said “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.” so, with that in mind we welcome some new colleagues who join us from around the world.

Mr Robbie Davies - Humanities and PE (9B)
Mr Robert Setchell - Humanities
Ms Happiness Mchunu - English (7B)
Ms Flora Kozma - Science (8A)
Mr Matthew White - Maths (8B)
Mr Oscar McNaughton - Maths (7A)
Mr Alan Wilkninson - Business & Economics

We wish all our new colleagues a safe journey to Budapest and I am confident they will absolutely love working with our students here at Britannica.  I'm sure everyone will do all they can to make them feel welcome!

There are a few changes in the Pastoral Leadership Team for next year:

Mr Luca Trovo will be responsible for Year 7 as they make their transition into 'big' school!
Mr Richard Roberts will be responsible for Year 8 & 9 and their move towards IGCSEs
Ms Sosa Lama remains responsible for the crucial Years 10 & 11
Mr Robert Setchell will take over responsibility for our largest sixth form ever!

And of course Mrs Holly Stroud will be sitting in this seat, writing this newsletter next year, I have every confidence she will be a fantastic Head of Secondary and, I hope, will enjoy the role as much as I have.

It only remains for me to say thank you to all the students and parents who have made my life here at Britannica an absolute joy, What a privilege to end my working life at a school like this!

Have a wonderful summer break, enjoy the time with your children and, above all, stay safe!

Greg Barker
Head of Secondary

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