Warwick School

Swimming

Well done to all the swimmers who completed the marathon 100 mile swim a couple of weekends ago. Starting at 5pm on Friday evening the swimmers continued day and night through to Sunday afternoon. In all, 58 swimmers covered over 600,000 metres for charity. Very many congratulations to all the boys who took part and thanks to Mr Nield and Mr Chapman for their organization.

Clay Pigeon Shooting

On Sunday 18 November, Warwick School competed in the Heart of England Clay Pigeon Shooting Championships at the Hereford and Worcester Shooting Ground. The weather was some of the worst the club has seen at this competition. Rain and wind made shooting very difficult.

The challenge before the A team was immense as 4 out of 5 shooters were making their competitive debut at this level. Vice-Captain Richard Wilson shot a highly impressive 43 out of 50, while Tom Adams had an excellent debut with 41. Unfortunately, the good performances were not quite good enough for Warwick to secure the trophy. The A team came third, only 8 clays behind Old Swinford Hospital the winners.

The B team and Under 14s also shot extremely well under the circumstances.

CCF

As part of the national signals exercise Christmas Cracker the CCF Signals Section operated a radio station from the school fields on Saturday and Sunday and made contact with other cadet units as far away as Dorset, Merseyside and Yorkshire. Nine cadets took part under the leadership of Corporals Bannan, James, Lawless and Le Druillenec. The team continued to operate the radio station throughout the night. Points are scored for each contact made but we will have to wait some weeks to hear the results. Staff involved were Maj Shield, Capt Surr and Lt Clift.

Public speaking

On Saturday 24th November Collis Tahzib and Saul Asghar took part in the Coventry Festival of Speech and Drama. Both spoke superbly. Saul won his class and gained a distinction and Collis was judged the overall best speaker. He gained full marks and was the only competitor to do so that day. Many thanks to Mrs Park for taking the boys.

Hockey

It has been a busy time for the hockey teams:

A depleted 2nd XI lost 3 – 0 to KES Stratford, while the 4th XI convincingly beat North Leamington School by 4 goals to one.

The Under 15 team continued its unbeaten run with a 3 – 1 win over Bishop Vesey’s School, while the Under 14 team dispatched the Bishop Vesey’s under 15 B team 6 – 0, and followed this victory with a fine 6 – 1 victory over K.E.S. Birmingham School in the quarter final of the under 14 county cup competition.

The 1st XI have played 3 matches in close succession, drawing 1 all with King’s School Macclesfield, beating Stourport High School 5 – 3 and beating Bablake School 5 – 2 in the Under 18’s cup quarter-final, which is by far the best result of the term, having already lost 4 – 0 to Bablake in a friendly match in October. The 1st XI now face Solihull School in the semi-final next Monday at Solihull.

Fencing

Last Thursday 8 fencers travelled to Eton College.
In the foil match the Eton fencers were a superior team and they took the match 45 - 25.
However in the Epee matches Warwick put up a stronger fight.
The Junior Epee was lost 45 - 39 with our younger fencers clearly facing a team of older students.
Our Senior Epee team had the best match and came away victorious with a score of 45 - 35.

Rugby

This was a typically challenging local derby against Solihull School with two narrow losses to a depleted 16A team and the 14B’s. However the balance of wins was in Warwick’s favour with the other 8 teams all recording victories in what proved to be difficult conditions.

The 1st XV started strongly with a well worked drive from a lineout before some poor handling and kicking from deep in our own territory resulted in two easy scores to Solihull. The 2nd half was one way traffic but a lack of accuracy kept the score close with a handful of try scoring opportunities missed. The 1st XV travel to Oakham this afternoon for their Round 5 Cup game and we wish them all the best.

An excellent defensive display against a bigger Solihull 2 XV side on Saturday ensure the 2nds won 12 points to 0. Warwick should have made more of the possession they had in attack and went in at only 5-0 at half time. The Solihull team felt threatened every time they got the ball by the aggressiveness of the defence which caused them to knock balls forwards and run into touch. David Rogers scored the decisive try under the post towards the middle of the second half to allow the team to continue their run of wins.

Last week we held a very successful Non Uniform Day which raised over £1000 for Children in Need. The rugby players will soon play their own sponsored fixture and I invite the captain of Rugby, David Askew to introduce the charity that will be supported.

Music

During the weekend before last over 150 musicians set off for Northampton to play in the Regional Heat of the National Concert Band Festival. Boys from the Training Band and the Big Band picked up Silver Awards and boys along with girls from King’s High School who form the Foundation Wind Orchestra also collected a Silver Award.

It was left to the boys of the Little Big Band to claim a Gold award. Mr Barr comments that “the boys from the Little Big Band under Mr Cadman’s direction gave an absolutely storming performance and thoroughly deserved their gold award”. The performance included superb solos from David Tibbitts on Trumpet and Jonathan Wylie on Saxophone.

As a result of gaining GOLD the Little Big Band claim an automatic place in the National Final of the Concert Band Festival which will take place here at school in April. The Foundation Band may be invited to play in the final as one of the best Silver Award winners from across the UK but we will have to wait for some time until this is confirmed.

As part of their programme the Foundation Wind Orchestra played a new piece which was specially written for us by the Scottish Composer – Paul Rissmann. This is 3rd year the Foundation Wind Orchestra has played a specially commissioned new work.

This evening here in the Hall the Foundation Wind Orchestra, the Little Big Band and the Orchestra will play the Winter Concert. All welcome – 7.30pm