The end of term assembly was a chance to reflect on some of the events and activities of the past 3 months at JAGS. We celebrated the fantastic fund-raising two of the four Houses have done: Holst House raised £650 for War Child and Clarke House £500 for Trinity Hospice, by engaging in fun activities that brought the whole senior school together, from Years 7-13. It’ll be the turn of Bettany and Desenfans in the New Year.

Other girls have independently found ways of supporting charities; as well as Vidhi Patel and Holly Mozley, about both of whom you can read in separate news  stories, Mrs Gibbs praised  Freddie Onslow, Jenny Lanigan, Georgia Phillips, Ming Jin Chen, and Abi karas, who have raised about £1000 for the Wings of Hope Charity, by selling candy canes and busking at Charing Cross Station. Well done to everyone!

The individual achievements of girls taking part in the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme was applauded: Hannah Bettridge, Isabel Daniels, Katharine Higgs, Crystal Pang, Georgina Stenhouse, Elena Tucker, Florence Venables  and Zaynub Ghafoor were presented with their Bronze Medals, and Lucy Benson, Ambika Gupta, Sunanda Gupta, Tolisha Patel and Eleni Pittas were presented with their Silver Medals. Congratulations to these girls and to the others - over 200 - who are currently engaged in training for awards.

The Modern Foreign Languages Department promoted translation among sixth from linguists by participating in the Juvenes Translatores Competition. Prizes were awarded (internally) to the following girls: Fenella Lindsey-Clarke (French), Marie-Louise Taylor (German), Bella Shields (Italian), Harriet Conner (Japanese), Maggie Lund (Russian) and Gayle Griffiths (Spanish).  Rachel Blackman-Mack, Year 11, was awarded a photo–reportage prize for the Montpellier trip, and Hannah Warren-Miell and Daisy Horan, Year 10, were awarded prizes for photography in Barcelona.

Following a trip to CERN in Switzerland, the Physics department awarded prizes to Harriet Conner and Katrina Ferron for their recorded impressions.  The Library ran chose Year 7 Rita Otto’s poem, The Fourth Gift of Christmas as their winning Christmas poem. The History Department ran a prize essay competition for Year 13 girls, judged by Cambridge Admissions tutor Dr David Stone, and prizes were awarded as follows: 1st prize to India Maddison, 2nd prize to Leonie Gasson and 3rd prize to Emily Shackleton.

Year 7 Katrina Miller was congratulated for her Distinction in her Grade 7 piano exam, and she has also been awarded a place in the National Children’s Orchestra  to play the viola. Year 9 Mair Dew has also been awarded a high Distinction in her Grade 8 piano exam.  The standard of play in this term’s JAGS Strings Festival was impressive; these girls were awarded ‘Outstanding’ for their performances on the day: Claudia Moore-Gillon and Antonia Skinner (Advanced), Mair Dew (Grade 8) and Maryam Sohrabi and Laura Stenhouse (Grade 4 category). Congratulations to them all.

At the end of each term Mrs Gibbs announces the names of girls who have achieved the most credit marks. Book tokens were presented to Katherine Graham, Jasmine Chinasamy, Madeleine Capstick (Year 7),  Alice Guillaume, Jessie Kolvin, Anna McKellar (Year 8), Mair Dew, Emma Mittelman, Tintin Stutter (Year 9), Vidhi Patel, Roshnee Patel, Imogen Watson (Year 10), SarahThornton, Zaynub Ghufoor and Emily Watson (Year 11).

Much excitement at the running totals for House points, derived from activities this term! We heard the Year 7 and 8 swimming results, and applauded Adele Fraser, Year 10, for winning a gold medal in the regional round of the Recreational Combination Synchronised swimming competition.  She then went on to the National Finals where she won a bronze medal.  Mrs Gibbs also presented bronze medals to Fiona Basham, Natasha Sinha, Georgie Hay, Greta Sharp, Flo Savage, Victoria Picken and Hannah Webb for being placed 3rd in the National Cross Country Finals in Cornwall. You can read more about this in a separate news story. The week’s sports results:

Netball v Alleyn’s – U16 A & B teams – won

Netball v Tonbridge – U 12 A – won; U13 A & B teams – won

Hockey v Streatham – U15 – won

Hockey v Alleyn’s – 2nd X1 – drew

In the Surrey U16 Indoor Hockey tournament the team played really well but failed to qualify for the South of England tournament.

We left the final assembly of 2009 with the notes of Peter Maxwell Davies’ Scottish Renaissance dances and Christmas carols ringing in our ears, thanks to the Year 9 ensemble and the Year 7 string quartet; and with the thought Mrs Gibbs had given us earlier in the month: looking forward as we do in Advent, take some inspiration from Linda Cohen’s quest to perform 1,000 good deeds, and make it your aim to do as many small acts of kindness.