Musicians (and a photographer)

New year 9 boys had a taste of different musical instruments they can learn, in an evening organised by new Director of Music Kate Harper tonight.

The event was photographed by Duncan Pullman.

Rugby this weekend

Home games:
1st XV - 1500
2nd XV - 1400 (both New Field)

U15A,B & C - 1400, Riverside pitches

Away games:
U16A, and U14 A,B and C all 1400 at Reading Blue Coat school, returning around 1600.
The U16B game is cancelled.

Law GCSE by videoconference

David Gooddy and Alex Barker are among a small group in year 10 studying for an extra GCSE, in Law, with weekly videoconference tutorials. Experienced Law tutor Steve Harris teaches them from his home in Somerset. The new facility, in the Stationers' Room, has been installed by the wonderful ICT Support team, and for the technically minded, uses an IP link through JANET (the Joint Academic Network). The scheme was developed by Senior Teacher Mrs Lowri Cook, who was delighted that everything worked for the first session this afternoon.

Busy days

Year 10 artists went to visit the Natural History museum in Oxford yesterday; on Tuesday, yr 10 all worked on their Study skills all morning, while Yr 12 all worked on leadership tasks all afternoon, while everyone else did CCF and other activities.

Chapel Wardens

Burr is blessed with three wonderful sixth formers - Alex Wallis who is the Head Chapel Warden for the College, and Melissa de Haan and Jeremy Pattie who have specific responsibilities for spiritual life in Burr. They and their counterparts in other Houses were blessed today by the Bishop of Dorchester, who also formally licensed the Assistant Chaplain (see yesterday's BBQ story).

Welcome, Padre

New assistant Chaplain, Padre Jarvis, was the guest of honour at a Sunday evening BBQ which featured expert chefs from year 9, and the launch of a chocolate fountain - while year 12 debated theological issues.

Fixtures for Saturday 13 Sept

1st, 2nd and 3rd XV are away at the Oratory - KO 1400 except the 1sts (1430) expected back 1700 (1730 for 1sts)

U14s all away as above - KO 1400, expected back 1700.

Other teams at Shiplake - KO 1400.

Good luck to all!

I will not be around on Saturday - Mr Starr will be in charge of Burr.

Soccer victory

Burr juniors won the opening game of the inter-House soccer tournament this afternoon, with new boy Alfie di Vadi scoring a hat trick in our 6-2 victory.

Life after Burr

Revent leavers Will Adler and Henry Mitchell have been using their time to help others. This is Will's story -

After I finished Shiplake in 2007 I worked until the end of December in a mail order company and a pub to earn some much needed cash for my big adventure.

Henry Mitchell and I flew to Chennai to be greeted by Victor from Teaching Projects Abroad. It was a very surreal experience stepping out of the airport to the smell of the distinct Indian air not really knowing what we had let ourselves in for.

After a very long and tiring journey on the crazy rickshaw filled roads and through the beautiful countryside we finally made it to Kerala where we would be teaching in a school for the next few months. With no previous experience on the other side of the desk we were both put into separate classrooms full of fifty ten year old children screaming in excitement at us. Our typical day would consist of 4 hours of teaching English communication through games, playing a guitar and singing to the class. At the end of the day we would be surrounded by a swarm of kids asking for our autographs and then played football and cricket with them.

We lived with a local family and felt we were really getting the true Indian experience by joining in their traditions and eating chepatti with them most evenings, in between the daily power cuts. After two months we moved on to a government school which was run in a completely different way to what we had previously experienced. We witnessed beatings, classrooms with no chairs or tables but where the kids were so keen and eager to learn. I found this more of a challenge as their ability to communicate with us wasn’t nearly as good. I will always treasure the hundreds of letters and humbling gifts we got from all of the children we had been with over these amazing twelve weeks.

During the weekend we would meet up with the forty other volunteers from different parts of the world where we organized cricket matches, went on elephant safaries and saw so much of the Indian culture while traveling and staying around most of the Southern tip of India.

We left India at the end of April after traveling to other parts of this vast country and made our way home via Thailand, Laos, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand and back to UK in July full of so many stories, experiences and memories,

This very different lifestyle taught me so much about the world and enabled me to visit places I never thought I would. Teaching certainly isn’t as easy as I thought it may have been! The OVS made this wonderful experience more possible with the generous donation they gave me for which I am very grateful.

Will Adler

Practical Tutoring

The handbook for tutors should make more mention of pizza, and its uses in raising morale. New boys in year 9 had their introduction to hockey today - they'll also try out rowing in the coming weeks. The day ended with a pizza party thrown by Mr and Mrs Starr in their flat in Burr.

Ex Grey Rover

The first Sunday of the term is a get-to-know you day in Burr. Our original plan to travel together down the Thames in luxury on The Waterman has to be postponed when the river level rose after heavy rain, leaving our landing stage submerged,so we took the train. The process of printing out 66 tickets took some time (about ten minutes longer than the journey from Shiplake to Henley) , and produced an impressive amount of cardboard.

The mission was to make sure that everyone in Burr talked to someone new, and that everyone could identify key places in Henley - including the bus stop, railway station, police station and bookshops.





Groups of nine boys and girls had ten facts to discover. Henry Robinson cheerfully identified the biggest book in the window of the Oxfam bookshop, a useful textbook on A level Psychology.

The only contentious issue was the time of the last train back on a Saturday night (some groups may have been reading the Mon-Fri timetable), but as nobody should be out that late anyway, we'll let it pass. Many thanks to the Sixth Formers who led the groups, and to Mr Dolan, Mr Starr, Mr and Mrs Baker, Mrs Foakes and Mrs Lowndes for joining in.