This is Year 10 student Josie Ellery who, inspired by her love of crocheting, made Poppy pins to help raise money for the Royal British Legion. 

Josie worked tirelessly over the half term to hand make as many Poppy’s as she could. They were beautifully crafted using her own design and were in high demand with students and staff alike; selling quickly within the first few hours of going on sale.

As a result of all her hard work and diligence, Josie raised a spectacular £144.10. 

Well done Josie for all your hard work, wonderful creativity, and in achieving such an amazing contribution to a well deserving cause.

Reverend Canon Simon White led our Remembrance Service on Tuesday. Year 9 form representatives and cadets were in attendance and our Senior Students laid wreaths on behalf of the school, the Edwardians Association and the Foundation Governors in remembrance and tribute to all who suffered or died in war.

In World War One, 58 Old Boys and one member of staff paid the supreme sacrifice. Most of them found their last place of rest far from home: in Belgium, in France, in Gallipoli, in Poland, at sea; many of them have no known graves.

In the Second World War, by a strange coincidence, yet another 58 Old Boys perished in War – this time together with two members of staff. Only a few of them are buried in the UK. The remainder lie in France, Holland, Belgium and Germany, in Iceland and Italy, in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, in Burma and in Singapore. Again, many have no known grave but the sea.

In the Korean War of 1953, one Old Boy was killed while fighting for the United Nations in the cause of world peace.

In gratitude for the service and sacrifice of all these young men – their average age was only 24 – Erin Thompson took the reading and Mr Tedder read The Pride of the Poppy.

The service ended with the Last Post played on trumpet by Matthew Turner and Will Straughan supported by Ms Waterhouse.

Student Max Kirby recently competed at The IMGA (International Mounted Games Association) World Championships 2023 in Werribee, Australia. The competition ran from 8th -15th October and Max was representing England in the U18 team category. England were competing against Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, France, USA, Germany and Sweden.

With the exception of Australia and New Zealand; all other teams were on borrowed ponies and had only two hours to get used to these before the competition commenced. The competition was four sessions followed by a two-part final.

After a very strong start by England, Australia took advantage of home turf to take Gold. England had a tense battle with New Zealand for Silver but they proved too strong with Max and the team taking bronze.

Congratulations to Max on a fantastic achievement, we are sure of big things to come in the future.

A dedicated team of students have launched their own student newspaper to celebrate student successes and demonstrate their curiosity. The first issue is out this week.

Read it here

Our spectacular annual careers evening, KEVI Inspires is back to its pre-pandemic best! Inspiring students and evoking their ambition is something that we are extremely passionate about and that is the vision and purpose of the event; to inform and inspire. Thursday 26 October 2023 was our tenth event of this kind and it was the biggest, both in terms of delegates but also attendance.

We had in excess of 60 different organisations in attendance amounting to 100 guests from Further and Higher Education, charities and training providers, and employers of all sizes. Organisations that covered every sector; STEM, creatives, digital, law, medical, military and more gave up their time to inspire our students. This was also supported by a programme of 30 presentations/workshops that students and parents could get involved in.

KEVI Inspires is an event that, as a school, we are immensely proud of. Not just the scale and scope of the event, but the real community-feel it has. Many of the delegates in attendance are long standing supporters of King Edward’s and they come back year after year due to the reception and engagement our students provide. Several of the delegates commented on what a special evening it was and how there was “a real buzz” about the place.

Even more humbling for us is the number of former students who gave up their time to come back and do for our current students what was done for them. There were lots attending at information stalls and some gave presentations. Recent leavers were Elizabeth dialling in from Harvard, who was inspired when she was in Year 9 by the information stall at the event and has gone on to realise her ambition. Meagan, from Eversheds Sutherland LLP is now a trainee solicitor and came back to give the very same talk that inspired her six years ago. Finlay dialled in from Cambridge to share his experience of Early Entry, competitive university applications and many many more former students giving up their time too. This is what is truly remarkable about the event and the reason it will be a mainstay in the KEVI calendar.
Thank you to each and every delegate, student, parent and colleague who supported and attended the event… we’ll see you in 2024!

On Tuesday 17th October KEVI hosted a Rugby Festival for a large number of local Year 5 and 6 students. There were a range of Rugby games on offer to the school students, some of which were visiting KEVI for the first time. The students were welcomed and supported by some of our magnificent Year 10 and Year 11 GCSE PE students, who led a variety of rugby sessions on the day. It was a magnificent atmosphere that enabled everyone to have a fantastic experience, with some KEVI students leading rugby sessions for the first time.

Year 11 student, Seb Parreira, has been competing in the British Prokart Endurance Championship (BPEC) with his team TSM Racing this year, and the team have just been crowned Pro class champions having collected enough points to secure the title. This means the team will be promoted to compete in the Super Pro class next season, which is one step away from the top-level Elite class. The BPEC races are 6 hours in length, and are run across 10 rounds, at tracks all over England and Wales. In addition to the BPEC title, Seb and his teammates have also won the 24h Series in class having won the 24h at Le Mans back in April, and taking 2^nd place in the British 24h in August. The team will be heading down to Coventry in December to pick up their winner’s trophies at the BPEC awards ceremony.

Year 10 pupil Gregor Laidlaw had a great weekend representing the North East Region in the Army Cadets National Championships in Liverpool. He came first in his regional XC heat and had qualified for the National Cross Country. However on the day (due to illness he joined another detachment to help at the last minute with orienteering). They got bronze. After that he had another 6 or so miles XC to do and was placed 13 out of 50 in his age group nationally.

A group of Sixth Form students recently took a trip to the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art to explore a variety of art to assist with developing their own work. Here is what a couple of students had to say:

We went to the baltic to get ideas for our making a mark coursework, finding and discovering new artists in the library allowed us to get thinking of how we can relate our themes to them. We also collected a range of photographs to develop our ideas. I really enjoyed taking photos of marks, the Baltic was a great place to visit to get inspiration for our different projects and I had a really nice time.

Lilly

The reason we went on the trip to the Baltic (In Newcastle) is to explore a variety of art to capture key parts that will assist with developing our own work. The best bit of the trip for me was overall going around and taking pictures around the quay side because it was just interesting to see all the different lines, forms and etc of different things. But yeah overall it was a really good day and i really enjoyed myself.

Aidan