d’Overbroeck’s

A co-educational independent school in Oxford for students aged 11-18

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Japanese Calligraphy workshop

Our Textile A level department recently hosted a Calligraphy workshop led by Rie Wakayama who also teaches Japanese at d’Overbroeck’s as part of the Modern Language department. Students were encouraged to explore the traditional scripture of Kanji and Hiragana with opaque marks using specialist brushes and inks.

Pictured above are three of our Lower Sixth students getting to grips with the techniques.  “I really enjoyed the workshop it was very calming and therapeutic”, said one, and, “I learnt a new way of abstract communication through pattern”.  Thank you Rie and we look forward to seeing how our students incorporate these calligraphy skills into their art and textile work.

Lifeguarding Skills for Andriy & Alex

STA’s Junior Lifeguard Academy is a survival and rescue training programme that has been specifically created for young people. The fun-packed programme offers something for everyone; from lifeguarding skills and first aid, to boogie boarding, ocean awareness, distance, sports skills and health and wellbeing.

This half term, during their Thursday Activity session, students have worked towards the Seal 1 award which is the first award in the Seal series. The series is based around an introduction to the key lifesaving skills.

Seal 1 Requirements:

1. Perform a shout and signal rescue to a weak swimmer 5 metres away

2. Perform a survival entry, tread water/float for 2 minutes, swim 5 metres to an aid, float using the H.E.L.P. position for 2 minutes

3. Swim 10 metres front crawl, swim 10 metres head up front crawl, swim 10 metres side stroke, swim 10 metres breaststroke, swim 10 metres lifesaving backstroke

4. Perform a wading rescue and tow to an unconscious casualty 5 metres away

5. Swim 5 metres, perform a head first surface dive, swim 5 metres underwater.

During their assessment lesson on 7 February all students confidently completed the above requirements and received a certificate to mark their fantastic achievement. Well done to Alex and Andriy!

Next half term we will be working towards the next level of the Seal Series and also the life skills, first aid and CPR elements of lifesaving.

Kathryn Avent – Teacher of PE

Netball news

Netball season is well and truly underway for our Years 7-11 teams with 4 out of 12 matches played in the last few weeks.

d’Overbroeck’s has had a strong start with a great win against Cokethorpe in a round robin tournament (1-4) and we narrowly missed another last week against Wychwood (4-3). Unfortunately, the girls suffered quite a heavy defeat against Oxford High but there was fantastic teamwork, determination and sportsmanship shown by the whole team.

Last week, Year 9 girls competed against Wychwood. The match started well for both d’Overbroeck’s and Wychwood, both teams scoring off their own centres with shots going in first time. d’Overbroeck’s were doing well to keep the score even with some strong accurate passes going down court and working well as a team. When it got to half time, the score was 11-9 to Wychwood. With some tactical talk and the girls being determined to win, they got back on court, showing strong defending, turning over the ball and consecutively scored two goals bringing the score even again. Once we got in the fourth quarter, we were making interceptions, chasing loose balls and working hard to keep possession. With the great play around the shooting circle, the shooters were on fire getting all their shots in. It was a well deserve win for d’Overbroeck’s with the final score 16-12. Well played girls!

Player of the Match: Aydan

We have lots more matches coming up and in order to improve our Netball skills and game play we have set up an extra-curricular club. This will be a great chance to have fun and get us ready for the upcoming exciting Netball tour at Condover on 15-17th March.

Mini Plant Tour

What an absolute pleasure it was to take Year 7, along with 20 enthusiastic parents, to the Mini Plant last week. An enormous thanks to everyone that helped and to Y7 students for a great trip! We had a very interesting and enlightening tour with really engaging and knowledgeable guides. I would highly recommend that if you haven’t yet visited this ‘Oxford gem’ that you book yourselves on a tour to make sure you don’t miss out – the ‘robot ballet’ was a sight to behold!
Leah, Mark, Rob & Inga

Over to our students to tell you more …

When we arrived at the mini plant we were split into groups and were given a headset so when we were in the factory we could hear what our guides were saying. First we went into the ‘body in white’ section where they were making the parts of the cars made out of steel and welding them together, you could start to vaguely see what the car was going to look like. After that we went to the assembly hall where they would put parts of the car together and you would see what the cars were going to be like after being painted. In the assembly section there weren’t many robots unlike in the body in white. The most exciting part of the trip was seeing the finished cars.
Oscar, Yr 7

The Year 7 tour of the mini plant was a thrilling and interesting experience. First we were taken to the body in white. It was a huge site with 1000 robots. Did you know that the human employees have gone down from 2000 to 200? We got shown how all the robots functioned and found out that every 60 seconds a mini shell leaves the body in white.
Then we were shown the variety of colours and even saw some brand new United Kingdom headlights! Then we saw the area where they make the finished product. This time 90% of workers are humans. We saw all the different colours of minis (My favourite is the orange mini with black stripes running through the middle, or the United Kingdom paint job). We also saw an example of the finished product for a black and red mini.
Overall it was a terrific experience and was very enjoyable.
Oliver, Yr 7

Dazzling, enthusiastic & fabulously fun! . . . . . . Legally Blonde’s first night review

O-M-G you guys! What a wonderful opening night of Legally Blonde the Musical ! Yesterday evening, we were transported by the students of d’Overbroeck’s into the dazzling world of Elle Woods, an LA fashion student who finds herself studying Law at Harvard University. This fun-filled romantic-comedy had the audience enchanted with its many hilarious and heart-warming scenes.

Within the brilliantly lit up Cohen Hall, students from all three parts of the school came together as cast and crew to capture this fabulously fun and dazzling musical. With much enthusiasm and energy, the production featured student-lead choreography, quick-witted characterisations and endless catchy musical numbers. It was obvious that the attention to detail was absolutely paramount for the show’s success, even down to the brilliant set design and brave edition of the cast’s very own Chihuahua, Lola, (who acted with the utmost professionalism).

A massive congratulations to the d’Overbroeck’s Drama and Music departments for brilliantly producing this very slick, hilarious and technically demanding production. With three more performances to go, this show promises to bring sparkle and laughter to your February evening!

Festival of Woodwind and Brass

The root of the word ‘festival’ is the same stem from which we get the word ‘feast’. Our Festival of Woodwind and Brass last week was more of a prix fixe two courses rather than the full ten course menu gastronomique, but nevertheless those courses were a celebration of talent and a true delight, even if we were hungry for a little more at the end.

Opening our concert was the brass group in its first ever outing, playing Spring by Vivaldi, and very well they did too; I look forward to more performances from them at future concerts. We enjoyed a variety of solos and styles and a lovely flute duet from sisters Ellen and Lin who are studying at d’Overbroeck’s International School, and finished with a fabulous performance from the Wind Band (joined by guest percussionist Seth) who rushed us to the Spain of ‘Carmen’ in their ‘Toreador’s Song’.

Sadly our audience didn’t beat the rush hour traffic which was still very much in full flow as we left but we did have a very uplifting time enjoying the talents and hard work of our wonderful students. Well done everyone, and thank you to all the teachers who helped accompany and prepare their students.

Richard Poyser – Director of Music

d’Overbroeck’s top in Oxfordshire (again!) for progress at A level

For the second year running, d’Overbroeck’s is the number one school in Oxfordshire for progress at A level.

The Government has just published its national statistics for schools, both regionally and nationally and we’re delighted to announce that for 2018 d’Overbroeck’s was once again the top school in our county for progress at A level (‘value added’). The 2018 results also take us into the top 2% of schools nationwide.

81 Oxfordshire schools and colleges are included in the statistics which can be viewed here: https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/

In 2018, 25% of our students’ A level grades were A* and top university destinations included UCL, Exeter, Bath and Oxford.  For teaching at 16-18 years, our ‘value added’ figure is +0.48, which is ahead of every other Oxfordshire school which offers A levels.

This is an amazing achievement and huge credit goes to our students and the staff (both teaching and support) who all play a part in this success –  whether that be directly in the classroom, or in the many other roles which provide the infrastructure, support and create the ethos in which our students thrive.

To find out for yourself about the ethos and learning structure behind these results, come along to our next Open Morning on Saturday 2 February from 10am to 1pm.  Register here.

d’Overbroeck’s codebreakers inspired by Bletchley Park visit

On what was a chilly Monday morning this week, Year 8 set off on their visit to Bletchley Park. Although the site seems relatively unassuming on first inspection, our students learned that this was one of the most important and secretive sites in the UK during the Second World War. This was because it was a place where no fewer than 10,000 operatives worked around the clock for the duration of the war to decrypt messages sent between the Axis forces.

During the day, students were taken on a guided tour of the site, including the original 19th century mansion, 1930s/40s prefabricated codebreaking huts and took part in a codebreaking workshop (in the relative warmth of the visitors’ centre!).  One particular highlight was getting to see, and try out, an original Enigma machine – one of only 200 estimated to survive worldwide. It was fascinating to see the different letters light up and movement of the wheels when each key was pressed, and we were all surprised by the huge number of different possible ways the machine could be configured: approximately 503 sextillion! This really helped to underline to us all the huge task that the workers of Bletchley Park faced during the war, and how impressive it is that they were able to break the cipher on a daily basis, since the settings changed on a daily basis.

Overall we had a very enjoyable day; here are a few words from the students to tell you more:

“I enjoyed seeing the replica Bombe machine and typing on the Enigma.” – Isaac

“We cracked the codes to uncover the spy’s name.” – Katie

 “If I had worked at Bletchley Park during World War II, I would have felt claustrophobic with the cramped huts, excited, stressed, frustrated and proud.” – Leonie

“It must’ve been hard to keep secret all the work that was going on there.” – Ben

 “I was surprised that most of the people who worked at Bletchley Park were women.” – Liv

Netball round robin sees a clear win for d’Overbroeck’s team

The first netball fixture of the year took place last Thursday against Cokethorpe and involved a combined Year 7&8 team.

The girls played a round robin tournament consisting of 5 matches in total. Considering how cold it was, all the girls showed fantastic team work, determination and effort throughout all the games. The overall result was 4 games to 1 with scores for the games 2-1, 3-0, 1-0, 0-2, 0-2 which meant d’Overbroeck’s won with a considerable margin!

Brilliant passes and movement throughout the court, with Eliza and Jemma working brilliantly together to get in some fantastic shots. Lola, Katie, Millie and Leonie put lots of pressure on in the centre passes and helped Susie and Poppy keep up some strong defensive strategies.

Next fixture for years 7&8 is on Monday 28 January vs Wychwood.

Kathryn Avent, Teacher of PE

Oxford Schools’ Debating – through to the next round?

Last Wednesday two teams from d’Overbroeck’s debating society, Alice & Eanna, and Anna-Maria and Julia, competed alongside 63 other teams in the regional round of the Oxford Schools’ Debating Competition, hosted at Magdalen College School. The competition is in ‘British Parliamentary’ style and every team participates in two debates, with only 15 minutes and no internet to prepare.

The motions were: “This House Would ban violent video games”, and, “This House Would arm all policeman with guns”.

Both pairs had to display great teamwork and formulate clear, structured arguments corresponding with their position in the debate. After a great performance from everyone, we were left in anticipation as the judges deliberated which 9 teams were to go through to the Finals Day, to be held on 9 March at the Oxford Union.  Finally, it was announced that Alice and Eanna had made it through!!

Write-up by ​Alice and Eanna

This is the first time d’Overbroeck’s have ever got to this stage in the competition. Both teams put in a great performance and special congratulations to Alice and Eanna and best of luck in the next round.

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