New School Film
1st Team Captains
The netball and boys’ hockey 1st teams have established themselves well so far this season and have made equally strong starts to their respective campaigns. I can now announce the captains of our senior 1st teams for the term:
Hockey – Barney T
Netball – Freya H
U14A Girls Hockey Semi Final
Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be for the U14A girls’ hockey team in their national cup semi-final against Clifton College. With 29 seconds left on the clock, the scores were tied at 1-1. Clifton produced a piece of individual magic to score an outstanding winning goal. The girls have done themselves and the school proud and should hold their heads high.
U18 Girls Hockey Awards
The 1st XI girls’ hockey season has now concluded following their exit in the National Plate quarter final. Impressive levels of progress were seen from the team and all individual players. Their record in the second part of the season was exceptional, and the team should be proud of their efforts.
- Most improved player
Phoebe W
- Player of the Season
Hannah H
Colours
Half
- Iona A
- Freya C
- Gemma D
- Isy F
- Darcey G
- Keira H
- Florence P-G
- Tess W
- Phoebe W
Full
- Eve A (re-awarded)
- Cat B
- Martha C
- Polina F
- Freya H
- Hannah H
- Nina J (re-awarded)
- Helena P-B
Next to our sesquicentenary and first, I would like to run you through some of the highlights of our calendar events for 2025, starting with….
Timeline and Archive Display
- This was one of the first initiatives for our Sesquicentenary, and was launched in early January
- You will find a timeline on the website featuring key moments from the school’s history, including photographs, audio clips and videos from our archive – it is a terrific and entertaining resource, and I particularly want to thank our Archivist, Mrs Lainchbury, for all the research which went into this, and also into ……
- Archive display in Trumpington Gallery featuring 16 objects, one from every decade in which the school has existed, from the 1870s to the 2020s, and an associated display of work created by Art Scholars in response to these objects.
Please do find a time to visit the Trumpington Gallery on the first floor of Great Hall.
Scholars’ Showcase
Took place on 21 and 22 January in various locations around the school with invited audiences, including OLs – a poignant and moving evening, nostalgic, funny and heartbreaking by turns, reflecting on some of the most important developments in the history of the School – the appointment of our first Headmaster, Moulton, the sacrifices and losses of the First World War, the impact of WH Balgarnie on the author, James Hilton, the introduction of co-education.
Took place on 23 January with more than 80 OLs in attendance, many of whom had family who were at Pitlochry.
Service of Thanksgiving
Taking place at King’s College Chapel on 14 February involving all pupils and staff – the date was chosen because it was the nearest term-time date we could get to the exact anniversary of the opening of the School: 16 February 1875. It’s a wonderful thing to be able to be there – in one of the most iconic Chapels and choral settings in the world – and we also celebrated our Centenary in this wonderful, world-famous Chapel fifty years ago, in 1975. The anthem the Choir will sing has been commissioned especially for our Sesquicentenary.
Giving Day and Cricket Matches
- Taking place on 26 April throughout the afternoon.
- “The Leys’s first competitive school cricket match was played on Parker’s Piece vs Perse School on 12th June 1875.
- Anniversary cricket matches being played against The Perse during the afternoon. T20 matches girls/boys back-to-back. Closest date we could agree to 12 June.
- A programme of dance, music and drama will also be taking place during the afternoon
- Houses will be running initiatives such as selling ice creams to raise money for the Giving Day
- Other initiatives being run by the Development team and Giving Day website to raise money for bursaries
Music and Drama
- End of Year concert and Cabaret to have themes relating to 150 anniversary
- Les Misérables: a big, ambitious musical to end the year. An extra performance than usual to also include a black tie dinner
So, as you can see, we have a really substantial programme of events happening throughout the course of this calendar year, and spanning the two academic years – 2024-25, and 2025-26. Do look out for the ones tailored to you, and we will look forward to seeing you at those events in the weeks and months ahead.
Just over a year ago our Director of Marketing and Admissions, Mr Henderson, and I were discussing our Sesquicentenary celebrations and it was his good idea, not mine, to produce a short film to mark the Sesquicentenary, and to try to capture something of what makes The Leys special as we enter the second quarter of the 21st century.
We quickly chose to work with Affixius Films: a Televisual Top 20 Agency, one of the UK’s leading creative Video Production studios. Led by their Managing Director, Miles Latham, they have experience of working with a huge range of Commercial clients as well as those in the education sector. The fact that they weren’t simply specialists in school promotional videos was an absolutely central element of their appeal to us; we wanted something really different, something distinctive, something memorable, we didn’t want just another of those run-of-the-mill school videos. So we chose an agency which spoke to us of real creativity, value and commitment in every project. Miles came to the school and there was an extensive programme of meetings and focus groups – we introduced him and his colleagues to lots of pupils and staff as they sought to distil what is distinctive and different about us.
From conversations with me perhaps I hope they got above all the idea of what I often call our ‘big, small school’ – as you all know, I love the idea that The Leys is big enough to offer a huge range of opportunities, but small enough that we are able to get to know our pupils as individuals, to get to know their strengths, their weaknesses, their quirks, where they need a helping hand, where they need a gentle push, where they might need holding back from time to time. But they listened to any number of Leysian perspectives and at the end of the process, they went away and worked with the team at Affixius and then after a few weeks their managing director came back and, to a panel of four of us, Miles presented us in some considerable detail, three alternative proposals for a short film. (Each of the proposals was for a completely different concept for a film of around 2 minutes – suffice to say, pitching these three different proposals to us took a lot longer than the film will take to show!) The first two of concepts were great, and then he introduced the third one. As he introduced it, he framed this third option as very much the left-field choice, the high-risk one, something of a speculative, creative gamble on his part. He started this third pitch by explaining where the idea had come from.
It came from his experience on a tour of the school campus with one of last year’s School Prefects (now an Old Leysian) Ollie. Everywhere they went on their tour, Ollie would point out some area of the life of the school, and tell him about that, and then say something like: “Oh, my friend Lara is great at that” – or “you should see what my friend, James, is capable of in ….” and so on as they went around the school. It was never about his own achievements – it was always a sense of the celebration of the achievements of his fellow Leysians.
And this is what gave Affixius the idea for this film – this notion of a school community whose members took joy in celebrating the achievements of others within the Leysian community. It is only a short film, but it says something joyous, and generous, and powerful, about the culture of this school – that sense that we are a diverse community, with a vast amount going on, but one which is small and cohesive enough to take joy in the achievements of others. At the end of the presentation, the easiest bit of all was the decision. All four of us immediately agreed that we wanted the third one – that this was the one which most effectively spoke to us about what we wanted to capture about this wonderful school.
Then of course last term they came and filmed here, and I have to say they absolutely loved the process, and the pupils and staff whom they met and with whom they worked.
Some of the cast have seen the film last Friday night – everyone who has seen the film so far has absolutely loved it – and it will be going live onto our website as from today.
One more thing I want to say before we show the film; some of your peers maybe feeling a little self-conscious that this is about to be shown in front of all their peers in assembly – so ….. in your responses, both now and in the days ahead, be kind – indeed, you might say, do what this video is all about: take joy in the achievements of the cast members. So – after all that preamble – let’s get to it. Please can we play our new school film.