Brentwoodian 2019

84 Wow! It has been such a pleasure being the new Head of West House and we have had a fantastically fun and successful year. We kicked off the year in remarkable fashion during the House Music competition. The PartSong, wonderfully conducted by Kimberley Punwani aided by the talented Ross Chambers won that section on the night. The ensemble, expertly led by Robert Pardington was also fantastic and ended up coming in second place. The unison choir had great fun and was conducted w ith passion and fervour by Victor Sarpong, whose solo a nd shirt will both stay in my memory for a very long tim e. Then the Christmas F air happened. Great fun, lots of money raised for our cha rity SNAP and some awesome efforts from some of ou r Westies. Anna Ionescu spent hours making her ‘Rein deer Noses’ and a creative team of First Year girls spent their lunchtime braiding hair. The final week of the Michaelmas term brought West Fest. During the week there was an Art Challenge (thanks go to Joey Grogan and Sid Khemka for modelling - I have never seen a better Father Christmas and elf partnership…) The Public Speaking was hotly contested and the whole event was chaired by the fabulous Victor Sarpong. The Spelling Bee was one of my highlights of the week and I was really pleased when not only one of our very own First Year boys came through and won the competition (Will Clark), but we also grabbed second place courtesy of a great performance from Ayo Jaiyesimi. The Big Quiz on the Thursday of that week was led by Quiz Masters Jess Haynes and Lauren Wise - we came pretty close to winning, but in the end East House won the top place. Throughout the year we have had more successes. West House won the first round of Chess - our strong team made up of Shiv Patel (Captain), Ethan Cooper, Sam Walsh, Abigail Rice, Hassan Bajwa, Andrew Priddey, Ariz Ahktar, Ami Lodhia, Adam Apostol and Jola Akinrin came through in gold position! A few more highlights for me were also the Basketball tournament - Kajus Pakenus and Philippos Manuelides were particular stars. And yes, we won that too! In the Lip Sync competition, West House’s performance was nothing short of spectacular, re-enacting a song from High School Musical . Alistair Cooper was a convincing ‘Zac Efron’ and I am very grateful to Alexandra Hak for choreographing the routine. West House fielded full teams in Dodgeball, Tug of War, Scrabble (Alistair Cooper and Katherine Hak making an excellent pairing), Squash and Table Tennis. The juniors won their section in the Table Tennis competition and I am very grateful to Ben Small, Raphael Bukhari and Callum Weed on for taking part. The year ended on a huge high. I cannot remember the last ti me that W est House won Sports Day. This year, we won! There were so many fabulous athletes and competitors out there giving it their all. I was lucky enough to witness gold standard performances from Gerry Tegede (High Jump), Emma Willy (also High Jump). George Mortlock almost threw the javelin out of the area, with an awesome 32.40m. Libby McLauclan (Second Year) and Danielle Kanyasa (First Year) were kind enough to step into the Senior girls’ relay race. Due to many university visits happening on that day, we were a little short on Senior girls. Both Libby (who also did rather well in the Long Jump!) and Danielle stormed their way around the track, passing the baton onto Abigail Coe (Lower Sixth) who brought it home in 1st place! That was definitely one of my highlights of the year. Abigail, incidentally, had to take part in almost every single event and I am amazed at her athletic prowess and her commitment to the House. It was a pleasure to watch Noah Miller, although I almost missed him go past me when I blinked! Austin Cooper’s unique approach to the hurdles event is also etched on my mind forevermore. The shin pads were certainly a necessity! Austin’s brother, Ethan put in a huge effort to come out victorious in the Senior boys’ Shot Put competition. I am just so sorry I cannot mention everyone individually who has given up their time for West House. For those of you who know me, I al ways ‘bang on about’ West being the best. T his does not mean that we always win - I am r eferring to trying our best. I think that as long as you TRY your best, you may not be THE b est, but you have done all you can to get the re. Huge t hanks also go to Miss Bishop and Mr M urphy. Sadly, both of these wonderful members of staff have now left West House (for bigger and more exciting opportunities) Miss Bishop is now Head of the First Year and Mr Murphy is now the official ‘King of the North’. However, West House now has two new passionate and committed Assistants in the form of Mr Heard and Mrs Shufflebotham. All three of us are looking forward to working closely with our new House Captain (Abigail Coe) and our Vice Captains (Anna Ionescu - charity, Theo Harris - marketing and Philippos Manuelides - team organiser). I am very much looking forward to my second year as Head of West House. We are, after all, the Best House. By Mrs Wall WEST West is Best! house motto West Charity Essex Wildlife Trust