This year pupils from St. Lawrence College were given the opportunity to test their Mathematics ability by participating in two competitions organised by the United Kingdom Mathematics Trust (UKMT).

In February, 47 pupils from Years 9, 10 and 11 competed against school children from across the globe in the Intermediate Mathematics Challenge. With only the top scoring 40% of all participants being awarded a Bronze, Silver or Gold Certificate, we were extremely proud to learn that 70% of our pupils had reached the required standard with 10 pupils being awarded a Gold Certificate and three of those, Xuchen Meng, Jingyue Zhai and Kristian Narsesian, scoring high enough to qualify for the Canley Olympiad. A full list of certificate winners can be found below but congratulations to everyone who took part and even though the Olympiad was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, our first year of competition at Intermediate Level can definitely be considered a success.

After much delay, the Junior Mathematics Challenge, originally scheduled for April 30^th, finally took place online on Friday 19th and was a great way to finish the year. Nineteen Year 7 and 8 pupils responded to the challenge. We wish them the best of luck with their results which will be available on July 8^th. All certificates will be presented in September but until then we wish our budding mathematicians a happy and safe summer and look forward to seeing them again next year at the E = mc²  lunchtime club to prepare for more challenges!

Gold Certificate Winners:

Xuchen Meng (Y9) (Best-in-school, Best-in-year), Jingyue Zhai (Y11 -Best-in-year), Kristian Narsesian (Y9), Emily Chen (Y9), Wilson Wang (Y10 - Best-in-year), Wenjing Jin (Jenny) (Y11), Yuqian Liao (Y10), Jiayan Ye (Y10), Lynne Huang (Y11), Ying Yikai (Y10).

Silver Certificate Winners:

Zihan Ding (Y10), Huijie Su (Y9), Dingnan Huang (Y10), Kexin Chong (Y9), Zuyi Wang (Y9), Selina Xing (Y11), Xueying Yang (Y9), Yun Li (Y9), Baoyue Zhang (Y10), Georgios Lazos (Y11).

Bronze Certificate Winners:

 Ziyue Gan (Miya) (Y9), Keying Chong (Y9), Shuqi Ren (Y10), Jingxuan Huang (Y9), Shiwen Liu (Y9), Katerina Leontakianakou (Y9), Huanyu Zhang (Y10), Jin Wenchuang (Y11), Junyao Jiang (Y9), Timothy Tay (Y10), Anna Sokolova (Y10), Ivan Cado (Y9), Stella Stojanov (Y10)

This April 2020, during school closure, our Year 4 pupils have been exploring their artistic side, but with a twist. They took on the Getty Museum Challenge in recreating famous paintings using random house objects. They did an incredible job and some even took it a step further by bringing well-known book characters to life too! 

Vermeer’s “The girl with the pearl earring,” was beautifully done by Catherine and Abigail. Dimitris did an impressive job with his portrait of Agostino Pallavicini, by Anthony Van Dyck. Constantinos recreated Old Man with a Fur cap, Alex became the French Boy with Dog, Jerom became Van Van Eyck’s Man in a Red Turban and Eleonora became a Halberdier. Charalabos transformed into Picasso, Alex was The Boy with a Book, Anthia transformed into Hermione and Mary became Roald Dahl’s Matilda.  

Alexander said, "I recreated “The Son of Man” by Magritte Rene. I really like it because blue is the ocean and white is the cloud." Andrianos did a super job of Magritte’s painting too! 

IGCSEs

These exams are organised by Cambridge International, who have issued a statement that these exams will proceed as planned in May/June 2020 in any of the schools across 160 countries conducting Cambridge IGCSEs – so long as the schools are allowed to open. If schools cannot open it is not yet clear what will happen.

AS & A-LEVELS

Our AS and A-Levels are conducted by three examining bodies – Cambridge, Edexcel Pearson International (International AS/A-Levels) and Edexcel Pearson (who conduct “British” AS/A-Levels).

Cambridge AS/A-Levels – these go ahead as planned so long as the school in question can be open to conduct examinations. If schools cannot open it is not yet clear what will happen. The AS/A-Level subjects in this category are Art & Design; Geography; and Literature.

Edexcel Pearson International – these go ahead as planned so long as the school in question can be open to operate the exams. If the school is unable to open, grades will be awarded to those who have been entered for exams. How grades will be determined is yet to be decided. The AS/A-Level subjects in this category are Mathematics; Further Mathematics; Biology; Chemistry; Physics; Economics; Greek; AS-Level French.

Edexcel Pearson (“British” AS/A-Levels) – these have been cancelled, barring any change of decision from the UK authorities. Grades will be awarded but no decision on how that will happen has yet been released. The AS/A-Level subjects in this category are History; Politics; Chinese; Russian and French (but not AS-Level French).

Advance oral exams and advance Art exams – some exam qualifications require an advance component to take place. These include languages where an oral examination is conducted, and Art & Design where an earlier exam is scheduled. These instances occur at both IGCSE and AS/A-Level. In these cases we are awaiting a definitive decision about whether time frames can be extended, or whether the advance component will occur at all.

That is where we stand currently, as of Friday 20^th March. The situation may well change rapidly and the school is in almost hourly contact with exam bodies. The exam bodies themselves are in a state of flux as they wrestle with a sudden and new scenario. Even so, they understand their responsibility to pupils and schools. We are also in touch with other British schools facing the same scenario and we are seeking guidance from COBIS – the premier organisation of British schools around the world. Furthermore, we will be investigating any possibility of the school opening exclusively for examinations if the school as a whole in its regular form is ordered to be closed at the time of examinations.

In short, we are doing all in our power to get answers to all the questions relating to examinations while planning for an array of possible scenarios as well.

Our pupils in Years 11-13 who are scheduled to take examinations are advised: 

1. Focus on your study. Let the school do all the worrying, investigation and planning around this disrupted examination (and school) period.
2. Rest assured that however the coming weeks and months unfold, and whatever happens, the interests of you, our pupils, will be safeguarded as our top and guiding priority at all times. We will demand and ensure with all our power that pupils facing public examination assessment will be treated as fairly as possible and all this disruption that you have suffered will be taken fully into account.

Dr. Chloe Paidoussis Mitchell, a chartered psychologist, has written an excellent article entitled ‘How to cope with Covid-19 stress: 9 Mental Health tips’ to share what you can do at this very stressful time to maintain and boost your mental wellbeing. Dr Paidoussis Mitchell was both a student and parent at St. Lawrence College. She will be posting regularly on her social media channels, for those who would like to sign up, free mental health advice to help us cope with anxiety, stress and the psychological impact of all this disruption on our families and ourselves.

For the full article, please click here

Due to a government imposed school closure, St Lawrence College is not currently able to physically open its doors to its student body. However, we are able to offer a comprehensive set of online alternatives under these unprecedented circumstances and have undertaken considerable efforts to cover every level of learning from FS1 right up to A' level classes.

The Early Years department is in regular contact with families to continue each pupil's development using the online Tapestry platform which is already a big part of the shared learning experience for our youngest children. In KS1, teachers are regularly distributing and receiving work via email and modifying it according to individual learners' needs. 

Right from KS2 (Year 3), to Year 13 for A' levels, the online Microsoft Teams Platform is being utilised successfully by all. It is new to some of our pupils and staff, but not all. Having said this, all pupils and faculty have adapted quickly to the whole situation and are making excellent use of the facilities the platform offers. 

Whilst nothing can replace face to face classroom interaction between teachers and learners, the features of this learning platform mean that lesson material is being delivered with live feedback, thus providing a valuable class experience for our pupils. Lesson material is provided and work handed in as it would be at school. Teachers, who log on for lesson time between 9 a.m. and the end of  the school day, give their classes real time support during lessons and tasks. The experience is proving worthwhile, thus we hold our teaching staff in high regard and thank them for the professional, dedicated effort they are making to ensure no one loses valuable learning time during our closure. 

We wish the whole St Lawrence College community the very best of luck and sincerely hope we all stay safe and healthy in these trying times. 

On Friday 21st February 2020, our youngest children in Early Years took part in a super fun day of dressing up. However, they weren't just dressing up for the fun of it, there was learning to be done too. Books came to life as the little ones shared their favourite stories and pretended to be storybook characters from them. What a fun day it was!

On Tuesday, 25th February 2020, Year 3 took an interesting trip to Planet Physics in Athens. There, they examined all kinds of interactive displays which taught them about their latest topic in science, Forces. There were experiments pertaining to gravity, magnetism, pushes and pulls, torque and inertia. Learning happens everywhere!

Both St Lawrence boys' and girls' under-16 basketball teams competed in tournaments last week.  Six international schools participated from all around Athens, putting on an impressive dispolay of skill and sportsmanship. 

Though our girls played very well, this time they did not leave with medals. The boys however qualified all the way through to the end where, after a tightly-fought game, they took a very respetable 2^nd place, losing only to ACS in the final.

Well done to everyone who took part.

On Thursday 20th February 2020, the PE department organised a huge friendly tournament here at St Lawrence College with several other international schools. Years 5 & 6 played mini basketball matches against players from Byron College, Campion School, DES Elementary and St Catherine's School. In excess of 220 children played for all their worth - their hearts were set on victory even if the scores weren't being tallied up officially. What a fun event it was!

On that day when all things pink and heart-shaped rule supreme, the pupils came back to school for a fun-filled disco party. Friday, 14th February was a noteworthy evening for St Lawrence College Junior School. Dancing, a photo booth, bubbles and flashing lights were all on show to be enjoyed. Yummy pizza was scoffed down by hungry dance enthusiasts preparing themselves for the hotly contested dance competitions. Kids dressed up, or down, for the occasion depending on which style they considered most cool and it was a real treat to see them enjoying themselves so much.

Last weekend, 6 of our Senior School pupils took part in the 2020 First Lego League Competition held in Athens. It was the first time St Lawrence College has entered a team and proved to be a great learning experience. The competition tasks participants with designing a robot to navigate a course and completing challenges in a set times, well as devising a solution to a real world problem. St Lawrence students gained points for their robotic design as well as impressing the judges with their presentation skills. The team had an excellent time and gained some valuable experience and skills which they can't wait to put to use in next year's competition.

On the 28th of January 2020, we were lucky enough to be treated to a visit by the English Theatre Company who performed three different shows for all our children. The Early Years children were very happy to meet Snow White and were very excited on being asked to join the cast up on the stage. Having the chance to take pictures with a real life princess was something that really made the children's day!

Pupils from KS1 and KS2 were also highly amused by further riveting performances that kept everyone laughing and smiling all day!

Last week Natasha Tsitiridis, the managing director of Noesis Consulting, came to talk to the pupils in Key Stages 4 & 5 about planning and managing their transitions from IGCSEs to A-Levels and from school to university. The talks were engaging and informative and the feedback from the pupils was very positive. Most exciting of all was the fact that Natasha is a former pupil of ours here at St. Lawrence so as well as sharing her careers story and giving stellar advice, she was able to really relate to the choices facing our seniors.

Just as last term drew to a close, the Upper Sixth Biology pupils were taken on an educational visit to Biodynamics SA, a reputable private company specialising in molecular technologies and innovative scientific instruments. The leading molecular biologist, Dr Laura Benzonana, demonstrated the procedure of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), a fascinating DNA amplification technique which is a critical part of the A level Biology syllabus. The demonstration was followed by a short lecture and an interactive discussion during which the pupils expressed great interest and enthusiasm. It was truly a valuable experience, which the class appreciated tremendously.

This week, our Year 8 pupils presented their projects on the topic of fast food.

The pupils’ research project on ‘How fast food affects health and the environment’, linked to the science department’s  unit on ‘food and digestion’, and gave the pupils the opportunity to explore various aspects of the topic in an open-ended manner. Thanks to their research on this unit, the pupils have been motivated to make positive decisions about their diets, as well as to take action and further and inform and educate our school community, through a poster presentation event.

The event took place on Monday13^th of January, with teachers and pupils from across the senior school visiting the Year 8 science class. During the poster presentation, the Year 8 pupils set their stations around the classroom and presented simultaneously, as their guests circulated and asked questions. They explained the controversies of the topic, described the conclusions and made proposals for the future, discussing their views.

There was definitely a real buzz around the room and our guests were impressed by the pupils’ presentation and debating skills. Several pupils expressed that the experience of researching the topic and what they had learnt through listening to pupils would encourage them to rethink their fast food consumption. Well done Year 8!