Celebrating Success - Bishop Thomas Grant School

We are essentially labourers“I am a graduate of the Universityof Leeds,” said Mrs Dawson. “Iworked before at Dulwich Collegeteaching French and Italian.I am so impressed by the studentshere, because they are both friendlyand hardworking. There is anexcellent sense of community atBishop Thomas Grant.My interests - apart from languagesof course – are in art and sport. Ihave a masters degree in Historyof Art, and visit museums like TateBritain frequently. I love the Victoriaand Albert Museum, which has anamazing jewellery collection.I train for the triathlon, and I wasat both the Olympics and theVolunteers with primary school children in KariraParalympics in the summer.I am hoping to start a newbeginner’s course in Italian in anafter-school club.”“I was at Harris Academy inBeckenham until last summer,” saidMr Nasrin. “Before that, I studiedBiology and Business at Queen MaryCollege in East London.Teaching is easier here becausethe students are so respectful andenthusiastic.Mr Beston from the Music Departmentspoke to our reporter about The KariraTrust:“I founded The Karira Trust a couple of years agoin 2010.The idea is to send a group of volunteers to the villageof Karira, in Central Kenya, every August. We assistwith the renovation of Karira Primary School.We, the volunteers, are essentially labourers workingwith local craftsmen. We are now adding capacityto the school.It’s a different system to here in England becauseprimary school can last well into the teens of thepupils. If people want to know more or to donatemoney, they should go to the website atwww.kariratrust.org.ukI do most of the day-to-day work, which is similar towhat I used to do when I was a school student myself.At the moment is all connected with next year’s trip.”Nuntius spoke to two of the new teachers who joined the staff inSeptember. Mrs Dawson is in the Modern Languages Departmentand Mr Nasrin is in the Science Department.My sporting interests are in mixedmartial arts and football. I used toplay professionally for Millwall as agoalkeeper, and then for Charlton, inacademy teams.I could have gone in a sportingdirection, but I couldn’t becauseI contracted Osgood-SchlatterSyndrome, which is a painfulcondition affecting the legs.A true inspiration!The year 8 rugby team were lucky enough to meet anOlympic hero, when Steve Brown, the captain of UKWheelchair Basketball came into school.Steve’s story is one of true determination and courage, typifying exactlywhat the London 2012 games were all about. Whilst working in GermanySteve lost his balance on a balcony and fell just twelve feet to the ground -which left him paralysed from the chest down.His journey since then is truly remarkable and proved to be a hugeinspiration for our students who were in awe by Steve’s incredible storyof despair and success. As the boys look to embark on a leadership andmentoring programme that will turn them into ‘young men’ they can nowdo so knowing that anything is possible if you work hard enough for it!I play the piano – I am Grade Five –and I watch ‘Brainiac’ on televison,my favourite programme.My hope for the future is to builda school in a developing countryin Africa.”Steve Brown Captain, David Anthony andAaron Phipps playing Wheelchair Rugby inthe grounds of Cardiff Castle in preparationfor the 2011 GB CupSPORTS REPORTBadmintonKey Stage 3 Badminton is back witha bang! Participation at Mondaylunchtime club has been fantastic,resulting in two teams being enteredfor the Lambeth Championships.Both teams won their opening twomatches in style.Team A dropped no games out of 10and Team B only dropped the onegame, demonstrating the hard workand dedication that has been put intotraining. Currently the A team havewon four out of four and the B teamhave only one loss to their name.A special mention must be reservedfor Patrick O’Sullivan who is theonly unbeaten player in the wholetournament.Mr ShedwickCross CountryCold, muddy, rainy November days,perfect for a bit of Cross Country?Well BTG seem to think so, becausea dominating performance wasgiven at the Lambeth Cross CountryChampionships. The Year 7/8 boysand girls cleaned up, winning bothteam categories.There were some fantasticperformances with all BTG studentsfinishing no lower than ninth intheir selected category in theyear 7/8 team event. Again BTGwere dominant in the Year 11 boyscategory winning the team eventwith four of the team finishing in thetop seven.There were plenty of individualtriumphs on the day with a numberof medal winners being selected torepresent Lambeth at the LondonGames: Chiara Alfonso, AndreBingham, Victoria Bukaczewska,Amanda Burrows, Paul Chalobah,Carl Joe Efambe, Christina Lemince,Abel Moura, Joseph Nyame, YaredTesfaye and Kevin Velaj.Mr ShedwickRugbyThe Year 8 players have had avery good start to the season sofar. Though they have only playeda couple of games they remainundefeated, comfortably beatingboth Shirley High and Kingsdale.The first game of the season againstShirley High turned out to be awhitewash as we were 49-0 victors.When BTG played Kingsdale beforewe got beaten, so this match wasbitter sweet when we came out ontop 33-10.A big mention should go to thedefensive effort of the team whodominated the contact areas. Thesquad have been working very hardand the improvement they haveshown already this year has beenexcellent. Played: 2, Won: 2, For: 82,Against: 10.A special mention should go toRyan Campbell-Walton, MarioMeza-Zambrano, Terrence Holland,Nicholas Sankey and LaurenceDe Saa-Perrin who have CountyDevelopment trials coming up in thevery near future.Year 7 Rugby has been growingsteadily. The students have beentraining hard for a sport that theyhave never experienced before andhave now reached the start of theseason excited, enthusiastic andraring to go. Though the squad hasbeen growing over the term we stillneed more!Congratulations to Ryan Campbell-Walton and Mario Meza-Zambranowho won tickets to go toTwickenham to watch the seniorYear 9 Boys Football: Joey Abreu, Adeyemi Animashaun, Bill Bilwala, Bryce Botsoi, JoshuaBurke, Luca Marquez dos Santos, Samuel Egole, Steve Guevara Marin, Ronan Joyce, AltonLeeward, Isaac Okeke, Nicholas Pavlou, Cassian Thomas, Axel Tshilenge-GarciaYear 8 Rugby Team: Joshua Ajisafe, Kaydon Amoah Baah-Acheamfour, Emmanuel Anyanjo,Finnian Anyanwu, Benjamin Assiedu, Ryan Campbell Walton, James Capitelli, Mario Coker-Russo, Laurence De Saa-Perrin, Terence Holland, Mario Meza-Zembrano, Tyreese Reid, RioRoberts, Nicholas Sankey Aigbukor, Josiah Opoku-Agyei ThompsonEngland team take on Fiji in theautumn internationals.Mr IrelandBasketballBasketball has really taken off thisyear at BTG. With all year groupsfrom the U14s to U18s entered intothe National Schools Competition,we have made a solid start withthe U18s having already neatenDulwich College on their own court.I can see that we have some verypromising talent developing in thelower school.The U16s have a busy scheduleover the Christmas run in, withmatches against Raines andLambeth academy coming in quicksuccession, we’ll need to be at ourbest to continue our solid start.Mr DierFootballYear 9 has already shown thebenefits of the new games afternoonwith an outstanding hundredpercent record this season and someimpressive and professional displaysthroughout the entire team. We haveseen the side top the Schools Leagueand march into round five of theEnglish Schools and round threeof both the Inner London andSouth London Cups. From goalkeeper to subs the players havebeen brilliant all season.News from the other year groupsis also positive with Year 10 and 8making good progress under newcoaches Mr Green and Mr Shedwick.Year 11 have picked up where theyleft off last year with some gooddisplays and the new Year 7 teamhave shown some great promise.Mr MytonTwostarsCongratulations to KamilDreczkowski who won theExcellence in Sport award atthe school prizegiving. Kamilwas recently ranked third inthe UK at the National U17sKarate Championships. He wasthe youngest entrant in recentcompetitions.Giacomo Spagnoli was honouredwith the title of OutstandingSportsmanship at the ItalianOlympic Awards Ceremony lastmonth. His trophy cabinet mustbe nearly full with his recent haulof medals - two golds (javelinand swimming relay), two silvers(discus and shot put) and abronze for individual swimming.10 11