Christmas looms large and my assemblies this week have followed a festive theme. Whilst re-searching different angles to Why Christmas Is Extraordinary I stumbled upon a ‘rich vein’ of Christ-mas related data on the internet. For example, as a nation we will consume 25 million Christmas puddings, 10 million turkeys and 250 million pints of beer. As a data man, these grand figures set me wondering about our school’s statistics for this term and provided the inspiration for this week’s Headlines. I asked staff to send me Dr Challoner’s High School facts and figures for this term, September to December 2015, and received the following:
Music: 182 pieces performed in public this term; 13 public performance events; 177 lunch time and afterschool rehearsals; 11 times Miss Korzinek has woken in the night dreaming about concerts; over 18 hours of performance in concerts; 3156 instrumental and vocal lessons
Business Manager: 400,000 sheets of A4 printer paper; 420 chickens roasted for sandwiches; 350 kgs of baked beans…; 66,000 pumps of hand soap; £58,000 loaded onto Parentpay for student lunches; 860,000 sheets of toilet paper!
Drama: 150 girls entertained us in the Drama Competition....5 fell off the stage (on purpose!); £230 donated by Y.8 parents to the Drama Fund/House Charities; 80 girls auditioned for The Beggar's Opera
Sixth Form Team’s version of ‘The 12 Months of UCAS’: 168 UCAS applications; 43 early entries; 30 days before the dead-line; 24 reference writers; 23 Oxbridge interviews; 15 kind mock interviewers; 12 UCAS assemblies; 5 months of planning; 4 reference checkers; 3 US applications; 2 amazing admin staff; an incredible UCAS Co-ordinator (and a partridge in a pear tree!)
Head’s PA: 3,698 emails sent since 1st September … almost as many cups of tea and coffee made; 352 appointments/lessons/duties made for the Head during the day – not including Governors’ meetings, concerts and other evening events.
Exams: 1088 11 Plus papers sat by 272 students over two days in September; 5,993 mock papers were taken in academic year 2014-15; 5,624 external exam papers were taken in Summer 2015.
Languages: On their "VOCABEXPRESS" online resources, the average score for GCSE classes is 5000 - 6500 hits at present (a hit represents how many times a girl has completed a set of vocabulary learning exercises); two students in Mrs McFadyen's Yr 11 group have over 12000 hits to date!
PE: 2,936 children attended Sports Partnership events, including 386 leaders; 367 times we have scored in extra-curricular Netball across 12 teams and 52 fixtures; 28 goals in 11 hockey matches (excluding 3 tournaments!); 600 girls participating in extra-curricular activity each week including 100 attending Y.7 netball every Monday; 4 National Finals; 14 sports in our extra-curricular timetable.
Whilst these figures tell something of the scale of our broad educational vision at Challoner’s, numbers alone can’t do justice to the wonderful quality of relationships in the school, the enormous sense of purpose and the daily striving of human en-deavour from both girls and staff. The numbers also can’t show the upbeat, light, good humoured and characterful atmos-phere - the Challoner’s Spirit. I have loved my first three months at Challoner’s and thank all staff, girls, parents and gover-nors for their contributions to an excellent term.
Best wishes for a really good Christmas.
Alan Roe
