Only one month till we hold our first music concert of this academic year!
Don’t forget to put all these dates in your diary 🙂
We wish a ‘Happy Diwali’ to our Hindu, Sikh and Jain communities.
In school, we will be celebrating on Monday and will have some mindful Rangoli colouring sessions in the library to compliment the display board put up by Mrs Rudolph and the Pupil Librarians.
Diwali (also called Dipawali) is the Indian festival of lights, usually lasting five days and celebrated during the Hindu Lunisolar month Kartika. One of the most popular festivals of Hinduism, Diwali symbolizes the spiritual “victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance”.
The word Diwali means ‘rows of lighted lamps’. Diwali is known as the ‘festival of lights’ because houses, shops and public places are decorated with small oil lamps called ‘diyas’.
When is Diwali?
Diwali always falls some time between October and November, but the exact date varies each year as the Hindu calendar is based on the Moon. This year it is 12th November 2023.
How is Diwali celebrated?
For many people this five day festival honours Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. Lamps are lit and windows and doors are left open to help Lakshmi find her way into people’s homes.
Other ways that Hindus celebrate the festival include:
- Spring-cleaning the home
- Wearing new clothes
- Exchanging gifts (often sweets and dried fruits) and preparing festive meals
- Decorating buildings with fancy lights
- Huge fireworks displays
Observances: Diya and lighting, home decoration, shopping, fireworks, puja (prayers), gifts, feast, and sweets.
Featured in religions: Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, Newar Buddhism
During Diwali, people also make patterns called rangoli from colourful materials like powders and pastes: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zh86n39/articles/zjpp92p
Have you heard about this?
All of our sixth form students who enrol in degree programmes at universities receive a £100 scholarship in their second year as a consequence of a moving story about one of our former pupils, who tragically lost his life in the First World War.
Mrs Bungey and her late husband agreed to leave half their estate to provide a memorial to their son, Second Lieutenant Gerald Edward Bungey. The yearly funding for the award comes from interest paid each year on a bequest left to the Enfield Grammar School Foundation from the estate of Mrs Maude Bungey and is paid out by our Foundation Trustees who are part of our governance structure.
Gerald attended the EGS from 1911 to 1914 and was Captain of 1st Cricket team and Football Elevens, and runner of the mile and half-mile
Joining the army soon after the declaration of war in 1914, he was killed in action on 4th August during the Battle of the Somme at the young age of just 19 years, while fighting with the 14th Fusiliers.
It makes you reflect on all those young men (many just out of school) who never had the chance to go onto any type of further education or live out their lives.
In school we have a memorial to all those alumni who never came home; Gerald E Bungey is listed in the first column..
“No greater sacrifice can a man make in giving his life in serving his country so that others may live in peace and freedom.”
His story:
Second Lieutenant, ‘D’ Coy. 9th Bn. Royal Fusiliers, Son of William EJ and Maude M Bungey.
David Dein MBE is a British businessman, known for being a former co-owner and vice-chairman of Arsenal Football Club, and former vice-chairman of the Football Association. David Dein was vice-chairman of Arsenal between 1983 and 2007, and was instrumental in the formation of the Premier League in 1992 and in appointing Arsene Wenger as Arsenal manager in 1996.
We were honoured to have him come to EGS as part of the Speakers for Schools programme to deliver a motivational and inspirational talk; it was a fantastic presentation about life in the Premiership and being successful. David then took questions from our students.
Our remembrance assemblies are always moving, educational and reflective. Today was all of that and more with the performance of the Last Post played by Daniel Moorwood in Year 12.
James Lovell in Year 10 recently attended a composition masterclass at the Royal Academy of Music. He was asked to create a graphic score for his own composition which was then developed and performed by professional musicians from the Academy.
Here is his graphic score and some of the audio of his final piece…..
Well done, James, this is fantastic!
Movember is not just about growing a moustache; it is about raising awareness of men’s health issues and fundraising to support men’s health projects across the world.
To support Movember and International Men’s Day, we have a number of activities planned, as follows:
- Movember displays on the main corridor and in the Library at the upper school to raise awareness of prostate cancer, testicular cancer and suicide prevention.
- Moustaches will be on sale at the lower school (17 November), promoted by the Wellbeing Ambassadors to raise funds for Movember, with “Wear a moustache day” at lower on 20 November.
- Form time session on mental health and wellbeing/Movember.
- Oddballs assemblies for all year groups
- Movember competition for Years 7&8
- Wellbeing Ambassadors lunchtime information stalls
-
Interhouse art competition for year 7
We are looking forward to seeing some spectacular moustaches drawn, found, grown and worn!!
For more information, please visit:
Thank you to all who came along and to our staff for their dedication and support.
Our sixth form were very privileged, earlier this week, to be visited by Robert Guest, Deputy Editor of The Economist .
He gave a captivating talk about his travels with an insight into the global economy and how education has such an impact on informative decisions.
