Dear Parent and OW

REMEMBRANCE
RGS has always taken Remembrance very seriously. For those of you new to the RGS family, you are warmly welcomed to join us at our outdoor Remembrance Service on Friday which takes place in the Quadrangle (weather permitting, or in the Queen’s Hall if wet) commencing at 10:45. It is an unashamedly traditional service with some readings, a hymn and the two minutes of silence with the Last Post and Reveille. Refreshments will be available in the Queen’s Hall afterwards. The CCF will be uniformed this year. Unfortunately, we cannot provide any parking for parents (the Quadrangle is usually our overflow car park) and we ask that you enter through the Amersham Road, entrance under the Queen’s Hall, and be in the quad by 10:40.
The CCF will also be representing RGS in the Civic Service on Sunday morning, which, following a march through the town culminates with a wreath laying ceremony at The Cenotaph followed by a short service in All Saints’ Church.

SIXTH FORM OPEN EVENING
We were very pleased to welcome a number of students from other schools who attended our special event last week. This gave us the opportunity to give a presentation geared especially to boys and their parents who do not currently know the school. Our main Open Evening, which will include some talks but is mainly designed for you all to consider particular subjects, takes place on 20 November at 18:30 in the Queen’s Hall. We naturally hope that all of our Year 11 boys will wish to continue their education at RGS. External students are welcome too, even if they did not attend last week’s event, so please do spread the word.

RUGBY
One point wins are clearly in vogue at the moment! Our U15 team is through to the next round of the NatWest Trophy having beaten Abingdon School last Wednesday. The final score was 14-15. Well done, lads, and here’s to the next round.
We were also delighted to hear the fantastic news that James Tunney (at the age of 17) was selected to play for Wasps in his senior debut last weekend in the game against Gloucester, joining OW Ross Neal who was also selected.

ROWING
Further to last week’s rowing letter, I would urge you all to support their cause. It is an expensive sport to run and the Friends of Rowing are seeking assistance through the AVIVA community fund. £1,000 will be given to the 400 organisations with the most votes. Please click here to vote for our rowers. Friends of Rowing will also be seeking a portion of the Waitrose (High Wycombe) community fund through the green token scheme. If you shop in Waitrose at Handy Cross, please put a token (or a few!) into the RGS box.
Our rowers just had a great race at the Fours Head of the River coming 11th in the U/18 Championship Quads.
Previous results
2017 - 21st
2016 - 29th
2015 - 7th

EVENTS
I hope that the new website is keeping you up to speed with the various events. This coming week, we have the Senior Maths Challenge, the Year 10 Design Technology Rotary Club competition and a Year 9 Art trip to the Harry Potter Studios as part of a Creative Industries Seminar.

EXCHANGES
We are looking forward to welcoming our German friends from Osnabrück for this part of the annual exchange visit. Next year, this exchange will be in its 50th year and is, we believe, the longest running exchange visit in the UK. During their stay with us, we will have the formal opening of the Alan Yeates Room - the classroom in which Mr Yeates taught for many years has been beautifully refurbished thanks to your support.

Whilst I am talking about exchange visits, it is probably a good time to ask parents for their support with the new statutory guidance (‘statutory’ means that it should be followed unless there is a good reason not to, inconvenience not being one of them!) regarding DBS checks for host families. We are working to find the most straightforward solution. I fully understand that DBS checks may seem intrusive, but I hope that this imposition will not be a barrier to your son’s benefiting from these opportunities. I am a great believer in exchange visits having studied two languages at A level. At the age of ten, I travelled alone to France to stay with my exchange partner. My mother was in tears as the boat train (now showing my age) left Victoria. I was rather like Paddington Bear with suitcase, hat, sandwiches (filling not remembered, though not marmalade) and very excited.

FINANCES
My thanks for your financial support in my last letter resulted in some more parents signing up to the Annual Fund. Thank you. You may have noticed in the Budget that the Chancellor has promised £400m to schools, which should in our case, be around £50,000. This is a very welcome sum of money, which we will put to good use, though for imperatives rather than ‘nice to haves’. Once it’s gone, of course, it’s gone so your ongoing support is pivotal to our maintaining and developing the elements of our provision which go beyond state funding.

GWENDOLINE ANDERSON CHARITABLE TRUST
A local furniture making family set up a trust fund, some years ago, to support students ‘who wish to continue education beyond secondary level were it not for an inability to be able to afford to do so’ (sic). The Trust will only award grants to families who can demonstrate they are suffering genuine financial hardship. Any grant made by the Trust, is paid to the third party, not the individual. There are grants available for tuition fees as well as accommodation and ‘subject matter literature’. If this would help your son, then please write to me in confidence and I will put you in touch with the trustees.

Philip Wayne