LeadershipOfTheHart

Excellence in Music at Chase

As we recently heard that we had four musicians in the Staffordshire Young Musician of the Year Final (more than any other school in Staffordshire), we decided to focus this week on music at Chase Grammar School

Mrs Zoeftig writes…

Not only is music important in the development of a child, it can also be the heart and soul of a school. And we very much strive for this here at Chase Grammar School.

Our Music Scholars have been helping beginner musicians through ensembles and clubs as well as showcasing their talents at Open Mornings. We have had 4 pupils compete in the regionals for the Rotary Young Musician Competition this year, 2 of which went through to the District Final.

A different 4 pupils are in the Final for the Staffordshire Young Musician of the Year competition in July, which we have been told is the most pupils from one school in the competition. Two are in the Junior Category and 2 in the Advanced Category. Another of our prep pupils achieved second place in the Dudley Music Festival this year as well.

Our musicians throughout the school have been busy this year with several performance opportunities from church services at Christmas and Easter, to School Fairs, Instrumental concerts, Open Mic nights, and our fantastic School production of The Addams Family.

The senior musicians have also been raising money by Carol Singing, entertaining at the Performance Workshop and at Open Mornings, and many have performed solos in assembly.

Many pupils learn an instrument or have singing lessons and all get the opportunity to sing, play, perform and learn about music in their music lessons. In fact, learning an instrument helps students to perform better in their other subjects.

Our Prep pupils have also been busy performing to parents for Mother’s and Father’s Days, singing songs for Harvest and Remembrance Day and are currently preparing performances for our Prize Giving ceremony, Graduation Assembly and National Sing Up Day.

At Chase Grammar, we offer senior musicians opportunities to perform and play whether or not they take Music at GCSE or A Level, in whatever music genre they are interested in, be it Classical, Pop, K-Pop, J-Pop, Country, Rap, EDM or any of the 100s of different genres of music that exist.

During KS3 we take pupils to see a live orchestra playing at the Symphony Hall. They are also able to have private lessons from Y2 upwards, on any instrument of their choosing with our highly talented and specialist peripatetic music teachers who include Chase Grammar School in their trawl around the county to teach. Where possible, we help beginners by lending a school instrument before they need to make the commitment of buying their own which can be expensive; although we also help with finding cost effective ways of purchasing instruments.

Our enrichment programme gives all pupils the opportunity to join our prep or senior school choir, our chamber choir, our music ensemble, guitar club, ukulele club, keyboard club, music theory and music practice. We also participate in Young Voices in Birmingham every other year.

This is credit to the hours of practice the pupils put in in between lessons. The legendary cellist Pablo Casals was asked why he continued to practise his cello at the age of 90: “Because I think I’m making progress,” he replied.

It is exciting to see the growth of all of our musicians here at Chase Grammar and to feel the positive and familiar vibe there is daily in the music department.

The Excellence of the Multiple Draft Process

We have been exploring excellence this year at Chase Grammar School.

A few years ago, a beautiful educational model (which many of you will know) called ‘Austin’s Butterfly‘ went viral as it so clearly illustrates the power of making incremental improvements. As Ron Berger in his book An Ethic of Excellence encourages educators, we should…

“Elevate Austin’s Butterfly multiple-draft process as foundational”

This has sometimes been called “deliberate practice“ – the power of repeating the same task (in this case, a young child drawing a butterfly), responsive to feedback, making incremental improvements each time.

It’s a technique any child can use to improve their ability at anything!

I hope you will encourage your own children to persevere with making step-by-step improvements to any activities where they – and you! – want to make progress.

Excellence in Innovation

What’s the balance between consistency with the past and creating new ways of doing things?

Continuing this series of posts on excellence, the last theme inspired from the book In Search of Excellence by Peters and Waterman is innovation.

Technological innovations have a way of creating their own markets – the laptop, the iPhone, the smart watch…

And as the world constantly changes, so organisations, and in my personal situation, schools, must also change and innovate.

Innovation can bring excellence when a new way is discovered to meet a need or provide for an aspiration like education.

What innovations has your organisation or school recently introduced, and how successful have they been?

How to revise

The summer term is the time for exams, and today’s Assembly gave students practical tips about how best to do this.

Learning and Revision

Here is the work of one researcher, John Dunlovsky, about the strategies which have the greatest effect in his studies.

And here are the strategies with “Medium” effectiveness, so also worth trying:

The Learning Scientists

An organisation called The Learning Scientists have produced this excellent series of A4 posters explaining 6 scientifically-proven effective revision strategies, which you can access here:

What do students say?

Last year, students contributed their ideas on the student blog, and they are also worth reading:

Learn through Mindmaps and Spaced Retrieval Practice

Learn by Colour

Step by Step, Learning is Fun!

Talk and Practice to Learn!

What doesn’t work?

You may also be interested to know what doesn’t work!

So the next time your child tells you they are “re-reading” their notes, please tell them to stop and to do something more effective!

Gold Standard Science at Chase Grammar School

During the last term, two sixth formers had some amazing achievements, showing their “gold standard” in science…

British Physics Olympiad and Senior Physics Challenge

Mr Salt writes…

The Senior Physics Challenge and the British Physics Olympiad Round 1 are two of the most difficult challenges any Year 12 or Year 13 student can undertake as it challenges participants to solve real world Physics problems.

Each year, students from Year 12 enter the Senior Physics Challenge and a select few from Year 13 enter the Olympiad.

This year Chase Grammar students achieved fantastic results. Of particular
note, Euan Boyle (Y12) achieved a Gold award in the Senior Physics Challenge and Clement Liu (Y13) achieved a Gold award in the Olympiad. A massive congratulations to them and to all the other physicists at Chase Grammar School who took part.

Mr. Salt and Clement

Excellent Values?

What are the best values to have?

It sounds like a strange question, but underpinning all our decisions are the unconscious forces that guide us – our beliefs, our principles, our core values.

In my organisation, our values include nurture, excellence and having a global perspective:

“We reach out to provide excellence in individualised education, to nurture, extend and enrich young people to develop into the global citizens and leaders of the future.”

What are your values?

Excellent Motivation?

What does excellence in motivation look like? Working 24/7? Or working smart? Having your heart in the right place? Or logical planning?

Motivation was the first theme that emerged from my study of ‘In Search of Excellence’ by Peters and Waterman. They point out that there is

“…one key to people orientation: trust”.

People earn trust through demonstrating competence and trustworthiness. And in giving trust to others who have proved themselves competent, we, as leaders, boost their motivation.

Some of the sayings we use in our organisation are “Where there’s a will, there’s a way” and “Go the extra mile”. They are not original! But they encapsulate the importance of high levels of motivation.

What are your views about how to achieve excellence of motivation, both in yourself and in the team you lead?

The Search for Excellence

In summer 2023 I read In Search of Excellence by Peters and Waterman, and from that distilled five themes that seemed the most relevant to my own context. These were:

Motivation
Values
Voice
Action
Innovation

I will be exploring each of these in subsequent posts, but meanwhile I would love to know what would be your top five themes for searching for excellence in your organisation? Do you agree with these five or would you change any?

A Vision of Excellence?

You may know the song from Pinocchio – “When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true!”. The star represents our dreams and hopes; our vision of excellence.

When we look at the organisations we work in, excellence is a kind of vision of what could be. We all know that a vision without a plan is just a dream, but if we don’t have any kind of dream of how things could be better, we will not be able to lead others towards excellence.

So for me, excellence is like a kind of vision or dream of what could be. It must be achievable and so linked to reality, but it should also demand stretch from our teams, the stretch to improve, whether that means quality, or quantity, or both.

How do you understand a vision of excellence?

Chase Goes to Disney!

This week’s post is about the trip to Disneyland, Paris, attended by a group of day and boarding students together…

Mrs. Moncada writes…

Our students were a credit to our school. They fully engaged in the STEM activity and were complimented, as the best school the presenter had worked with in her 7 years at Disneyland Paris. They got some very good results, working in mixed age groups demonstrating collaboration, teamwork and empathy.

Throughout the trip all students were well behaved and always where they needed to be and on time. They were an excellent group, they did not even complain about the 23,000 steps a day!

Eoghan

“I really enjoyed the Disneyland Science Trip and especially knowing how the rides work and making my own rollercoaster with a group. I also enjoyed going on all the rides, seeing the fireworks and shopping”

William

I found France very enjoyable, a great opportunity for students to embrace a different culture with their friends. The experiences and memories were brilliant and provided new friendship options for students just by being with others that they wouldn’t normally be around.

It was a very good experience, and I look forward to other similar experiences in the future.

Heidi

I really enjoyed the trip to Paris on the Wednesday, as it was well organised and the detour to go to the Shakespeare and Company bookshop was enjoyable. I also enjoyed the day in Disney being allowed to go off and then meet up for the light show. All the teachers worked extremely hard to make it very enjoyable.

Tim

Personally, going to Disney was an experience of nostalgia. I aimed to visit all the locations I had been to when very young – so that’s exactly what I did! I loved going through the park to find and ride the various coasters, such as Buzz Lightyear’s dark ride. This is not even mentioning the amazing views in the city of Paris, my first time seeing the Eiffel Tower, and my curiously detailed reviews of as many of the country’s croissants.I could eat.