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SWPS News 28 April 2017

Head’s News How often do we focus on the negative? How often do we talk about

problems rather solutions? We are always overwhelmed with news stories concentrating on our meanness as a species rather than our kindness and generosity. It is perhaps not surprising that we, in our every-

day lives, dwell on the negative and avoid the positive. Newspapers and television reports are frequently filled with stories of distress and despair.

It is not just in the media: a fascinating study was

conducted in 1988 in which it was found that there was a 17-1 negative to positive ratio of research in the field of psychology. Simply put – there were more academic studies examining the problems and difficulties of the human condition, such as depression, than there were examining how human beings thrive and are content.

The perception that most of life is negative can often be a consequence of this all embracing media diet of bad news and solemn facts. If we focus solely on the negative, we tend to see things differently. Recent studies are demonstrating that happiness and

success are linked, but not as you might expect. Success

does not bring happiness but rather happiness brings success. We become more successful when we are happier. The statistics are compelling: Doctors put in a positive mood before making a diagnosis show three times more intelligence and creativity than

doctors in a neutral state – they make accurate diagnoses 19% faster Optimistic salespeople outsell their pessimistic counterparts by 56%. And, unsurprisingly, happy students before taking a

mathematics examination out-perform their neutral peers.

Our brains would appear to be designed to perform at their best when we are happy. I hope you have a happy Bank Holiday!

C Muller

Head

Year 4 SWPS Saturday Workshop—13 May 2017 This term we are delighted to be welcoming colleagues from the IT industry who will be running a “Digital Hackshop” for

local Year 4 girls and boys. Invitations have been sent to anyone who has enquired about a place for September 2019 and will be allocated on a first-come-first served basis. The

children will be (pretend) hacking, building an Xbox game, designing/making/programming their own wearable device and even making a working banana-controlled piano! Photos in next week’s newsletter will undoubtedly shed light on the

latter activity! If you have a child in that year group and think you may not be on our Enquiries list, please get in touch as soon as possible for more information.

S Hallsworth

School Gateway The ‘School Gateway’ system has now been fully rolled out. This is a quicker and easier way for the School and parents

to contact each other. Please do read the letter sent out last week, download the app, and visit the website.

Microsoft DigiGirlz

Eight Year 8 students, plus Mrs Tyler and I, got up extra early to meet at SWPS for a 7:30am start to make our way to the much anticipated Microsoft DigiGirlz event for 2017, held at their Reading Headquarters. This was the 10th event held for DigiGirlz and is run to inspire more girls to consider a career in technology.

The day proved to be a success with 19 schools attending from all over the country, hearing from different key speakers about Microsoft’s new HoloLens technology (which looks rather cool), and from some influential women in Microsoft (including Cindy Rose, Microsoft UK Managing Director!!) and how their career paths led them to technology and Microsoft. Some truly inspiring talks, which

led to the fun bit, the ‘FutureProof’ competition. All teams were tasked with taking an everyday object and connecting it to the internet to improve our lives in the future. SWPS were challenged with ‘FutureProofing’ sunglasses, with Gina Barber taking on the role of Managing

Director. They put their heads together and worked incredibly well, demonstrating to Mrs Tyler and I, and a panel of judges their brilliant ideas through a 2 minute presentation with video and audio. This presentation had to also contain marketing concepts to put the product on sale to the general

public, including billboard ideas, PR promotions and marketing cost.

Overall SWPS came 2nd and walked away with many goodies, and a new interest in a career in technology. A massive congratulations to Gina Barber, Isla Galpin, Ayra Tengku, Natalie Clarke, Zara Cope, Erlanka Millea, Lauren

Murray and Hibah Zahoor, for impressing the judges and coming in 2nd place. Well done.

L Timpson

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Sport News Last Saturday the school PE department hosted the SWPS students and their carers Badminton

Tournament. This followed a gruelling few rounds of qualifying and the 8 teams all showed

the quality necessary to justify their place on the day. The

relentless pace of the games gave away the obvious carbo-loading of the teams the night before and all seemed grateful for the liquids provided. Although only one team remained unbeaten throughout, the final positions were all

being played for going into the final round of games with many permutations still possible. The emotions of the players were being strained but in the main all succeeded in channelling their efforts. The winners of the Tournament were Team Chawan, with

Team Devapragasam close behind in 2nd place. Team Henderson were only 7 points adrift in 3rd closely followed by Team Ellis. A mere 43 points from their 7 games separated Team Mather in 5th down to Team Illman in 8th, with Teams

Rane and Konkumala in 6th and 7th respectively. During an emotional speech, Mr Chawan thanked Mrs Searle

for hosting the event and looked forward to returning to training in order to retain the title next year.

R England

Artworks of the Month Here’s one of our two Artworks of the Month, for April, selected by the Art & Design Dept staff. This one is by Iris

Patten (Year 8). Take a look at more student artwork on the Firefly Art pages.

Perkonian News

One of our Perkonians, Katie Miles (Class of 2012), has just arrived at the Khumbu Glacier on the Everest Basecamp

Trail with a team from Aberystwyth University led by Prof

Bryn Hubbard. For the non-geographers amongst us: Khumbu, the world’s largest glacier, and its surrounding areas is a source of water for 40% of the world’s population. They will be the first team to ever drill into the glacier and will be using a drill adapted from a traditional car wash with the aim to

research the glacier’s response to climate change. For more information you can read the BBC article, or follow Katie on twitter @katie_miles_851. Katie has also promised to write an article for ‘The Perkonian’ when she returns in the summer, which will include lots of pictures!

S Kassir

I n d i v i d u a l m u s i c instrumental lessons If you would like your

daughter to have individual instrumental lessons, it’s not too late in the year to sign

up. An application form can be downloaded from the School’s website by clicking here or collected from the

entrance to the Music Department.

Our peripatetic staff can offer tuition on these instruments: clarinet, flute, oboe, recorder, saxophone, trumpet, trombone,

euphonium, French horn, violin, viola, cello, double bass, drum kit, orchestral percussion, guitar, piano, jazz piano and voice.

Please contact Patsi Bucknall pbucknall@swps.org.uk if you

would like further details. T Scrutton

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