I hope this newsletter finds you safe and well in these uncertain and unsettling times. If you have a concern or a worry, please do let us know. Your tutor has been keeping in touch weekly and remains the first port of call.
We are now fast approaching May Half Term, a time for you to re-group and prepare yourselves for the second part of the summer term. As a team we’re very proud of how you are conducting yourselves, joining on-line lessons and having meaningful conversations with staff about your learning. The next phase of on-line learning will include assessments. The week beginning the 1st June will see the majority of Year 12 students, over a two week period, completing some form of assessment for most subjects. Please look out for the timetable, which will be published online at www.tallispost16.com and will be emailed out to all. If you have any concerns about these, please do let us know.
Over this past eight weeks we have had the pleasure of conversing with many of you, we’d like to thank you for your support, even if the call may have been of a nagging variety. We really do appreciate the circumstances are not easy and are happy to provide a listening ear, and sage advice when needed. It has been lovely to hear of the different activities you have been doing, whether training for a 5K, online quizzes with friends, learning a language or drawing and much, much more. Please do feel free to email us about what you are up to and send us photographs. It would be lovely to include these in our next newsletter.
Please look after yourselves and let us know what you’d like to see included in the next edition.
Student Voice have met twice in the last few weeks to discuss ways in which we can continue to support our sixth form community while in lockdown.
Many of us are feeling adrift after leaving school without the rituals and rites of passage that usually accompany the transition from school to the outside world - the proms, leaving assemblies and ceremonies. Student Voice are keen to commemorate their sixth form experience by producing a Year Book. If you would like to be involved in this, please email Ms Astill at lastill@thomastallis.org.uk
Student Voice ‘meets’ every two weeks. The meeting cycle is as follows:-
Tuesday 2nd June
Tuesday 16th June
Tuesday 30th June
Tuesday 14th July
Please email your Chairperson Olaitan - okomolafe1@thomastallis.org.uk if you would like to join the discussion. We meet on 'teams' at 3pm
Lecture Society
Many of you will know that our sixth form students run their own lecture series. We have discussed, debated and wrangled over many a topic, ranging from the lack of female representation in art both historical and contemporary, to medical ethics, or to deconstructing the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper album. You will be excited to hear that the lecture series is now expanding online. The first lecture is on Monday 1st June at 3PM, where Teni Alakija will be discussing issues around Autism. If you’d like to attend or indeed deliver a lecture, please email Ms Astill lastill@thomastallis.org.uk
Check out this wonderfully spooky film by Year 13 photography student Jacob Fitzbibbon. Jacob combines stills and video footage, plus a voiceover and soundtrack to conjure up a dark and surreal landscape populated by animal mask-wearing strangers. Ralph Eugene Meatyard meets David Lynch in South East London. Brilliant!
Molly Warner has been an exceptional student throughout her time at Tallis, and especially during lockdown. Most recently, we have been working on drafting and redrafting essays that are written in a convincing and professional manner, striving for the high standard that we would expect to see published in dance journals. Molly has made substantial improvements to what was already a very detailed essay! She has produced a fantastic piece of work for the written component of the course. Molly is becoming a convincing and confident writer and is learning skills that will enable her to convey her thoughts in any form.
We could not be prouder teachers - well done Molly!
Year 13 Art & Design students have had a busy and productive final year. Highlights include:
Visiting Thames Side Studios and getting an insight into the ‘Figure This’ exhibition from curator Jennifer Sendall. This was followed by a series of sessions by artists in the show including two drawing workshops with Paul Brandford, a tutor from The Royal Drawing School and progression and portfolio advice from a gaming designer and graphic designer.
In November Thomas Tallis hosted the Crafts Council ‘Craft in the Classroom’ event. Two of our students opened the conference with a welcome address to the delegates. This was followed by the group leading a clay workshop for delegates. Students had worked with ceramicist Helen Johannessen and Fiona Veacock ahead of the event to learn key skills to deliver. Rosie Mitchell from the Crafts Council returned to Tallis to run an object curation workshop using their handling collection.
The group had been busy planning all aspects of their final exhibition which had to be cancelled due to recent events. Their determination and persistence meant that they were able to adapt and create a show on Instagram.
We wish the group all the best on the next stage of their journey. We know that they will shine.
We would like to celebrate the work of the Year 13 A-level Fine Art group in this virtual gallery. We don't have space to feature everyone's work so we have selected a few examples to give you a flavour of the excellent work produced by the students. It's a real shame that we won't have the opportunity to share their work with you in our annual exhibition so we hope this virtual gallery is a small compensation. We wish our students the very best of luck for the future and thank them for their dedication and creativity.
Kerry Gibson, Joint Head of Art
Raquib Salami has explored black visual culture in his Personal Investigation, specifically the depiction of Afro-Caribbean hair. He created some large portrait drawings of friends and family exploring the tactile qualities of hair and facial features of his models.
Noah Rush produced a Personal Investigation based on 'What creates the uncanny?'
'A loose definition of the uncanny is something that is ‘strange or mysterious, especially in an unsettling way’ It’s a word in close contact with ‘creepiness’, or ‘repulsion’, but its meaning has indistinct edges. Different things can be uncanny for different reasons, and people are susceptible to different degrees to this feeling, as talked about by Ernst Jentsch in his essay ‘On the Psychology of the Uncanny’. For instance, I have often heard people that look very similar described as uncanny, but a baby doll with its eyes glued shut being donated to a charity described the same way, two things at completely different ends of the spectrum. I am interested to find out the extent of that spectrum, how far it goes, where something starts being uncanny, and at what point is it no longer.'
Joe Barns explored notions of interior and exterior decay; building exteriors and the physical appearance of ageing and disease.
Charlie Corbey has investigated the distortion of identity through abstraction.
Anna Tribble has looked at the complexities of personal facades in an age dominated by social media.
Joseph Brannigan has worked on figurative portraits throughout his personal Investigation. Joe's enquiry was based on the question 'What makes a portrait a portrait?'
'I believe a portrait can be perceived as anything, such as a hand, an item of clothing or even a full body image as long as what is portrayed on canvas, paper, etc, is representative of the mood, feelings, personality or any form or aspect of the person being depicted'.
Laila Hendrickse writes: 'The theme for this piece was Change & Instability. It is clear that over the last couple of months, there has been major social, political and economic instability, which couldn't be ignored when creating work on these themes. The transfer from studying in school to having to develop self discipline at home naturally affected my creative journey. Initially, I was exploring change and instability within nature, attempting to confine myself to only using the earth as my tool to create, making inks out of grass and mud etc. It seems appropriate that a project on change involved creating and abandoning ideas all the time. I used a large board to work on so that the process of painting could be dynamic, energetic and free. I used quite naturalistic colours; creamy whites, muted greens, burnt reds. I layered these colours up, along with thick glues and plaster for texture, and then proceeded to chisel away at layers, revealing colours, and sometimes the wooden board beneath. The painting was formed very instinctively, but it is certainly commemorative of this period of time where huge amounts of change is taking place all over the world, in many different ways'.
Charley's poems Click on the button below to read two poems by Charley Swire in Year 13. These were written during the last residential at the Arvon Centre in Devon.
I am pleased to announce that we had the following students from Year 13 and 12 participating in the Chemistry Olympiad and they all received an award- an amazing achievement! I am incredibly proud of them all.
Silver Award:
Henry La (1 mark away from a Gold award)
Ella Dixon
Bronze Award:
Modinat Tijani
Jenny Duckworth
Lucy Hudson
Tahmid Ahmad
William Ho
Arnold Armstrong-Sobolewski
See below for some useful websites for advice and guidance if any of you want to explore other ways of getting support or getting involved in this year's theme of kindness. Please do remember that your tutor and heads of year are here to support you at this often challenging and uncertain period.
UCAS advice for Year 12 students:
Hopefully you have begun to explore which subject you might want to study at university and begun to look at the reading and research lists all on the tallispost16 site.
Art College students:
An art foundation is an excellent and exciting year to experiment and it is still currently free! Many of our arts students have gone on to do foundation course and have got so much from them.
Please see below for some more interesting links to explore this pathway, if you are in Year 13, or if you are in Year 12 and considering looking for an apprenticeship post Year 13:
You have until 30th June to submit entries, so there’s just over a month for you to research, deliberate and construct your arguments, the best of which will receive prizes in September. Good luck.
Students are invited to consider the impact of social media on intellectual property, and we are looking for opinionated, argumentative and persuasive responses from students. Three winners will win cash prizes, but more than this, students entering the competition will prove that even while the world reels at coronavirus, they have the ambition and dedication to give a thoughtful response to this big question.
The essays will be presented to a panel of expert judges, and the experience will no doubt shine brightly on any UCAS or employment application.
The question is simple: ‘Social media is a disaster for intellectual property’ Discuss.
We have purposefully kept the question open and general. While the essay might immediately speak to English, Media Studies, Citizenship or Law, it has relevance in a range of other subjects; from the student studying the music that’s sampled in a Youtube video, to the photographer whose images may end up on a search engine. Ultimately if any student creates, shares or uses content online, this question is for them.
Students have until 30th June to submit entries, so there’s just over a month for them to research, deliberate and construct their arguments, the best of which will receive prizes in September.
All the details, including important terms and conditions are on the CLA website. If you have any questions about the Copyright Essay competition, please contact CLAessayprize@cla.co.uk
