Brentwood School - Brentwoodian 2020

81 routines from the talented juniors: Skye Lake, Laura Burke, Amara Kleanthous, Anastasia Vatkovsky and Yvonne Nguyen and sectional House meetings with Emily O’Sullivan’s helping hand were a highlight of my year. Unluckily, Covid put an end to the lip sync battle Mr Whetnall and I had been busily preparing for, but we will forever remember his incredible Christmas story assembly and wish him all the best in his new role as Head of North House. East House came in strong for Virtual Sports Day, with baking competitions, dramatic readings and all kinds of sporting DIY videos being entered. The end of the year was not what anybody could have predicted but this, now my fourth year of being Deputy Housemistress, showed me again how versatile and resilient our students are in the face of adversity. By Miss Cooper Well then… Joanna, Lauren and Miss Cooper have pretty much summed it up. We have a 1-4-9 culture here at Brentwood, that permeates throughout all the Houses, not just East and there’s a good dose of competitive spirit as well. That said, it’s fair to say that some of my favourite events of 2019-2020 were those that involved a collaboration between the Houses, no matter how large or small. The vast majority of these were geared towards charity and raising awareness, not just funds! At East, we pride ourselves in our efforts towards charitable causes. Of course, it's not a competition, but we're good, as are all the other Houses. This year we continued to support Papyrus, a charity that is close to our heart because it was chosen by former House Captains: Megan Fraser and Amy Purser. It’s no coincidence that our House motto “Ex Aurora Sine Timore” and associated crest was designed and created by one of our Lower Sixth students - her House report is above! Conjuring up House charity week activities in lockdown was quite a daunting prospect, but like so many aspects of Brentwood School’s ‘new normal’ I think we smashed it. I have to say thank you to the staff and students of Weald House, who led the way with quite an amazing array of virtual activities - it was inspirational. We put on a significant amount of activities, the best of them being the magical Harry Potter Quiz, but how could we raise awareness and funds for our chosen charity? Well… we firstly asked Sinmi Davids to use her amazing artistic skills to create a fundraising poster and then we made some pretty bold pledges in the hope we could raise over £1,000. Mr Whetnall had to cycle 1Km for every pound raised; I don’t think he expected us to reach £1,170! There is also the small matter of ‘Housemaster head-shaving’ and Housemistress Parachute jumping but I’m sure that Miss Cooper is up (high up) to the task. So finally, I would just like to say a massive thank you to my House Captains, all the pupils in East that contributed to our successes and our charity and, of course, Miss Cooper and Mr Whetnall - who was so impressive this year, they promoted him to Head of North - ouch! In a way, I blame Mr Murphy, a great Head of House, who will be sorely missed by me, all the students in North and many more. By Mr McCann