Of Art and Obscurity

Serena Boheimer – one of our Upper Sixth students – has been offered a place on Cardiff College of Art's Foundation course (she's also received offers from Byam Shaw and City & Guilds in London, but Cardiff is her first choice).

So we caught up with Serena today, and asked for a peek at what she's been working on recently.

Serena's chosen theme around which she's basing her current project is 'obscured'.

Experimenting with ideas and various media, Serena explored the concept of obscured faces:









From an initial interest in facial deformity, she shifted her focus towards objects or approaches that might obscure the face incidentally – the idea that a face might not be quite what it seems.






As part of the A level course, Serena has visited a number of exhibitions – recently, both Picasso and Bacon in London – and is conscious of the influence that these artists' work has had on her own.






Working with photos and tracing paper, she began to explore the idea of combining two faces – a concept she has now taken through to the hypnotic, somewhat unsettling piece she is currently working on. Here it is – some of the paint still wet! – on her easel in the Art department.





See more of Serena's work on d'Overbroeck's Flickr pages

Love & Lawbreaking ... Sneezes & Swagger ... Guys & Dolls

The College production of Guys & Dolls just over a week ago was a tremendous success – full of exuberant humour, confident acting and musical panache.

With a cast consisting of students from d'Overbroeck's Sixth Form and Leckford Place School (as well as a band featuring both students and staff), Guys & Dolls showed off a fine array of dramatic and musical talents.

Highlights included the comic pathos of Adelaide's lament – veering between impassioned song and no less impassioned sneezing – in which Rosie Cohen's Adelaide traces the origin of her chronic cold to her frustrated desire for marriage ...


... the tempestuous development of romance between straight-laced Salvation Army sergeant Sarah Brown (Cressy Stewart) and swaggering gambler Sky Masterson (Matt Thorns) ...


... the flamboyant double-act of Nicely-Nicely Johnson and Benny Southstreet (Lydia Hassan and Zanni Cohen), sidekicks par excellence ...


... and, throughout the show, the incorrigible charm of the hapless yet resourceful Nathan Detroit (Josh Vizor), whose tendency to land himself in tight situations is matched only by his ability to squirm free of trouble at the last minute.


The stage was peopled by a host of other colourful characters – Dave Christie's wrily sarcastic officer of the law, Lt. Brannigan; menacing mobster Big Jule (Dulith Wanigasakira) and the coyly flirtatious Hot Box girls (Miranda Stewart, Olivia Frazer-Smith and Tess O'Shea), to name just a few – and the band, led by Head of Music Melanie Ward, provided a pacey, upbeat soundtrack to the show.

Congratulations to all involved on a superb production.

See more pictures from the show on Flickr

Freezing but fascinating: History trip to Berlin

Sixth Form History students spent an enthralling – if chilly – few days in Berlin, last month, enriching their knowledge of German history with first-hand experience.

Highlights included a visit to Checkpoint Charlie museum, at which a citizen of former West Germany told tales of his kidnap, arrest and incarceration by the Stasi (East Germany’s secret police) – an event that causes quite a Cold War incident at the time. The group also visited the Jewish Museum, which chronicles 2,000 years of the history of Jews in Germany, and also boasts an impressive architectural memorial to the Holocaust.

Students went on to visit Sachsenhausen concentration camp, which housed tens of thousands of political prisoners during the era of the Third Reich, before continuing to the Stasi Museum in former East Berlin.

Despite the sub-zero temperatures, the trip was enormously worthwhile. Not only were students afforded an enchanting glimpse of snowy Berlin; they also got to see in person some of the historical sites that feature in their studies.

Sixth Form Chivalry

Sixth Form student Rory Cleaver happened to be walking down Turl Street in Oxford city centre when an elderly lady fell from her wheelchair. As luck would have it, he'd just – minutes earlier – been buying bandages for his injured knee. So he immediately rushed over.

After helping with the bandaging (he later found that the lady, Mrs Jose O'Leary, had broken her nose) and offering his coat, he ran to get help and arrange for an ambulance to be called – before returning to wait until the paramedics arrived.

... All was well, in the end – and, shortly afterwards, the Oxford Times printed a letter from Mrs O'Leary, commending Rory's chivalry:

'We often read or hear of the bad things that young people are said to do, but I witnessed some of the wonderful things that young people do and I would like to say a big thank you'

Profile of Rory on the Sixth Form website

Nurture, lead or analyse?

Last week, as part of the ongoing d'Overbroeck's Speaker Series, we were visited by Simon Williams, Managing Director of Tangent Team Development (photo above).

Simon's topic was emotional intelligence (or 'EI') – a quality increasingly recognised and cherished as a counterbalance to raw IQ.

Leading a variety of workshops, Simon introduced sixth form Business Studies students to new ways of thinking about communicating and interacting with others. As part of the exercise, students discovered whether they were instinctive nurturers, leaders or analysers – and what impact this had on their working style.

Basketball triumph

The Sixth Form basketball team clinched their second league win in a row during a close-fought encounter with Kingham Hill.

In a low scoring game, d'Overbroeck's led from the 1st period to the final buzzer, but never managed to pull away from a tenacious opposition. A battling Kingham Hill came back into the match in the final period and had a chance to tie the game with the last shot of the match – but narrowly missed to leave victory in the hands of our team.

Well done to the team on a superb performance – and in particular to man of the match and highly effective defender Josh Oyeyinka.

Hitchhiking to Morocco -- for charity

Two of last year's Upper Sixth – Alastair Mitchell (who's recently been offered a place at Balliol College Oxford) and William Richards (now in his first year at Keble College Oxford) – are setting off on a fundraising expedition in an effort to raise money for development in Africa.

Their journey will begin later this month and, by the end, they plan to have hitchhiked all the way to Morocco. Currently, they are seeking sponsors (if you would like to support their efforts, here's a link to Ali's online sponsorship form).

They're raising money on behalf of Link Community Development – a charity that aims to offer disadvantaged people in Africa access to education and training. The charity carries out its work directly, rather than by simply supplying funding, to ensure that donations are spent wisely and effectively.