Junior Prizegiving 2007

Part two of this year's restyled Apposition took place last Friday (June 1st) when prizewinning Juniors, their parents and teaching staff assembled in the Wathen Hall for the inaugural Junior Prizegiving ceremony. For the first time in school history, Junior prizewinners became the focus of attention, an important aspect of the experimental division of Apposition into two separate occasions.

The new ceremony had many echoes of Apposition in that selected boys gave short presentations on academic topics. Luckily, neither the High Master nor they themselves were being judged on their pieces on this occasion, the High Master having emerged unscathed from this traditional test a few weeks earlier.

The four presentations represented outstanding work done in French, History, Maths and Music and ranged in style from dramatised dialogue in French on the rights and wrongs of collaborating with or resisting the Nazis to a live performance of a Haydn piano trio, and from a dvd documentary on the German occupation of Jersey to a witty but persuasive paper on the mathematical (or should we say mathemagical) issues surrounding the perennial task of stacking and packing oranges.

Old Pauline and rising theatrical star Rory Kinnear both presented the prizes and delighted his audience with his shrewd and witty assessment of how coming second can sometimes be more significant and rewarding than coming first.

The High Master concluded the ceremony with a series of observations on the challenges and responsibilities facing independent schools over the next decade and then all of those present enjoyed wine and delicious canapés in the warm early evening sunlight.