Warwick Academy is incredibly proud of our students nominated for Bermuda’s Most Outstanding Teen Awards and especially our head girl Eryn Bhola who won the Academic Achievement award and Outstanding Overall award.

Our students give up so much time and work so hard in all areas and some stand out more in certain areas.

Our nominees this year were:

Outstanding Overall — Melanie Soares-Chan, Eryn Bhola and Kaleb Hamilton

Academic Achievement — Melanie Soares-Chan, Eryn Bhola, Kaleb Hamilton, Samantha Soares and Grace Francoeur

Community Service — Alisa Bernardo, Aaron Kuhn and Dairia Smith

Leadership — Eryn Bhola, Kaleb Hamilton, Malini Romeo, Brittany Siddle and Yasmin De Graff

Perseverance — Leo Forte and Hannah Shadbolt

Performing Arts — Malini Romeo (Dance), Grace Francoeur (Dance) and Benjamin Barnett (Drama & Music)

Sports — Jesse Washington, Alyssa Rowse, Matthew Oliveira and Yasmin De Graff

Visual Arts — Alisa Bernardo and Brittany Siddle

The great debate has everyone talking

Warwick Academy hosted the 6th annual 2018 Public Speaking and Debate Tournament at the start of March.

Nine schools from Canada, Iceland and Bermuda competed in a wide range of public speaking categories in the three-day tournament, culminating in the debate tournament held on Saturday afternoon.

In the public speaking portion of the competition, Saltus Grammar School won in the middle school division, and Balmoral Hall won in the senior school division.

For Impromptu Speaking, Ava Olin of St John’s Ravenscourt and Lauren Burns were first.

Saltus won both divisions of Radio Newscast with Sam Webel winning for middle school and Kayla Halbig winning the senior school division.

Rachel Hyland of Saltus and Lindsay Cogan of Balmoral Hall won the Persuasive Speaking category.

Kristy Sanchez of Bermuda High School and Noah da Silva of Warwick Academy won After Dinner Speaking.

Interpretive Reading was won by Sam Webel of Saltus and Lindsay Cogan of Balmoral Hall.

Dramatic Interpretation was won by Spencer Johnson of Saltus.

Saltus also won the Cross Examination Debate with their team of Kaya Vogler and Ywoine Darrell. The top speaker overall was Sam Webel of Saltus for middle school and Lindsay Cogan of Balmoral Hall.

In the debate finals, the Berkeley Institute A senior debate team defeated Somersfield Academy, while in the middle school competition St John’s Ravenscourt A faced off against St John’s Ravenscourt C, with the latter emerging triumphant.

The top three speakers at the senior level were Kate Tobin — Somersfield Academy (First), Yasser Baia and Sierra Brangman — The Berkeley Institute (second and third). Top middle school speakers were Hope Appelmans and Ava Olin — St John’s Ravenscourt (First and second respectively), and jointly in third place, Grace McFadden — Bermuda High School, and Penelope Chokalis — St John’s Ravenscourt.

The organisers were deeply appreciative of the sponsorship provided by Butterfield & Vallis, John Barritt & Son, the English Speaking Union, the Bermuda Community Foundation and the Caledonian Society of Bermuda.

The story of a man with a hat

For the past few years, once a week, the quietness of the Warwick Academy Library is disturbed by the visit of a strange character who brings excitement to primary students.

This mysterious creature is no other than a Year 4 mom, dad, aunt, uncle or grandparent who has volunteered for the “Mystery Reader” programme, one of the many library reading incentives.

This is also an opportunity for our students’ relatives/friends to play pranks on their children as the reader usually comes incognito, under the disguise of a costume to match the theme of the selected reading.

Students await with great anticipation to see who will entertain them during their weekly library visit and compete to guess the identity of the imposter.

On average, 20 parents sign-up for the scheme (some twice!) and demonstrate a great amount of creativity.

Over the years, Year 4s have listened to stories told by vikings, detectives, firefighters, giraffes and other animals. Some even added special effects to their story telling to bring it to life.

However, this mystery reader did not need any gimmick but a formal escort to the library as required by his rank…

Prosecco, pastry and poetry

Can a poem change the world? 19th-century French Poet Arthur Rimbaud and Derek Hamon, author of the recently published Poetry Pharmacy think so.

On the occasion of the fourteenth edition of its Senior Literacy Campaign, Warwick Academy Library plans to verify this statement.

This month, senior students and teachers have been invited to explore poetry’s unique ability to capture the spirit of humankind and to observe, through a series of activities, the process which allows “an emotion to find its thought and the thought to find its words” as described by Robert Frost.

Throughout this Poetry Festival, budding poets will visit the poetry writing stations set up in the library and experiment with innovative ways to compose poems. Blackout, Book Spine, Paint Chip poetry are examples of strategies offered to encourage students to find inspiration and experiment with forms and styles.

At lunchtime, a volunteer student will be stationed by the library entrance and will act as “Public Poet”. His role: composing, in real time, poems commissioned by his peers.

Dr Kim Dismont-Robinson and Alan Smith will run a creative writing workshop with a focus on acrostic poems and Bermudian poetry for the benefit of 12 to 14-year-old students.

The programme will conclude with a “Prosecco, Pastry, Poetry” social event for staff during which teachers will gather to share their favourite poems while sampling a selection of pastries from the Dockyard Pastry Shop.

Finally, on Saturday 23 March, Warwick Library partners with the Bermuda Bookstore for its “Poem in your Pocket” Day. On this occasion, senior students are invited to visit the popular bookstore with a preselected poem in their pocket, which they will recite to one of the shop sales assistant in return for a book voucher.

All poems created during the Library Poetry Festival will be entered in an inter-house competition organised by the English department during the summer term and will be the object of a whole school poetry anthology.

Design and Technology Exhibit

Warwick Academy’s Design and Technology and Art exhibit started this week with an extraordinary display of talent.

All of our students from Year 7-9 study art, design and technology and food and nutrition and then in Year 10 they chose which one to take for IGCSE. Each year our GCSE and IB students put on a display to showcase their project ahead of the examination period for all to admire their talent.