An Erudition of Eltham Scholars
No less than twenty-seven scholarships were awarded to boys following the 11+ entry exams in January which represents 30% of this year’s intake.
The large number of acceptances (eighty-nine) has given rise to four, rather than the usual three, forms with an average class size of a fraction over twenty-two. Scholarships were awarded to Scott Baker, Archie Balkwill, Samuel Cryan, Edward Gibbs, George Jones, Francis Lee-Saunders, Joe Mackenzie and William Tate from Eltham College Junior School. Besides the ECJS sixteen local primary and prep schools have had scholarships awarded to their pupils and theses include Adam Bowes, Samuel Brooke and William George from St. Christopher's and twins Francis and Daniel Meier from Royal Russell. Matthew Bhalla (Holy Innocents), Charlie Brunsden (Farnborough Primary), Jack Colegate (Highfield Junior), Nevin Dasan (Eltham C. of E.), Mikhail Demtchenko (Charlton Manor), James Harding (Valley Primary), Arun Khakoo (West Lodge), Connor Regan (Wickham Common), Guy Seymour (Blackheath Prep), George Staniforth (Halstow Primary) and Aran Tawana (Merton Court). Silas Raggett (Tubbenden Junior), Akash Sivananthan (St. Winifred's), and Samuel Wimpress (Pointers School) were also awarded scholarships but were unable to attend and are therefore not in the photograph above.
Joining the Year Seven Scholars of 2003 as Sixth Form Scholars next academic year are a number of girls from local schools; amongst those assembled in the adjacent photograph are Lottie Archer, Sam Balding, Emma Burgess, Kelly Gregory, Maria Houillon and Hatty Piesold from Bromley High School, Georgina Edwards, Rosalee Edwards and Becky Nall from Farringtons, Aoife O'Connor-Massingham Blackheath High, from Natasha Philpott from Newstead Wood, Dácil Rebolledo-Ojeda from St Ursula's Convent and Nadia El-Telbani from The Grey Coat Hospital School. Not to be out done the following boys from within the school have also had scholarships upgraded or awarded to them: Tom Belger, Shahed Choudhury, Hamish Greer, Thomas Harden, Varkisan Krishnanandharajah, Calum Murray, William Oram, Jonathan Smith, Matt Stokes and Gregory Walters. This brings the number in the Lower Sixth in receipt of a scholarship to almost 40%.
The Bulkley-Evans Scholarship
Jess Fok has recently been granted one of this year’s scholarships from the Trustees of The Bulkley-Evans Scholarship Fund. Jess, as part of her Gap Year, will be working with Smile International in Kosovo. The trustees were very impressed with Jess’s application and were delighted to support her gap year plans to the tune of £500. A condition of the award is that Jess will come back to school and talk to the Sixth Form about her experiences in Kosovo and we look forward to that day with interest.
Arkwright Scholars
Hamish Greer and William Oram have been awarded an Arkwirght Scholarship after successfully passing the Arkwright Aptitude Paper demonstrating flair and originality in solving engineering design problems and presenting GCSE work to a panel of interviewers. The selection process culminated in an interview for shortlisted candidates at a nearby university, who in turn gave the interviewees the benefit of their
engineering experience. The monetary value of the Scholarship is £275 of which the student gets £250 and the school £225 although the true worth is considerably more. To have one Arkwright Scholar is impressive but to have two in one year is indeed a rare achievement, yet William and Hamish will be joined next year by Hatty Piesold making it three!