NEWS & CONGRATULATIONS
THEO NAMED IN QUEEN’S BIRTHDAY HONOURS
HONOURING THE FALLEN
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Recognising Old Novos lost in service since 1945
uge congratulations to Theo, who was the youngest person named in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list for the contributions he made to the community during the height of the Coronavirus pandemic. 16-year old student Theo Wride from Sunderland, will receive a British Empire Medal (BEM) “for services to the community and keyworkers in Sunderland during Covid-19.” Theo gave hundreds of hours of his time designing and creating protective face coverings for his parents, both medical professionals, and their colleagues as well as care home staff up and down the country. Theo used the 3D printer he had at home to produce the face coverings. The not-so-simple task involved melting plastic and then extruding this into the face visor shape. At the start, Theo was making four visors a day, before fine-tuning some of the settings to allow for production to increase to six/seven.
With demand for his visors increasing due to the PPE shortage across the NHS and Care sectors, Theo successfully raised £3,000 through a crowdfunding campaign enabling him to increase his production to 70 visors in 24 hours thanks to the addition of new materials and printers. Theo, who hopes to have a career in engineering, was also recently honoured with an Arkwright Engineering Scholarship. Speaking about Theo’s inclusion in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list, Geoffrey Stanford, Headmaster, said: “It was a great delight to hear that Theo had been awarded a British Empire Medal for his extraordinary efforts in the creation of much needed PPE for the local community of Sunderland and beyond.” “We are extremely proud of Theo; he really does exemplify the sense of community we work so hard to promote at RGS.”
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ne of our Old Novo’s, Christopher Dean (45-53) who is also the son of former Second Master George Dean (24-67), suggested that the school considers adding the names of Old Novos who have died whilst serving in HM Forces since 1945, to those already listed on the school’s war memorial in the main hall. We believe that Sir Arthur Munro Sutherland (1878-83), the benefactor of the school’s organ, would certainly approve of this initiative. We do not hold a list of such Old Novos who lost their lives in more recent service, so we would be very grateful if the RGS community could let us know of any individuals whose names should potentially appear. We are specifically looking for any Old Novo serviceman or woman who died whilst serving. Please contact us at development @rgs.newcastle.sch.uk with any feedback.
VIRTUAL OPEN MORNING SUCCESS
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n Saturday 14 November, we held our very first Virtual Open Morning. While there will never be a true substitute to an on-site Open Morning, where prospective families are guided around by enthusiastic, proud Year 7 students, we were delighted with the feedback we received from those who attended the event. The Virtual Open Morning was a combination of pre-recorded and live sessions showcasing all that is great about the RGS. If you would like to take a look for yourself, follow this link: http://bit.ly/ RGSvirtualopenmorning
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