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This year’s Classical Reading Competition was again dominated by the younger years who did an excellent job of conveying their enthusiasm for performance and their clarity of Latin speaking.

Sadly, due to the current situation and the precautions the school is taking, the pupils did not go to Roedean as planned and instead convened in the beautiful New Bury Foyer for this year’s Classical Reading Competition. Some expert school judges were recruited in the form of Mr Harris (Head of Drama in the Senior School) and two Lower Sixth students, Beth Lear and Martha Gee, who also kindly helped set up for the afternoon.

As a result of this being an in-house event, pupils were in various costumes as some had come straight from the Prep School’s Harry Potter Day. This only served to enhance the performances, as gowns, broomsticks and staffs added to the Roman atmosphere. In their first year of the competition the Year 5s were full of enthusiasm, and the Year 6 groups managed to improve their performances from last year. The two Year 6 soloists, Donatella M and Arman M, did a superb job and must be commended for their bravery and time spent rehearsing. Emily T was similarly excellent and as the only Year 7 and gave it her all. The two Year 8 groups had worked hard to learn their parts which the audience appreciated, and Ethan M of the Lower Sixth gave an emotional and masterful performance of a passage from Aeneid Book XI. His EPQ is on Latin verse poetry, and his participation in the competition was something of a dry run for possible performances as part of his EPQ presentation in November.

Again, one of the highlights was watching the Hurst pupils encouraging and helping each other and exhibiting kindness in collaborating.

The following awards were presented:

Year 5 winners: Bo B (special mention), Ada B, Lucy C and Sophie S
Year 6 winners: Dan H, Freddie L (special mention), Lucas C-R and Federico C
Year 6 highly commended: Scarlett S-H, Rupert W and Donatella M
Year 6 highly commended solo: Arman M
Year 7 winner: Emily T
Year 8 winners: Johnny G, Laurence C, Will G, Jonathan A
Year 8 highly commended: George G, Jess B, Ben C, Tania K